Lectionary Readings – Year A, First Sunday of Advent
Looking at today’s readings, and given what we know about the cycle of the church year, some of you may be wondering why we have yet another apocalyptic text here. “Didn’t we already celebrate the return of the KIng last week on Christ the King Sunday? Didn’t we already hear all of these texts about Jesus coming back? It’s advent now! Aren’t we supposed to hear stories about Mary, or about John the Baptist calling out in the wilderness about the coming of the Messiah?”
It’s true. We did celebrate Christ the King, and celebrated the mystery of Christ’s future return. But the thing about Advent is that it celebrates the preparation of the coming of Christ in the Flesh – the coming of the Messiah for the first time. And, it also celebrates the mystery of Christ’s coming for the second time. In a way, it sets the stage for this tension of preparation – that we are currently living within the framework of an uncertain earthly future – yet guided by the Love of God and the Hope of a very certain heavenly future. This first Sunday of Advent tries to get us to understand the hope and excitement people lived in waiting for the coming of the Messiah for the first time. And, it does this by trying to help us understand the excitement and hope we might feel as we wait for Christ’s return and an expectation for judgment. And there is tension there, because it begs the question, “Since we live in these uncertain times, how do we prepare?”
Lucky for us, the passage from Paul’s letter to the Romans gives us a roadmap for how we are to prepare. “It is now the moment for you to wake from sleep,” Paul says, “For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers.”
A lot of Paul’s theology rests on this idea of the imminent return of Jesus. That when Jesus said that he would return in Glory, Paul believed that it would be very soon. And so Paul lived with this tension, this anxiety, this idea of Christ’s return even within his own lifetime. And that made him so deliberate in trying to help people to understand what it means to prepare for this coming of Christ. First, people had to believe, which Paul obviously felt was his mission and calling. Second, with that knowledge and belief, people would be transformed into a new creation. That is, Paul very much wanted his listeners and readers to understand that when they professed faith in Christ, that their lives would begin to transform into a new creature, a new creation, something that lived for something beyond just itself.
This is the tension that Paul lived in – between the creation of the world, between our own creation at our birth, and the New creation that comes with a life in Christ, and the creation of a new heaven and new earth that is made real by the return of Christ in all his glory. For Paul this reality of Christ’s return was so real that he anticipated the coming of Christ in everyday life.
And again, it is this anticipation that Advent tries to instill in us by setting the stage with these texts. The stage is set so that we can understand – even just a little bit – how people in Jesus’ time were anticipating the arrival of the Christ, the Messiah.
So the question again is, “How do we prepare?”
Paul’s letter to the Romans says that we are to “Wake up from our sleep.” We should lay aside the works of darkness, we should live honorably. All those things that keep us from pursuing those things that promote God’s mission of reconciling the world need to come to a stop in our own lives. And the quickest way to do that is to avoid doing things that belong to this world. That is, to not think about satisfying the desires that this earthly body wants. We should not seek out selfish desires – that is, things that make life better for ourselves only. Instead, we are to put on Christ. We are, in a very real sense, to wear Christ, so that when people look at us, they see Christ. They look at us, and see Jesus – even if just for a moment.
Some of you – those of you a little more prone to nonsense – may have seen the movie Men in Black. In it, an alien spaceship lands on the property of Edgar, a farmer, who goes out to investigate what has happened. As he looks in the crater that the crash landing has made, he gets pulled into the hole by the alien, and there’s a bunch of noise. Then we see Edgar again, walking into the house, where his wife is confused as to what’s going on. When she sees her husband, she asks him, “What’s wrong with you? Your skin is hangin’ off your bones.” Later, when our heroes show up to investigate, they ask the woman about her husband, and she says, “I know Edgar, and that wasn’t Edgar. It’s like somethin’ was wearing Edgar like a… like a suit. An Edgar suit.”
Now for those of you a bit more refined, you can think of it like buying a new pair of shoes – a new pair of hiking or work boots. We put them on, and we start to wear them around, and after a while, our shins and calves start to ache, our toes feel pinched, and we start to get blisters on our heels, or on the outside of our feet. It hurts, and doesn’t feel anything like the old shoes we used to wear.
Putting on Christ might feel like that sometimes, a baggy Jesus suit, hanging off of our bones, not quite a good fit. Or blisters and aches when we put on a new pair of shoes. None of it feels good right at the moment, but as we continue to wear these things, they become more and more comfortable. The blisters disappear, the aches go away, or, the suit begins to sit more comfortably on our shoulders. And other people, rather than telling us that the suit is hanging off our bones, start to every now and again see Christ – instead of just us. The suit that we are wearing – this putting on Christ – becomes, for even the briefest of moments – in the eyes of others – Christ in the flesh. They don’t see the skin hanging off our bones, like an ill fitting Jesus suit, trying to pretend. But for a brief moment, they truly see Christ.
You see, sometimes the only way for some people to see Christ is for them to see Christ in us – in what we do – in how we act – in how we live.
They won’t see these selfish acts that just look out for our own best interests. Instead, they will see that our actions are guided by God’s Love, and that we are trying to care for all people in what we are doing. In our attempt to live into the persona of Jesus as we cast off our own selfish needs and work for the good of all.
We live in the tension of creation and recreation.
We live in the tension between Christ’s coming in the flesh at his birth in Bethlehem, and Christ’s return in glory.
We live in the tension of our own birth, and our own rebirth, through the work of God – who transforms us ever more into the likeness of Christ. Transforms us when we take off the old clothes that reek of selfishness, and instead put on Christ. This is what it means to “wake up,” as Paul tells us to do. It is to live in the tension of being and becoming. Being who we are versus who we are destined to become – once we put on the suit of Christ – even though it might not fit right when we first put it on.
Paul’s command to “wake up” is a call to examine ourselves, our lives, what we are doing, how we are behaving and how we are living – and then determine if we are coworkers in the mission of reconciling the world to God.
Our preparation is simply this: to move ever closer to emulating Christ, regardless of whether the world is ending tomorrow, or a thousand years from now.
It might feel like an ill-fitting suit at times, but the longer we wear this suit of Christ, then we begin to realize more and more that Christ’s return is not something that will happen in a long awaited future event. Instead, it is something that happens – for other people – through their interaction with us. It happens through us, as we wear that ill-fitting Jesus suit, and wake up from our life of selfish desires, and instead seek to model Christ’s love to the world, so that when they look at us, they see Christ.
And when we do that, we might be able to experience God-with-us: Emmanuel.
[This sermon was delivered at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Wickenburg, AZ on November 30, 2025.]
