November 30, 2025
When I was a kid, I recall a reader board standing outside a local business that proclaimed various messages throughout the year. The message throughout December was the same but each day it changed a little bit. It read “24 shopping days until Christmas.” The next day it said “23 shopping days until Christmas.” And so on. If you were a last minute shopper and the sign said “5 days or 3 days until Christmas,” you knew you had better get your act together and do some shopping.
I also remember feeling a bit of a disconnect between what was happening in the Christmas shopping world and what was taking place at church and to a lesser degree at home. I have distinctive memories of Advent. I remember singing hymns in church that I didn’t hear on the radio or television or anywhere else except church. I remember that at home we had an Advent calendar taped to the door of the laundry room. Every day my younger brother and I would race to get their first and be the one to open the little door for the day and see what was behind it. There was within me and around me a growing sense of anticipation. It seemed as though waiting itself was honored as a practice of faith.
I felt this sense of anticipation in both the cultural holiday season and the church’s Advent. Each was unique. Though the rituals were very different from the consumer driven winter holiday and the church’s Advent, in many respects they were not that different. For me, as a kid, they were both ritual countdowns. Both counting the shopping days and counting the number of candles lit on the wreath and the number of doors open on the Advent calendar.
The closer we got to Christmas, my anticipation grew into full-o enthusiasm and excitement. And what was I excited about? What was I excited for? What was I waiting for? Well, Christmas and all the nicely wrapped gifts under the tree. The two worlds, for me, were a kind of count-down cloaked in different signs and symbols.
Each of us has a foot in both worlds at this time of the year: the consumer driven Christmas and the rituals of Advent, both the secular calendar and the church calendar. Just look at the details and the difference between the two worlds is significant. Christmas trees start coming down when the church is just beginning to celebrate the twelve days of Christmas on December 25th. There is a sense of restraint mixed with joy at church while the world outside is bustling and frenetic. The fact that we live in both worlds can be a beautiful tension to embrace. We can do that creatively.
Still, the question begs us. What is the difference? If Advent is more than a count-down to Christmas then what is it? What makes these two worlds distinct?
Advent is a time to pray. A time to yield to the mystery of God in Christ. Advent bids us to slow down. The cultural holiday gets busy and can be taxing on us. We can certainly enjoy the winter holiday without letting it dominate our lives. Still, it can the commercial world can so easily be dominant this time of the year. In Advent we take time. We take the time to engage in an intentional period of watching, waiting, and wondering.
Advent is a time to slow down and pay attention to what God is doing among us. As a time to pray, this season can be a good time to express our deepest laments and longings to God, as well as our hopes and dreams. As the days grow shorter, the darkness lingers longer, and as the cold of winter sets in, the call of Advent is to embrace wild hope in the midst of an anxious and stressed out world.
The primary prayer of Advent is “Come, Lord Jesus” and the fruit of such prayer is to rediscover Christ’s coming among us in more than one way.
I heard someone describe Advent as “history, mystery, and majesty.” History, meaning we look to the past and Jesus’ birth in the latter days of Advent. Mystery describes Jesus’ coming among us now. Majesty is a reference to that day when all the world will dwell in the abundance of God when Christ will come again. That’s the focus on this first week.
I wonder if the promise of Christ’s coming again is something we tend to avoid. It is as if we don’t have much to say about the second coming, even though it is our focus on the first Sunday of Advent and we profess it in the creed and acclaim it every week at the altar when we say “Christ will come again.”
It is understandable. We don’t always know what to do with it because we don’t have much information. We have more than enough information about Jesus’ first coming among us but beyond the promise and the hope we have comparatively little.
We don’t know the future but we want to know. Inquiring minds want to know. Jesus himself says “about that day and hour no one knows.” We still want to know and so we have even predicted the times when Jesus will return. You might recall this past September some folks were preparing for Jesus’ return on September 23rd… That one and many others get some press. I am sure there are many other timetables devised around Christ’s second coming that don’t make the press. It boils down to yet another countdown, an attempt to control what we think we know.
We’ve also framed the final coming of Jesus as something to fear. The scary parts of the “end times” passages get our swift attention, but Christ will come again is no threat. It is a great promise. Take Jesus’ words to be ready, even if we don’t know the day our hour, as an invitation to greet and receive Christ when he comes again. That call to readiness is a call to faithful living now, motivated not by fear but by gratitude for God’s gift of Jesus.
Yes, we do profess things we do not understand or figure out. That’s okay. We are inspired by images and visions like the one articulated by Isaiah that nourish our hope. All nations streaming to God. It will be the highest mountain. On this mountain, people will learn war no more. War will no longer be a course in the curriculum. God will judge and arbitrate between nations and the result? People will be busy beating swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks.
Guided by this kind of beautiful picture and many others – we will hear two more from Isaiah in the next couple of weeks – we look for a day of peace and a time when God’s reign will be present in all it’s the fullness. We respond by being faithful today. I am inspired and heartened by Martin Luther’s response when someone asked him what he would do if he knew for certain that Jesus were to return in full glory the next day. Luther replied, “I would plant a tree today.”
In other words, we carry on the work of the kingdom. The best way to look for the world to come is live now faithfully, using our unique gifts to tend to the world God has given us and to love our neighbors God has given to us.
To speculate on the future is a distraction. Look for what God is doing now.
This is the invitation of Advent and it brings us first to prayer. In our praying we look for glimpses of the future kingdom of God? Where do we discover examples of what will one day be all-in-all? What does that mean for our lives?
In his letter to the Romans, St. Paul says it this way: “It is time to wake from sleep. Lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Not in reveling or drunkenness, debauchery or licentiousness.” In other words, life is too precious to fritter it away in extreme carelessness. Theremins no excuse for treating one another in ways that will devalue people and harm you and them. Being awake is to look for signs of God’s kingdom where we discover the light of forgiveness, compassion, reconciliation, justice and peace.
Exchange the energy used to do a countdown to Christmas with a different kind of energy – to live in the light and to be fully present.
Perhaps you’ve seen it up close or you’ve seen a photo of the sculpture that is placed outside the United Nations building in New York. It was created by a Russian sculptor in 1959. It is inspired by today’s reading from Isaiah. It portrays a person lifting a hammer high as he does the hard work of beating swords into plowshares. Is there a more apt vision to guide the work of nations seeking union and peace than this? Such a vision welcomes us to work for a vision of just and lasting peace, moving beyond political compromises that may work to cease conflict but fail to get at the root of the conflict and a just and lasting peace. Transforming weapons of destruction into weapons used for the common good.
Another sculpture piece was added called the knotted gun, recognized widely as a symbol of non-violence, created in 1980. The knot at the end of a gun makes it impossible to fire. Like spears into pruning hooks and swords into plowshares, many have taken to transforming guns into tools meant for life.
These are more than human aspirations they are a public display of God’s intention for the world.
In Advent pay attention to where God is at work turning us away from weapons of war toward things that make for peace.
Ask God to show you where the reign of Christ, the Kingdom of God is at work in the world. Take the time this Advent to engage life and faith fully. Look for signs of God’s fulfillment. Where do you find peace and reconciliation at work in the world? Where do you find lives dedicated to serving others instead of exploiting others? Where is God transforming hearts turned inward into hearts aimed at compassion? Where might you participate in quelling fear and spreading hope? Where is God calling you to use your gifts to serve others and share the good news of God’s love?
Advent is no countdown. It is a time to settle into practices that yield to God, pay attention to the things of God, and to pray with great vigor, “Come, Lord Jesus.” After painting that the beautiful vision of everlasting peace on the mountain of God, Isaiah says it this way: “Come, let us live in the light of the Lord.” Amen.