Advent 1A
November 30, 2025
Matthew 24:36:44
INTRODUCTION
On the first Sunday of Advent, which begins the new church year, we hear a lot of, “Pay attention, and look at this new thing that God is doing! Don’t miss it!” We’ll see that theme very strongly in both Paul’s letter to the Romans and in the Gospel reading. In Isaiah, we get a glimpse of what that new thing might mean for our broken world – it could be a world in which all people will gather on God’s holy mountain, and there will be no more weapons or war, because they’ll be turned into tools for feeding people. This comes as good news to a nation that is, in the 8th century BCE, being pummeled by the army of the Assyrian Empire; Isaiah speaks these words of hope and new life into a context of suffering, anxiety, and imminent imperial conquest.
The Psalm also reflects on this world of peace. And in all four readings, we’ll see bits of the persistent Advent themes we think about every year: we wait, we watch, we hope, even as we anticipate the light of God breaking into the darkness of our lives.
Throughout Advent, we encounter the ways God shows up, sometimes where we least expect it, and pulls us into the future of hope and promise – even if it wasn’t a part of our original plan. So as you listen today, watch for those surprising moments in the texts, words or themes of the unexpected – and think about the ways God has shown up in your life in unexpected ways. Let’s listen.
[READ]
Grace to you and peace form the one who is and who was and who is to come. Amen.
Along with millions of other people, Grace and I saw the movie, Wicked: For Good last weekend. In case you aren’t familiar, Wicked (originally a book, then a Broadway musical, now a two-part blockbuster hit), tells the backstory of the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good Witch from Wizard of Oz. The two women were friends back at school, and this may come as a shock, but Elphaba (the so-called Wicked Witch) is actually the moral hero of the story, and is not wicked at all. Things aren’t always what they seem – which of course is a sentiment also classically described in The Wizard of Oz, when Dorothy and her friends discover that the all-power Wizard is just a little man behind a curtain. Wicked takes this idea further, and digs into the reality that there is much more than we realize that lies behind the curtain – someone’s true moral character, the childhood that formed them, their motivations and intentions which may appear good on the surface but are actually evil. Turns out, the world is a morally complex place.
Well, since seeing the movie, Grace and I have had many conversations about it. So when I asked her this week, just to make conversation on the way to school, what I should write my sermon about, she said, without missing a beat, “Wicked.” I said, “Honestly, that’s not a bad idea.” Because Advent, especially this first Sunday, is all about pulling back the curtain and revealing what is behind it. This reading from Matthew is what we call “apocalyptic,” the end of the world as we know it – and the meaning of that word, apocalypse, is a sort of unveiling. It is pulling back the curtain to reveal what was there all along, but we were unable to see it (whether due to circumstance or choice). Being in the midst of apocalypse is a scary and anxious place to be, because suddenly all the things you thought you knew are revealed to be illusions and lies. It is very unsettling and disruptive to the status quo. But it is also the first step toward getting to the truth.
The Wicked story really gets at this. At the beginning, Elphaba (remember, she becomes the Wicked Witch) wants nothing more than to meet “our Wonderful Wizard,” who she believes truly has the power and the will to make the world a better and more just place. But when she meets him, she discover not only that he is merely a man who is good at illusions. He also is the mastermind behind what she perceives to be one of the greatest injustices currently plaguing the Land of Oz. The very thing she hoped he would help fix, he is in fact causing! She is soon caught in the web of the lies of the powerful, and she is used as a tool for their purposes. When she tries to unveil this truth and reveal who the wizard really is, the powers that be paint her instead as the villain – those in power paint her not as the good and morally just Elphaba, but the Wicked Witch, to be feared by all. That is where the first movie ends – the second movie digs deeper still into the human inclination to grasp yet more tightly to our illusions, because they are what we have always known, and even if they are wrong, these lies are what have given people a sense of security, false and unjust as it may be. Elphaba, for her part, steadfastly refuses to look away from those being harmed by these illusions.
I was struck, while watching this movie taking place in an imaginary land, how relatable this was. We see today, too, in our own lives and in the world more broadly, how resistant we are to acknowledging when we’ve been duped; that the leaders we trusted have created a common enemy, even sometimes out of someone good, so we have something external on which to blame our unease and to direct our attention away from the real problem; how willing we are to believe anything that promises to lower our anxiety. We want to protect ourselves from the dangers that lurk round every corner. And this sometimes keeps our eyes closed to the realities that exist that need to be addressed, whether in our own hearts, or in the world around us. The curtain needs to be pulled back. The truth needs to be reckoned with. Even if it does terrify us and make us feel ashamed.
But the disruption of Advent comes into our lives, and first acknowledges our fear. We hear this story from Matthew that is full of anxiety that echoes our own – anxiety about the future, the unknown, about what may lie hidden beyond the curtain. We are told to “keep awake,” to keep watch – not for dangerous and scary things to happen (though sometimes they do), but for the Lord himself to break into that fear, even when we least expect it, like a thief in the night. God breaks in so that he can be present with us.
You see, that is the promise of Advent: not that we will be immune to danger and anxiety, not that pulling back the veil will be smooth and everything will happen just as we wanted or hoped… but that when those things happen, we are not alone. We are created for more than fear, because God himself, whose birth we watch, wait, and hope for, has promised to come and be both with us and for us.
With that promise, we can face the realities that lie behind the curtain. We can endure the moment when everything we thought we knew comes crashing to the ground. We can stand firmly in the promises of God, to love us, to know us, and to be present with us, even in the middle of the night when the world is darkest. Jesus will do what it takes to get to us, even break down our barriers and break into our hearts like a thief, even and especially at the darkest hour.
And so, let us light candles, to remind us that we do not face the shadows alone. Indeed, the light of the world has already come, shining in the darkness to illumine our lives, to lead us forth not in fear but in courage. Let us string lights on trees and homes. Let us keep awake and watchful for the ways God is already breaking into our fear and anxiety, so that when illusions fall away, we are left with the truth of God’s loving presence, lighting our way and encouraging each step toward something new. Come – let us walk in the light of the Lord!
Let us pray… Lord God, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown. Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go, but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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