The Hour To Wake From Sleep

First Sunday of Advent 2025

The Introit psalm of today’s Advent liturgy is attributed to King David, who is clearly praying in a time of difficulty. He cries, “I lift up my soul to you, O my God. In you have I trusted; let me not be put to shame, nor let my enemies exult over me. Let none who hope in you be put to shame.” Probably most of us here today have shared such feelings in our lives. It’s way too common for men and women to try to put others down, to feel some advantage for themselves by disadvantaging someone else. As we begin Advent, we would do well to examine our consciences. Have we put down anyone, especially in our family? Have others tried to make us unhappy? In the first case, we should think about asking forgiveness; in the second case, we should do the forgiving. Have a conversation and restore that relationship.

Isaiah the prophet will figure large in our Advent meditations. He lived in times of difficulty. Judea sits right in the middle of three historic empires: Egypt to the south, Assyria northwest, Babylon to the east. Invasion from all three places took place in Isaiah’s lifetime. And the kingdom of the Jews was weaker than all those adversaries, a bit like a tennis ball being batted around by three players.

But listen to what he predicted for the days to come: the mountain of the Temple of the Lord would be established as the highest mountain. Many generations later, when the Jews revolted against Rome, the Temple in Jerusalem was a focus of resistance. But the Roman general Titus put his headquarters on one of the surrounding mountains, and could see right down into the city and temple on Mount Zion, and plan his attack with full clarity. So Isaiah could not have been speaking of physical height. He is clearly speaking of the time after Jesus’s resurrection, when the Church He established became the true house of the God of Jacob, and draws all nations toward it. Right worship is available in all the free nations of the world. Christ’s cross is the symbol people look for. Because Jesus Christ is the Word of the Lord risen from the dead in Jerusalem; His Church is the Body of Christ.

So when the psalmist sings “Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord,” the original building over in the Levant, which was destroyed almost two thousand years ago, is not what we mean today. The house is a building made of living stones, all who believe in Christ and are baptized into Him. The judgement seats for the house of David, as we learn in Luke’s Gospel during the Last Supper, are the seats occupied by the apostles, the first leaders or bishops of the Church, and their successors.

St. Paul writes to the Romans today, and his words are perfect directions for the time of Advent. We must know the time, the hour to rise from sleep. For every one of us, there is a day and hour established by God for our personal judgement by Christ. We don’t know when that will be. But we know that today our salvation is nearer for us than when we first believed in Christ. So there can be no delay. This is the day and now is the hour for action. We must throw off the works of darkness. That means everything that the secular world values as an end, a goal, must be set aside. We may not wantonly indulge our desires for sexual passion or alcohol or drugs, or for power and fame. We must “put on the Lord Jesus Christ,” repenting of our sins and confessing them, and taking Christ and the saints as our models of living. We cannot delay. We do not know when our final hour will come. Rally your personal troops and put on the armor of God, prayer, sacramental life, reading the Bible and forgiving our enemies.

In the Gospel, Jesus refers to the days of Noah, and how the world around him was ignoring the signs and warnings, overeating and getting drunk, planning their lives around marriage or whatever, right up to the time Noah and his family entered the ark with all those animals. Then the flood came and washed them all away. When Jesus returns, two people will be doing the same thing, and one will face destruction while the other is left alone. Jesus will return at an hour and day and week and year we don’t expect. We must be ready at all times.

How can we celebrate Advent to make us ready? Certainly we will come to our Eucharist every Sunday. That’s the way we weekly commemorate the Passover of Christ and His Resurrection. We may be able to come daily to prayer in common. We should fast and give alms, as ways to focus on having the armor of God at all times. And we should read and listen to God’s word and spiritual reading from the saints. In this way, as our communion prayer says today, we will experience the Lord bestowing his bounty, and our earth yielding an increase of goodness, beauty and truth.