A WORD FOR TODAY, November 26, 2025
Peggy Hoppes
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Blessings. Peg
A WORD FOR TODAY, November 26, 2025
Lectionary Scriptures for November 30, 2025, First Sunday of Advent: Isaiah 2:1-5; Psalm 122 Romans 13: (8-10) 11-14; Matthew 24:36-44
“Therefore also be ready, for in an hour that you don’t expect, the Son of Man will come.” Matthew 24:44, WEB
The church calendar is cyclical. We begin with Advent, go through the seasons of Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter and then Pentecost. The last few weeks of each year, during the month of November, we look forward to the coming of Christ the King. The lectionary is a great way to see the whole story of God in a year, to celebrate the works of His hands, both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. We see the life and ministry of Jesus develop until He is finally given the Kingdom forever first on the Cross, through the empty tomb and then on Christ the King Sunday. One of the disadvantages is that we go from Christ the King directly into Advent, thus moving from the promise fulfilled to the promise yet to come. It is hard to go back to the beginning once we’ve seen the end.
We begin the season of Advent in darkness. Today’s Gospel lesson is not very hopeful. Jesus told his disciples to keep watch for the time of His coming, and to do everything He commanded: love God with our whole heart and love one another as ourselves. That’s what the season of Pentecost is all about: learning how to be the people of God as the Church and individual Christians. Those last few weeks of the church year help us remember that we live in hopeful expectation of the time when all God’s promises will be fulfilled. Yet, we are constantly reminded that we are called to keep busy while we wait because there is always work to do in God’s Kingdom.
Some people think they know the time, so they stop working. They hide away or do foolish things, thinking that nothing will matter because Jesus is coming. We see in the lesson that no one will know the time when the Son of Man will come. Jesus warned them to prepare their hearts so that they will be strong against those who try to confuse them with false doctrine. False prophets will come as they have in every generation of Christian since the beginning.
As the day grows closer, Satan becomes more desperate to deceive the children of God. His tactics become harder to detect, easier to pass from one another. Yet, these deceptions have been around throughout the two-thousand-year history of the Church. We’ve been looking at the Nicene Creed during our adult forum on Sunday morning, which was written seventeen hundred years ago. Every phrase was written in response to some heresy or false teaching that was rampant in the early days of the Church. Those same heresies are still taught today, because Satan is always lurking, trying to turn Christians away from the truth of Jesus Christ.
Jesus made it clear that even He would not know the time that all things will end. There is a scene in the book of Revelation that shows the Temple emptied of everyone and everything except God Himself. The Temple filled with smoke, then God commanded the final act of His story as the bowls of judgment were poured out upon the world. At that moment, God gave all people a final chance to choose between joining in the heavenly worship and the earthly blaspheming of God. And when it was over, God Himself proclaimed that it was done. Jesus could not command those angels with the bowls; only God knew the time when it would happen.
If Jesus doesn’t know when the time will come, we can’t possibly know. This is why it is vital for us to be ready always for the end times.
What does it mean to be ready? My husband was in the military for thirty years. He wasn’t deployed at the spur of the moment very often, but he always had to be ready just in case. He had several bags that were always packed, including one that had personal items like underwear and shaving kit. Those bags were kept close at hand because he could be told that he would be leaving in an hour with no time to pack. He barely had time to kiss his family good-bye.
There were times when the call was expected, so he could go through the bag and make sure that the underwear was not holey, and the can of shaving cream was full. However, sometimes the time was short, so he went with the pack as it was, even if it was not complete. It is funny, I think that he still has a bag collecting dust in the garage. I doubt anything would fit and I can’t imagine the hygiene products would be any good after decades. That bag, at this point, is probably useless. He won’t get called to deploy, but would he be ready to leave if he had to at this moment?
How about you? Are you ready for Christ to come? I’m sure you aren’t ready for the Christmas celebration even if you started early, after all the holiday is twenty-nine days away. That’s not the question. Are you ready for Christ to come again? We tend to get complacent when things are going well. We pray half-heartedly. We read the scriptures, but shrug if we miss a day. We are too tired to get up and go to church, so we stay in bed. God doesn’t take attendance, so it doesn’t really matter, right? But what if Jesus came during those moments? Would you be ready?
The world is preparing for Christmas. The stores are filled with gifts and decorations to buy. Invitations for parties have been mailed. The shipping places are already busy with people taking packages to send to family and friends who are far away. It seems hard to believe that we are less than a month from Christmas. Yet, there is a season we must pass first: Advent. The apathy we feel about religious things when we are healthy, happy, and satisfied, is exactly why we enter Advent in darkness. Even though the decorations are up and the lights are twinkling, the attitudes and expectations of the people are exactly why Jesus came in the first place. People are looking to the world instead of to God. People are more interested in fulfilling some quest for the perfect gift (although I imagine a lot of the shopping is not even for others) than in spending time thinking about the reason for the season.
Advent is a dichotomy. It is a time when we wait for something we know has already come, and yet we also wait for something that we know is still coming. It is a time of looking to the past while looking to the future. We hope for something we know exists by faith, but which has not yet been completely fulfilled. We wait for the baby in the manger even though we just celebrated Christ as eternal King.
It can be confusing to hear texts from the final days of Jesus’ life as we prepare for His birth. But that’s what Advent is all about. It is about seeing Christ as He was, as He is and as He will be all at once. When we think of Christ only in terms of the past, the present, or the future, we do not live fully in His presence. If we stay in the past, we live as if there is nothing left to be done. We do not bother to keep watch or to wake up from our slumber. If we stay in the present, then we think what we do matters for our salvation. When we look only to the future, we think we have time to get ready and we put off the things we should do for the sake of Christ.
In other words, this first Sunday in Advent we are reminded that Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again. As we live in this truth, we realize that our faith is not a past, present, or future reality; it is all three. Our faith is eternal because the focus of our faith is eternal. We die with Christ through our baptism. We live with Christ in this present reality, a reality that includes faith and grace and the hope of the promise to come. We look forward to the fulfillment of the promises: yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
At the same time, we are living in this world, and we have to find a way to keep our focus on the one in whom we have faith. That means making choices that are God-pleasing, ready at a moment’s notice to receive Him. There will be a time when Christ comes again in glory, a time when we will see Christ the King as victorious Lord of all. But Christ comes to us constantly in our daily living: in the request from a charity for food, in the paper ornaments on an Angel Tree at the mall with the wishes of children, a knock on the door from a neighbor who needs a listening ear. Christ comes to us in those busy crowds as we are fighting over the last hot toy or cheap television. He comes to us in that car that needs to merge on the highway and in the parking lot at the mall. Will we choose to be selfish or generous? Will we glorify God this Advent, or will we chase after our own needs and desires? It is in our daily faithful living that we show that we are prepared for Christ to come.
What if Jesus came tomorrow? What would He find on earth? Would He mind if He found you in line to buy the latest gaming system at the Black Friday sales? Quite honestly, I don’t think so. He would mind if you pushed and shoved to get the last one on the shelf. It is about attitude, and Advent is about making our hearts right before God so that we’ll be ready to receive our King, both as a baby in the manger and as the Victorious One at the end of all the ages.
Jesus said, “Then two men will be in the field: one will be taken and one will be left. 41 Two women will be grinding at the mill: one will be taken and one will be left.” This passage is often interpreted to describe the rapture, when Christ will come and take away the faithful. However, isn’t this also how it is on our everyday journeys? Don’t some of us see Christ in our neighbors and others completely miss the opportunities to glorify God in their daily lives? Don’t some of us live our faith and others just go about toward an unknown end? Don’t some of us live in darkness while others have seen the light?
Jesus calls us to be ready so that we’ll embrace every opportunity to share Him with others. Christmas can be about presents and parties and decorations, but it is also about sharing Christ with our neighbor. Isaiah says, “Come, let’s go up to the mountain of Yahweh, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths.” Isaiah is pointing not only to the Jewish believers, but to the Gentiles who will come to believe. The day will come when non-believers will seek the LORD and His Word because they have seen Him in us and respond to our invitation to know Him. Even as the book of Revelation talks about the destruction of those who do not believe, God offers second, third and more chances. It is up to us to do His work in the world so that they might believe.
Those who have been invited will seek God and learn from His wisdom. It is in the way we live out our relationship with God that they will see Him and seek His grace. They see our faith and wonder what it is that gives us that joy and peace that is visible in our lives. Why are we happier waiting in long checkout lines? Why are we willing to give bags of food at a time when our own purse strings are tight? Why are we excited about going to a boring worship service with a bunch of hypocrites? What is it about Jesus that makes our life different?
We should not stop living while we wait for Jesus to come again, but we should always be prepared so that when He does come, He’ll find faith on earth. Will He see faith in the crowds in the stores as we shop? Will He find faith in the piles of Christmas presents? Will He see faithful people living faith-filled lives in the hustle and bustle of the season and in the holiday celebrations ahead of us this month?
We don’t need to reject having wonderful holiday. It is in the gifts and the gatherings that we share our love with family and friends. Perhaps our problem is that we try too hard to separate our secular celebration from our Christian faith. Christians don’t keep Christ out of the season; I’m sure many shoppers flocking the stores this weekend will celebrate in many faith-filled ways. They will display a nativity in their home, maybe even on their lawn. They will go to church. They will sing Christmas carols. They will be generous to the charities that ask for donations. Let us consider, however, whether we are glorifying God when chase after the latest things that the world loves, but that God hates? Do we consider how our choices might impact on the faith of our neighbor?
It is not easy being a Christian. This has been true of all time, not just this time. Jesus told us to expect that we will face persecution. Generations of Christians have been beaten and killed because they believed the Gospel. Christians are being kidnapped, oppressed, and abused. Churches are bombed. Believers are beheaded. Jesus warned us that the world would hate us, but He told us not to worry because He will be with us. On this first day of Advent, let us remember that He is here now just as He was there then and will soon be with us forever.
Isaiah wrote, “House of Jacob, come, and let’s walk in the light of Yahweh.” We are the house of Jacob now. We are the witnesses of God’s light and love and mercy. While individual prayer and devotional time is a good thing and is encouraged for everyone to help make their hectic lives a little more peaceful, we are sent into the world to share that peace with others. They will not see the Christ in Christmas if we are too busy to share Him with the world.
The psalmist wrote, “I was glad when they said to me, ‘Let’s go to Yahweh’s house!’” Those who hear the Gospel message and experience the love and mercy of God are glad when they discover that which has been with them all along. God is not asking us to reject the secular aspects of the Christmas season. He’s relying on each of us as Christians to shine His light in all that we do.
There is a petitionary prayer in today’s psalm. “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. Those who love you will prosper. Peace be within your walls, and prosperity within your palaces. For my brothers’ and companions’ sakes, I will now say, ‘Peace be within you.’ For the sake of the house of Yahweh our God, I will seek your good.” This prayer for peace is for Jerusalem, more specifically for the Temple. Yet, the heart that loves God is now His temple. That is where God dwells. So, the prayer is for peace within the hearts and lives of those who love the LORD.
What is peace? This is a particularly difficult question in our age when it seems like there is always a enemy waiting to war with us, whether it is a shopper trying to get the last sale item or a nation who desires more territory. However hard we work for peace between peoples, that type of peace will never last. True peace comes from God. We can work and negotiate for a peace settlement between warring nations, but there will soon be a new war. Our Christmas wish that there be peace on earth is admirable, but our task as Christians is to share the peace of God with the world.
Jesus tells us that we will not know the hour of the coming of the Son of Man. We don’t know when it will happen, but we are reminded that we are not just waiting for the birth of a baby in a manger. We are waiting for the coming of the Judge and King. Jesus is calling us to be prepared. For the Christian, this means being aware of the presence of God in the every day. The people in Noah’s day were so caught up in the ordinary that they missed the extraordinary. Most of the people in Bethlehem when Jesus was born were so caught up in the ordinary that they missed the extraordinary. We are often so caught up in the ordinary preparations for Christmas that we miss the extraordinary moments when God’s grace slips into the world.
So, we are called to wait, to wonder, to hope and to dwell in the peace of God. We are called to be ready, we do not know the time when He will come again. We only know that He has promised to come and when He comes the nations of the earth will be righteously judged. As we wait, we trust in God. As we wonder, we see His faithfulness in the midst of our unfaithfulness.
How hard it must have been for those first believers. The language makes it sound as if the return of Christ was imminent. For those Christians, they must have thought that they would see Him again in their lifetime. But it has been nearly two thousand years since Jesus ascended into heaven. How disappointing it must have been for those early Christians whose lives were changed by the Gospel and the hope for His coming. Yet, the Church has lived on. In our modern age, as in every age, people are still yearning for the coming of Christ. Unfortunately, this waiting makes us apathetic, questioning the reality of His promises.
Perhaps we should be looking at the imminence of His coming not in terms of earthly time, but in terms of God’s time. The scriptures tell us that for God a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. He is not limited by time like us. What has happened then is happening now and will happen in the future. The salvation of Christ is given at the cross to all who believe, but it is also given in this day and in the final day. Christ is near in time, not because the Day of Judgment will be today or tomorrow, but because everything that He does is timeless. When we think of Christ only in terms of the past, the present, or the future, we do not live fully in His presence.
Paul encourages us to live godly lives in Christ while we wait. That does not just mean taking time during Advent to attend worship more often or spend time in prayer and devotional study. It means living as if now is the moment that Christ will come. It is. He comes every time we share the Gospel with a stranger in word and deed. He comes every time we shine the light of God’s love. He comes every time we invite our neighbor to come to the house of the LORD, welcoming them to dwell in the peace that comes from Him and Him alone.
During this Advent, we are called to live in Christ, keeping from deeds of darkness. The people in Noah’s day had no idea what was to come, they kept living as if they were safe from the judgment of God. The same is true of all those who are wandering through this Christmas season as if it is only a time of presents and parties. It will also happen to all those who do not prepare for the coming of our Lord Jesus in His glory, for this will be a day of judgment for those who continue to walk in the darkness.
It is up to us to live as if today were that day, to share the love of Christ with the world so that they might see and come to dwell in the house of the LORD. It will be a day of joy and peace for those of us who have died with Christ and live with Him in faith. Is this not the greatest joy and the foundation of true peace? Is this not something we should want to share with others? Let us live this Advent aware of the subtle reminders of God’s presence in this world so that others might catch a glimpse and wonder what it is all about.
Paul wrote to the Christians in Rome that salvation is nearer at that moment than when they first became believers. That promise continues today. We know this is true, and yet we wonder. So much time has passed since Paul wrote his letters. It might be closer, but it is possibly still a thousand years away. That’s why it is so easy to become apathetic. We’ve heard for two thousand years that each day brings us closer to the day when Christ will come again. It is hard to wait anxiously for something that doesn’t seem to be coming. But we are called to wait patiently, look forward to the birth of the King, and remember that our King will come again. We live between the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. Until that day, we are to live in Christ, who is as present now as He was then and as He will be in that day.
The world is dark, even when there are twinkle lights on the trees, but the true Light dwells among us. We are sent out into the world to live in faith and shine so others will see Him. Remember that Christ is with you always, whatever busyness the days of Advent hold for you. These weeks will be filled with opportunities and choices. How will you respond? Will you keep your faith separate from your quest for the perfect Christmas, or will you be ready at a moment’s notice to be generous with His grace? Christ came. Christ is here. Christ will come again. Let us live today remembering the past, embracing the present, and looking forward to the future as we dwell in His presence always with a living faith that acts as if He will appear at a moment’s notice.
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