Homily For The First Sunday in Advent 2025
Many people are very fond of Christmas and understandably so. For at Christmas, we are invited to come home, to enjoy the presence of those who have loved us, in family and in parish. For many, we enjoy the joy of a baby born and we find our hearts turned in particular affection toward the babe born in Bethlehem. This is perhaps why our secular culture embraces this as a time of family and warmth. By contrast, in the life of the Church, we are jolted as we enter Advent for we aren’t introduced to prophecies of a babe, we aren’t told of a perpetual child; instead, we are taken, as it were, to the end of all time, where this Jesus, born in the frailty of human flesh, comes in his divine glory as the Word that created the world to rule that which is his by right. What a contrast! The babe born in poverty, in Bethlehem, amidst scandal and rumor to the Virgin Mary is pictured as the King coming to Jerusalem.
The eternal king comes to offer himself not for the victor's crown in this world but for the burdensome, painful crown of thorns. Shame and humiliation precede his ascendency to the throne in heaven.
In our Gospel, Our Lord is nearing the completion of his earthly ministry. For three years, he has ministered to God’s people through preaching and miracles. Now, he enters Jerusalem in glory, on the back of a mule, a royal mount. This was the common sign of leadership in the ancient world, and by all appearances he comes to fulfill the expectation of God’s people to reign. Hosanna to the king! Hosanna to David’s royal son! Yet, pain, sorrow, suffering and death precede his mighty resurrection and glorious ascension. Now, all God’s people await His coming again in glorious majesty to judge the living and the dead. Our Gospel for today appears to sound a dissonate chord, an offkey note of God’s work at Christmas. Aren’t we preparing to see Jesus in the manger? Why are we seeing Him enter Jerusalem with the fickle praise of those on that Palm Sunday? Is this the proper lead-up to Christmas? Isn’t Holy Week four months away?
Our Lord and our Church are challenging us to look back to the past and at the same time to look forward to Christ’ coming again. This is the call of Advent. We can look back to Christ’s coming in Bethlehem, the sweetness, the joy but we must at the same time look forward to the time that the same Incarnate Christ, comes to reign in glory, to judge all mankind - both living and dead. This saves us from the temptation to sanitize the Incarnation. We should not emasculate the purpose of Christ coming by imagining him a perpetual baby in swaddling clothes. For the child in Bethlehem, grew in Nazareth, ministered in Capernaum and gave himself for our sins in Jerusalem. We are also reminded that He is coming in royal majesty. Make no mistake about this fact, all of us will give an account before the true King.
God calls us now to make preparations for His coming - not by building bigger barns to house our belongings as the rich fool nor by building our houses on the shifting sands of mere assent to the Christian faith, but by rooting ourselves in Christian love. To put on Christ as our Epistle says. St. Paul in Romans 13 reminds us of the primacy of love. For love is active, it’s no mere sentiment. If one loves another, he will certainly fulfill the second table of the Law which is directed toward our relationships with others. When we love properly, we will not murder. For life and death belongs to God. When we love one another, we will not commit adultery. For we will not defraud them by breaking in on the relationship that is exclusive to the marital covenant. When we love properly, we will not steal for we will trust that God will provide for our needs. He will not put us in a position to love a thing more than a person created in God’s image. For St. Paul, when we love properly, we will not bear false witness. We will not destroy the reputation of a person through lies.
For a person’s reputation is almost as important to them as their physical life. We mustn’t deprive them. When we love as God calls us to, we will not covet. We trust God that whatever has been allotted to us in this life is proper to us. We will not seek our own, we will not be deceived that the grass is greener. We will trust. For love trusts God.
Instead, we will look at what we need to cast away so to put on Christ. After mentioning the second table of the Law, he summarizes it as “Loving one’s neighbor as oneself’. In doing so, St. Paul says Christian love is truly the fulfilling of the Law. Notice that love does not abrogate the Law, the Law still exists, the moral Law that St. Paul references encapsulated in the 10 commandments is not superseded by love, rather love fulfills the intent of the Law. As it has been said,
St. Paul “does not say that man is justified by fulfilling the law through love; rather he is pointing out the ethical expression of the true meaning of the law, which, when rightly understood, itself points to the way of faith (see p. 56), which expresses itself in love (Gal. 5:6). The true response to the law is faith (cf. p. 180); the true response to the law is love” In other words, love is the performance of the heart of the law, which is love, expressed as faith in action.
After establishing the foundation of Christian love, St. Paul in the Epistle commands that it's time to wake up. The pattern of life, the distractions, our pleasures, all these can cause us to miss the signs of the time. We are in the end times, in case you are unsure. How do we know? Because the sign of the first coming of Christ. Now we are awaiting his second coming. St. Paul warns us that if we do not believe this, it is like being asleep, unaware, unconscious of the gravity and closeness of Christ’s coming. When is Christ returning? Jesus himself tells us, “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.” Do not waste your time trying to predict the day or time. Jesus Himself does not know, so why should man presume to be able to figure it out? This is also a temptation to distraction. We are commanded to “wake up!” Instead of sleeping, settling into the comforts of the present system, let us cast away the works of darkness. Cast away “rioting and drunkenness”, that is, “drunken partying”; Cast away sexual immorality, that refers to sex outside marriage. St. Paul admonishes us to cast away strife and envy. Strife is a contentious spirit that persists in finding fault, being right, while envy is the sinful desire to appropriate the success of another. Both strife and envy are bereft of thanksgiving for God’s good gifts to us. All of these are a failure to love; all work to harm one’s neighbor; these must be put away, banished from our lives.
Instead, we are to walk honestly, to act with guileless integrity, being true to the vows made in our baptism when we put on Christ. For St. Paul in Galatians 3, identifies baptism with putting on Christ. He says there, “27For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” The baptismal covenant whereby we were included in Christ’s body, the Church, is to be followed up by putting on the armor of light, the full armor of God as seen in Ephesians. Baptism is the beginning of the life of faith; here, St. Paul says Christ commands us to continue, to seek the narrow gate, to walk in faithful obedience to Christ’s commands. Putting on Christ is to identify with Him, now in the time of this mortal life, now in the present to practice the habits of the kingdom that Christ will usher in in great fullness in his second coming.
On this first Sunday in Advent, we must ask ourselves “are we awake?” Have we fallen asleep? Are we becoming too comfortable with spiritual compromise, sin in its various insidious forms?
A new year beckons. For those of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus, it is time for us to put on Christ. We aren’t to rest on our laurels, to become complacent because our promised salvation. Rather, we are to banish attitudes and actions contrary to Christ’s Lordship of our lives.
For those of you who are baptized, listen to what vows were made in your baptism and taken upon you again in confirmation. I invite each and every one of us, for the first or hundredth time, commit ourselves, in heart and soul, to Jesus Christ our Lord. For those of you who have yet to receive the baptism of faith, listen to what God calls believers to live. Please turn to the bottom of page 277 and say responsively the answer portion of the service. The bottom of page 277..
Minister. DOST thou renounce the devil and all his works, the vain pomp and glory of the world, with all covetous desires of the same, and the sinful desires of the flesh, so that thou wilt not follow, nor be led by them?
Answer. I renounce them all; and, by God's help, will endeavour not to follow, nor be led by them.
Minister. Dost thou believe in Jesus the Christ, the Son of the Living God?
Answer. I do.
Minister. Dost thou accept him, and desire to follow him as thy Saviour and Lord?
Answer. I do.
Minister. Dost thou believe all the Articles of the Christian Faith, as contained in the Apostles' Creed?
Answer. I do.
Minister. Wilt thou be baptized in this Faith?
Answer. That is my desire.
Minister. Wilt thou then obediently keep God's holy will and commandments, and walk in the same all the days of thy life?
Answer. I will, by God's help.
Now, beloved, come and receive the Lord’s strengthening of us in the Holy Eucharist, the manna of heaven and the drink of the heavenly banquet. May God bless our Advent and renew us day by day by the Holy Spirit to cast away the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Amen.
