The First Sunday of Advent '25
The word Advent means “coming.” The season of Advent prepares us for the coming of Jesus. This raises two questions. When is he coming? And, how do we prepare?
The Bible focuses on three time frames in which Jesus comes: past, present and future. As Revelation says, "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End," says the Lord, "who is and who was and who is to come" (Rev. 1:8). Jesus came to us in the past through his Incarnation, Cross, Resurrection, and Ascension, and the gift of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. These events are connected to our personal histories through the sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation, which mark the beginning of life in Christ. Jesus also comes to us now, in our lives each day, through his word and through other people. And, Jesus will come again in glory at the end of time to raise us from the dead and complete his new creation.
The second of these time frames is the most important for Advent. As we receive Jesus when he comes to us now, we are faithful to the vocation we received in baptism and we prepare for his future coming. This highlights the subjective part of Christian initiation, what is called “conversion of the heart." God gives us the objective gift of life in the sacraments, but the gift of life is received by subjective faith. For example, many gifts will be given at Christmas. Some will be put to use and some will seldom leave the box. We “open” the gift of life when we receive it with faith and obedience.
Conversion of the heart is an ongoing process. It begins with the first awareness that God is calling us to believe in Jesus and the first acts of obedience that demonstrate faith. Faith means trust, and trust requires surrender. We grow in faith as we surrender to Christ and allow his word to rule our hearts and in our daily lives.
We are called to surrender to God because the essence of sin is rebellion. Our rebellion follows the pattern of Genesis 3. God gives us his clear word—and we understand what it means. However, we rebel against it and do what we want to do instead. Rebellion is not only practiced by unbelievers. It is practiced by people who have sincere faith in Jesus—by you and me. This does not mean we are not really Christians. It means that we are not yet fully formed into the image of Christ. As 1 John says, “Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is” (1 Jn. 3:2). The key word is children. Children engage in childish rebellion against the boundaries and instructions that are given for their good. We become mature in Christ as we give up our rebellion and surrender more and more to the reign of Christ in our hearts.
We can look at two ways Jesus comes to us now and calls us to respond with the surrender of faith. First, Jesus comes to us through his word. God’s word may come to us as we read the Bible, or through a fellow Christian, or as a direct message from the Holy Spirit in prayer. God’s word to us highlights some way that our attitude or behavior needs to change. We call this “conviction of sin.” If we hear God’s word and receive it with faith, we will make “a good confession,” which will lead us to experience the grace of forgiveness, which will set us free to practice new behavior.
Real change occurs as we repeat this process again and again over time. Our disordered patterns of thought and behavior are deeply ingrained in us. Like children learning to walk, we fall a lot in the process. However, we will eventually learn to walk if we persevere in the process of learning. The main barrier to ongoing conversion, to real change and growth, is the temptation to get discouraged and give up.
Discouragement is rooted in pride. We want to be who we want to be. Therefore, we won’t accept who we really are. The problem is that Christ can only forgive and save the real people we are. Christ cannot pour out his grace on the person we wanted to be or pretend to be.
A second way Jesus comes to us is through people. In Matthew 25:40, Jesus gave us the standard for the day of judgment. He said, “Inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.” This is a scary verse, but Jesus does not want us to be afraid. Rather, he wants us to do the work of love. Christ comes to us though people who bear his image. Jesus calls us to love them and, thus, love him. This is the essential work of the Christian life.
We face a cultural obstacle to this challenge to love. Our culture of “busy-ness” and the idol of productivity turns people into problems to be fixed or obstacles to avoid. Every human problem becomes a fundraiser or a program, which assumes that money or treatment will solve the problem. However, the real human problem is disconnection from God and each other, which result in loneliness, depression, and a lack of meaning and purpose. These things cannot be solved by money or programs. They can only be solved by actual love; by real connection with God and others. Love can only be practiced by real people loving other real people. This is what Jesus wants us to do.
The challenge is to love the least of Christ’s brethren on a small scale, in the places where we live, work, and recreate each day. It is a real challenge. How do we respond to the homeless man? How do we love the difficult neighbor or co-worker? How do we love the brother or sister in Christ whom we do not really like? There are no easy answers, but these are the questions Jesus wants us to wrestle with and act on.
The Palm Sunday Gospel is the gospel for Advent 1 because it gives us the image of Jesus coming to his people. Jesus comes to Jerusalem riding humbly on a donkey in the same way Jesus comes to us each day through his word and through people who bear his image. Advent calls us to open our ears and eyes to hear him and see him, and to respond to his coming with renewed faith and new obedience. As the epistle says:
Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law . . . And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light.