There is something wonderfully strange about beginning the church year with this reading. We turn the page to Advent expecting candles, quiet hymns, and the slow approach of hope. Instead, Jesus starts us off with a warning that feels like a jolt. No one knows the day or the hour, he says. Not the angels. Not even the Son. Only God knows. Keep awake. Be ready.
These words are not warm. They are not gentle. They sound like someone shaking us by the shoulders. But maybe this is the gift of the season. Advent begins not with comfort but with clarity. It starts by telling the truth about the world we live in and the world we hope for. It cuts through everything we use to numb ourselves, everything we use to keep from admitting how unsettled we really feel. And if there was ever a time when people of faith needed clarity, it is now.
Many of us walk through these days with a heaviness that is hard to name. The political climate in this country feels brittle and bruising. We see the rise in hateful rhetoric aimed at LGBTQ+ people and the policies that give that rhetoric teeth. We watch migrants at our borders treated not as neighbors but as threats. We see the safety net torn hole by hole until we can almost feel the cold wind blowing through it. We feel the earth warming and choking. We worry about hunger and homelessness growing as resources shrink and compassion gets politicized. Some mornings it feels like democracy itself is on life support.
Under all this pressure, it becomes tempting to reach for one of two escape routes. One is despair, the voice that says nothing can change, nothing will improve, and all we can do is brace for impact. The other is fantasy, the voice that tries to stitch together meaning from every headline, every storm, every political twist, searching for some magical pattern that promises control. Both paths distract us. Both paths put us to sleep. Advent calls us away from both.
Jesus stands on the Mount of Olives, looking across the valley at the temple. The building shines in the sun. It looks permanent. It looks untouchable. It looks like it will last forever. But Jesus knows the truth. Nothing built on injustice lasts. Nothing rooted in cruelty or arrogance stands for long. And when he says the temple will fall, the disciples ask the question every anxious human heart wants to ask: When? Tell us the signs. Tell us what to look for. Tell us what to expect.
Jesus does not give them what they want. He gives them what they need. No one knows the day or the hour. Not even me, he says. But here is what you do know. God is at work. A new world is coming. And your job is not to predict it. Your job is to live as if you believe it.
Matthew is writing fifty years after Jesus said these words. The temple is already rubble. Rome’s cruelty has only grown. Some Christians have given up expecting Jesus to return. Others are obsessed with trying to calculate the exact moment. Matthew sees both dangers. So, he reminds the community of this teaching. No one knows. Not even Jesus. You cannot control the future. You cannot avoid uncertainty. You cannot escape vulnerability. But you can choose how you live. You can stay awake.
This is the central question of Advent. What does it mean to stay awake in a world that tempts us to sleep through our own lives? Jesus gives us images that are almost absurd in their ordinariness. Two people in a field. Two people grinding grain. Work as usual. Life as usual. Nothing dramatic. Nothing apocalyptic. The world looks stable. The routines carry on. And then everything changes.
Jesus points back to Noah’s day. People ate and drank and married, oblivious to everything but their own comfort. In the prophets, that kind of eating and drinking is shorthand for the careless ease of the powerful. When your life is insulated, when you have enough privilege to stay numb, you stop noticing the suffering around you. You drift from God’s heart. Noah is the odd one out. Noah notices what others refuse to notice. Noah reads the world with different eyes. Noah is awake.
So maybe the real warning here is not about a final day at all. Maybe it is about the danger of drifting through life on autopilot. Maybe Jesus is saying, do not live numb. Do not live disheartened. Do not give your hours to worry or distraction. Watch for the movement of God. Stand where God stands. Keep your heart alive.
The first Sunday of Advent is honest about human fear. Fear is natural. Fear is woven into our very biology. It tries to keep us alive. But fear becomes a problem when it takes over the driver’s seat. It becomes a problem when we mistake fear for wisdom. When fear tells us to shut our doors instead of opening them. When it tells us to protect our own comfort instead of protecting the vulnerable. When it tells us to stay quiet instead of speaking up. When it tells us to look away instead of paying attention.
Jesus does not shame fear. He redirects it. Stay awake, he says. Not because the world is ending, but because the world needs your presence. Not because the house will be broken into, but because the world needs your courage. Not because God wants to frighten you, but because God wants to use you.
And here is the heart of the passage: readiness is not about predicting anything. Readiness is ethical. Readiness is how we live. Matthew spends a large part of his Gospel telling his disciples what it means to follow Jesus. Feed the hungry. Clothe the naked. Care for the sick. Welcome the stranger. Refuse to leave anyone behind. Trust that God is already at work pulling the world toward justice, and join that work. Advent is not a season of escape. It is a season of engagement.
This is why the “thief in the night” image matters. Not because Jesus is sneaking around trying to catch us off guard, but because whenever Jesus shows up, he interrupts whatever small agenda we have set for ourselves. He breaks open our routines. He knocks the door off its hinges and says, Pay attention. I am in the hungry child. I am in the family sleeping in their car. I am in the refugee camp. I am in the person who has been told they are less than human. I am in the wounded earth that groans for healing. I am in the systems you think cannot change. I am in the margins. I am in the places you least expect.
Of course this takes a toll. It is hard to stay awake in a world like ours. Hard to remain hopeful when the news hits us in the face day after day. Hard to imagine change when so many forces insist that injustice is inevitable. Hard to trust that anything good is coming. This is why we need each other. Jesus never asked anyone to stay awake alone. The early church did not watch for God alone. They watched as a community. They waited together. They encouraged one another. They held one another when the fear rose too high. They carried one another’s hope like a shared lantern. They lived as people who expected God to do something new. This is what Advent invites us to practice. A shared hope that refuses to shrink. A shared vigilance that refuses to surrender to numbness. A shared longing for a world where mercy and justice are not rare events but ordinary experiences.
And here is the grace inside the warning. Jesus says the day of God will come like dawn. Sudden. Unstoppable. Light breaking into darkness. The end of the world is not destruction. The end is healing. The end is restoration. The end is God flooding every corner of creation with light and life. The end is God’s dream made real. We do not wait for ruin. We wait for renewal. And we live now as citizens of that future.
To stay awake is to refuse cynicism. To stay awake is to keep praying, even when prayer feels small. To stay awake is to work for justice, even when results feel far away. To stay awake is to speak love in public. To stay awake is to build community that protects those the world tries to harm. To stay awake is to believe that God has not abandoned this aching world. To stay awake is to look for Christ in every person, especially those most pushed aside.
In Noah’s day, the ones left behind were the faithful. They were the ones God trusted to rebuild. Maybe that is us. Maybe God is not removing us from the world but placing us in it for exactly this moment. Maybe God is trusting us with more responsibility, not less. Maybe God believes we can rise to it. Maybe being left behind is a blessing, because we get the privilege of partnering with God in the work of healing and justice.
This is the Advent lifestyle. Not escapism. Not prediction. Not despair. But patient courage. Hope that gets its hands dirty. Wakefulness that sees God at work even in unlikely places.
And so, we begin a new church year not with ease but with purpose. We begin with a call to attention. We begin with Jesus looking straight at us and saying, Stay awake. Not because the world is ending, but because the world is beginning again. Through God’s power, it always is.
Christ will come. Christ is coming right now. Christ comes each time compassion interrupts cruelty. Each time truth interrupts lies. Each time courage interrupts fear. Each time justice interrupts apathy.
Our job is simple. Notice. Respond. Stay awake. This is the challenge of Advent. And it is also our hope. God is not finished. God is breaking in. God is guiding this tired world toward healing. And God is asking us to be part of the dawn.
May we keep watch. May we stay awake. May we meet Christ wherever he shows up. And may God give us the courage to live as people who trust the light.
Amen.
