The Rev’d Lucy Nguyen
30 November 2025 Advent 1
Readings: Isaiah 40:3; Romans 13:11-14; Matt 24:36-44
Timing can be everything…
As this is the start of the new liturgical year and the start of this season of Advent, I thought what better time than now to share with you the start of one’s fledging Christian’s experience of sharing his faith with others.
As some new Christians can be, this person was very passionate about sharing the Good News. He had been studying tirelessly to get it right when speaking about his faith.
He didn’t want to become ordained because he believed God would use him in his current profession which brings him into daily contact with a good number of people as a barber.
Fresh after Sunday services he was ready to witness with his first Monday morning customer. He was prepared to find out if his customer was open to Jesus.
A man arrived and said he wanted a cut and shave, so my friend got everything ready, and just before putting the straight razor to the man’s skin, asked, “Are you ready for heaven?”
Timing is everything. (1)
As the liturgical calendar and Gregorian calendar flick over into Advent and December and we turn our minds to “all things Christmas” it strikes that we can also become obsessed with timing and perhaps traditions in unhelpful ways.
We begin to hear mutterings as to when Christmas carols should start or should not start playing over the sound system in our shopping centre’s; when mince tarts should or should not go on sale in the food aisles, when Christmas trees should or should not go up anywhere, and when, if at all, must we start lighting the advent candles and in what order?
And below the mutterings, we hear murmurings of: they don’t play proper Christmas music, they don’t make mince tarts like I used to make them, Christmas trees are pagan, and advent candles have been “tricked up” for a woke community rather than the hardcore themes of days gone by.
It’s exhausting before we even enter the month of December and if we’re not careful we could be exhausted before the first Christmas card gets written … I’m joking again, … who does Christmas cards any more … (acknowledge those who do).
But seriously perhaps we should start the whole season with a caution sign … proceed if you dare … take the time offered … don’t rush this advent season.
Church Fathers created Advent, its themes, the use of a wreath, candle lighting for a reason. None of these Advent rituals are mandated by scripture.
They are tools for proclaiming the gospel and forming Christ’s followers. These tools, these traditions are useful only as long as they help us achieve the goals of proclamation and formation. (2)
And the biblical teachings church leaders originally thought important enough to create Advent were not today’s familiar themes of hope, peace, joy and love.
The traditional themes of the Advent season are The Four Last Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell.
You can see where our barber friend may have been coming from.
These themes were intended to encourage penitence and active preparation for Christ’s second coming as a judge.
According to Fleming Rutledge, these four last things: death, judgment, heaven, and hell— and in that order, so that the subject of hell was preached on the Sunday just before Christmas Eve, were, and are, to show how the light of the birth of Christ appears against a backdrop of darkness, depravity, and despair and makes light of Christ’s birth appear more profound. (3)
The season of Advent was considered a “little Lent,” a time for reflection on mortality and final accountability.
While these themes resonate with the reality of human suffering and the need for justice, especially in times of hardship, modern practices have shifted towards the more celebratory themes of hope, peace, joy, and love.
However, the traditional focus on the “four last things” remains a valid and robust part of Christian tradition.
As I prepared for this morning, I found many preachers had, during the recent covid years, returned to reflect on these more traditional themes as the season was set against a background of worldwide tragedy.
Interestingly, no one is suggesting that we give away the more current themes of Hope, Peace, Joy and Love. Rather there is a call to weave the two sets together – to face life with Jesus now and to come.
Advent [meaning “coming”], to the Church Fathers, was the right naming of the season. They urged the faithful to set aside four weeks to fast, give, and pray— these practices in preparing for Christmas are all ways to strip down, to let the bared soul recall what it knows beneath its fear of the dark, to know what Jesus called “the one thing necessary:
• that there is One who is the source of all life,
• One who comes to be with us and in us,
• even, especially, in darkness and death.
• One who brings a new beginning. (4)
The caution of seeing Advent as a time of preparation is that it can signal to our brains that we should be busy preparing. And as one writer puts it “Christmas preparations put us at the centre, as if our busyness could somehow usher in Christ’s first or second coming. And with pressure to shop and feast we can easily become distracted and not ready for Christmas within a faith understanding (Christianity is countercultural to consumerism and capitalism!).
Watching and waiting, require us to be actively attentive to God’s Word, the world around us, and the state of our own relationship with God now and to come. (2) what does watching and waiting mean for you? What would be your ideal advent practice if there was nothing to stop you?
Richard Rohr with his theme of “now and not yet” for Advent refers to the idea that the Kingdom of God is both a present reality and a future hope.
During Advent, this means recognizing that the presence of Christ is already here with us, while also looking forward to its full realization in the future. It is a simultaneous experience of the “already” and the “not yet”.
… Advent is not a time to declare and get busy, but to listen, to listen to whatever God may want to tell us through the singing of the stars, the quickening of a baby, the gallantry of a dying man.
Listen. Quietly. Humbly. Without arrogance. (6)
…In Advent we prepare for the coming of all Love, that love which will redeem all the brokenness, wrongness, hardnesses of heart which have afflicted us. (6)
And we awake again as if for first time to the love we already know for ourselves and for all the world.
God shares God in Jesus whose timing is always perfect for God in love is always present!
And yes, the barber may need to work on his timing and approach, but his enthusiasm is
a start.
May we find our way with these words –
Loving God, as we begin this season of waiting,
we look to your light to guide us through the darkness.
Infuse us with a hope that doesn’t make sense in a confusing world,
and with a joy that can endure.
Help us to be peacemakers,
to forgive those who have hurt us, and to release our anger and resentment.
Give us the strength to love others as Jesus loved us,
and to share your hope with those who are lonely, weak, or in pain.
May our hearts be watchful and our faith steadfast
as we prepare for the coming of your Son,
who is our hope in all things.
In his name we pray, Amen.
- https://upjoke.com/timing-jokes
- https://reformedworship.org/resource/four-last-things
- (Advent: The Once and Future Coming of Jesus Christ, 2018, p. 238).
- Gayle Boss [1] https://cac.org/daily-meditations/waiting-and-unknowing-2019-12-01/
5.https://cac.org/daily-meditations/waiting-and-unknowing-2019-12-01/ - https://dianabutlerbass.substack.com/p/advent-1