1st Sunday of Advent 2025
Isaiah 2: 1-5 Romans 13:11-14 Matthew 24:37-44
This is the first Sunday of our New Liturgical Year and it must seem strange that the Gospel Reading is about the end of time. But really isn’t life and time considered a circle; we have come from God who created us and are living out our journey back to God. During Advent we have the opportunity to consider/contemplate the beginning of life and in a particular way the new life which the Son of God brought into the world.
During these 24 days of Advent we have the visual aid of the Advent wreath before us – it is circular, as an expression of the journey of life from God and back to God! It is Green, the colour of new life and it has 4 candles which increase the light for us as we journey towards celebrating when ‘The Son of Man comes’. The Gospel today seems strangely topical – did we not read descriptions like these in our newspapers only recently; floods hurtling down valleys killing hundreds, people disappearing while going about their daily chores, burglars rampaging and looting? These things might fill us with terror or, by now, do we take them as reminders of the unpredictability of life and how necessary it is to be ready for whatever comes. Regardless of how many tragedies occur or of how proximate these tragedies are to us, we seem to go on as if life was a straight line going away from God. We need to remember that nothing is of value to us unless it serves our journey back to God.
Though the Gospel Reading may be unsettling for us, the Reading from Isaiah is uplifting and comforting and presents us with the call “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord ……that he may teach us his ways … so that we may walk in his ways”. Our response is put into words for us by the Psalmist “I rejoiced when I heard them say: ’Let us go to God’s house.’”
Advent is a time of watching, being alert, noticing the signs and recognising the new ways in which the Lord’s presence is evident. Like the candles, gradually making more light as the time of Incarnation draws near, so can the events and signs around us reveal God’s longing to be with us.
Saint Paul is very direct in giving his advice: ‘you must wake up now’! St Paul uses the images of light and darkness, day and night to illustrate to us what the Lord has in store for us. ‘The night is almost over and it will be daylight soon.’ After the 21st of December the Light will increase as a sign to us that ‘the Son of man comes’ to set us free to live a new life.
Staying awake, being alert, noticing signs of the Lord’s coming entails living ‘decently’ and letting our good deeds be seen in the light. Saint Paul says ‘Let your armour be the Lord Jesus Christ’ – put on the life of Jesus Christ, act as the Lord taught you, act as Jesus did. Your mission is, as his was, to reveal God’s love by your care for one another and to build up the Kingdom of God by your way of living.