Sermon First Sunday of Advent
Sunday, November 30, 2025
On this first Sunday of Advent, we are invited to reflect on the reality of being ready. Preparation. Jesus says very clearly, you must be ready for you do not know when the son of man is coming. He’s coming at an unexpected hour.
Now we can have all kinds of debates and and and theological reflections where we try to guess what’s behind the purposes and
actions of God. Well, why is it that we cannot know when God is coming? Why is it that we cannot know the future?
There have been enough people who have tried to predict the future over the years and they may still be out there. But Jesus is very clear in saying do not preoccupy yourselves in trying to guess the future in trying to pinpoint what will happen tomorrow. It cannot be done.
Instead, Jesus shifts the focus of his teaching to being prepared always. In other words, if you don’t know when your car is going to break down, but you know that eventually that transmission is going to break down, why not have the money saved already just in case?
Then you don’t have to be anxious about it. This is kind of the principle that Jesus goes with. He says, you know, be prepared always to live as if you’re already living in the new reality of God.
In the first reading from the prophet Isaiah, we have this vision of the new reality of God, the new world, kingdom of God. What will it look like? And it looks wonderful. It looks exactly the way we would want the world to look. No more war, no more division, no more armies, no more barriers because there’s no need for them.
Once the kingdom of God is ushered in by Jesus and people are able to truly embrace it, everything changes. And even though we are not fully in that world yet, we know that because we lock our doors at night, we still hear on the news of all kinds of difficulties in our world. So we know there is a fulfillment of that vision. The kingdom of God that is not complete yet.
The key for us here, I believe, is Jesus saying, “Live as if you are already already living in the new heavenly kingdom.” where you’re already so filled with the peace and joy of what is coming that it begins to now have effects not only on the way we act, not only on the choices we make, but even on the way we feel.
Imagine waking up in the morning and feeling amazing and feeling hopeful, feeling like you can’t wait to get on with the day because there’s so much good that’s waiting for you. I believe this is what Jesus is able to give us when we truly embrace that spirit of the new kingdom of God.
If we truly allow not only the message of Jesus but an encounter with Jesus to become our everyday food, everything changes. Not only the way we view, perceive reality, but also the way we feel, a new found hope that allows us to truly enter into the presence of the present moment.
The season of Advent is a very interesting time because it invites us to begin a new to begin in a new way. To prepare to encounter Jesus. To encounter Jesus. Not only someday when we die. Not only someday when the world ends as we know it and the new one begins, but already here and now in our daily activities.
When was the last time you saw Jesus? When was the last time
you felt the presence of God? Was it unexpected? Because it often is. You know, it’s in those most unexpected places and moments when we are ready that we can be overwhelmed by the sense of the presence of God. living with this kind of anticipation that God is near and that God can be encountered, can be felt, can be experienced is what I think the holy season of Advent invites us to consider.
The themes of Advent are very simple. Silence, quiet, meditation,
anticipation, hope. Very simple themes. That’s what I find so interesting that during Advent we are invited to consider that God is not one to shout at us and to speak loudly to us but to engage with us in the most silent, simple and gentle ways.
When the world is screaming at us, presenting all kinds of solutions to world problems, the only one who has the true solution does not scream, does not shout, but simply remains silent, waiting to move our hearts, to renew our faith, to strengthen us. God is near. Thanks be to God.
Amen.
Father Wojtek Kuzma