Sunday November 30th, 2025 Worship

Of all the commands that Jesus gives, today’s “Keep awake,” (Matthew 24: 42) is arguably one of the most difficult for me! Staying awake has never been my strong suit. I have this habit of falling asleep on road trips almost immediately after I proudly declare to Emily that I’m not tired. Or while we try to watch a movie, I really only watch about half of it. I’ll be fighting to keep my eyes open, and I will often lose the struggle. Even when I was a kid, I never asked for a later bedtime, instead, I would often ask to go to sleep by 6:30 P.M. I have always been a person that loves to go to bed early, and that only gets more difficult in these winter months when it feels like midnight by early evening. Luckily for us, Jesus isn’t talking about physically staying awake in this Gospel today!
As we enter into the season of Advent, we are invited into this season of waiting and an intentional period of slowing down. It’s a natural cycle in the rhythm of our world, yet, in so many cases, this time of year only seems to get busier. From worship services to holiday gatherings, there is always something to do and about ten places to be. We fight against the natural impulses of our bodies, this call for rest and quiet. When we hear the command from Jesus to “Keep awake,” it is a call back to what is important at the heart of our faith, no matter what is going on around us. It is a call to be present to the world and the relationships in our lives, instead of spending all of our energy worrying about this event in the future, of which we do not know the day or the hour (Matthew 24: 36). In Matthew’s context, it’s the Second Coming of Christ, but I also think about everything we spend energy worrying about in our lives today. So this command to keep awake is a call to pay attention to the ways that the world is changing around us to be more in line with the will of God. It is a call to keep awake to the beauty of the world around us, to see what else our siblings in creation have to teach us about the ways that God is already working through the cycles of nature, this creation and re-creation.
Jesus talks about how his Second Coming will be this sudden and unexpected event (Matthew 24: 36-44), but he doesn’t tell us to disengage with the world around us. His teaching isn’t so much a threat as it is a bold proclamation about how God is turning the world around, in unexpected and dramatic ways. This isn’t anything new, coming from Christ whose entire life, from birth to resurrection was a challenge to the ways we expected God to be working in our world. In this, then, Jesus’ commentary today is also a promise that things are not just going to stay as they always have been. We are to keep awake, to tend to the hope that these promises are indeed true.
It’s this same hope that is in the words of Isaiah, in this promise of God’s reign of peace (Isaiah 2:1-5). These words are not just said to placate the people, but they are the words of a prophet to a people in desperate need for their worldly reality to change. There is so much hope within these words, that this reign of peace will be a reality that comes soon. That wars will cease, and weapons of violence and hatred will be turned into tools that can be used for the sake of the community, for life-giving activities. It’s a promise not just that violence will cease, but that their end will usher in a new way of life. That these tools that brought death will be transformed into means of feeding the world.
When Jesus is telling us to keep awake, then, it isn’t just to sit here with our eyes open, but it is a call to live according to his teachings. To not just wait for him to come back and make everything better, but to do what we can now to start working towards this new reality. It is an invitation to live into these promises for the world, to start making paths for life to exist even if we cannot always bring about the end of violence. It is a reminder that as Christians, we cannot be asleep to these pains of the world around us, to shut our ears and eyes to avoid seeing everything that makes us feel uncomfortable. Because those are the places and the people that Jesus intentionally chose to focus on during his ministry. This radical hope of Advent isn’t just meant for those of us who are comfortable now, but are promises for all those who society has cast aside.
If you’ve ever been exhausted, you know how hard it can be to keep awake. I know that we are weary today, that the world is heavy and overwhelming, and that there are so many ways we can find to comfort ourselves and numb ourselves to the reality of our world. Choosing to follow Jesus isn’t always the easiest path, especially when we want quick fixes and easy comfort. What we are being asked right now, to continue following his teachings, to keep waiting for the fulfillment of all these promises of peace and justice, is not a light call to carry. It is hard to be in this season of waiting, both in the church year, and in our lives. We want to drift off and wake up to find that the challenges are magically over.
So, I also want to remind us that we are not called into this work alone. It reminds me of the times when we would have lock-ins at church when I was a teenager and suddenly, me being the kid who always wanted to be asleep early, would manage to stay awake all night playing games and eating pizza with my friends! While it may seem like a silly example, I think about how being in community changed that entire experience for me around staying awake. So, what are the ways that we can continue to support one another in our world now, as we live in this liminal space of Advent, in the already and not yet, wherein we recognize the pain that surrounds us, and we live into the hope on God’s reign of peace.
When we surround ourselves with community, we are able to walk alongside one another as we recall what it is that Jesus taught us, as we seek to live according to the teachings of our faith. It can be so helpful to have a companion on the way, especially as we support one another in our work. On our own, the challenges that face us can feel too daunting, or we may feel too insignificant to make a change. But, as we join together, we are able to create these powerful changes in the communities around us. This is how we start working toward the vision of sowing life, even amidst the chaos, of turning weapons of violence into tools of nurture. It may not be as sudden of a change as Jesus talks about today, but each of these small actions together have the ability to change the world. May we accompany each other in these days of waiting, knowing that our waiting does not have to be passive, but is a call for us to awaken to what God is already stirring up in our midst for the life of the world, as we answer our call to keep awake and join in the work.