Audio of the sermon is here:

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

            You may know that “advent” comes from the Latin word adventus, which means “coming” or “arrival.” And it was originally used for the coming of Roman emperors to the city. The people would all go outside the city, welcome the emperor with songs and speeches, and then they would all go back inside the city, often for a big feast. The Christians used that word for the time when they would welcome their King of kings, the only Caesar, the only Lord, Jesus the Christ, at His appearance in glory. As St. Paul says to the Thessalonians, the Lord Himself, with a cry of command and the voice of an archangel and the trumpet of God, will descend from heaven and the dead in Christ will rise first, then all the remaining ones who are alive will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air—outside all earthly cities—and thus always we will be with the Lord, as we return to a new heavens and a new earth (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17). The word that is “adventus” in Latin is “parousia” in Greek. That is the word for the Lord being near to us, alongside us, dwelling with His people finally and fully. That is the day to which the season of Advent points us, of which it reminds us, the promise and the hope to which it recalls us. And this current waiting time has been going on ever since Jesus ascended into heaven, and the angels said to the disciples, Why are you standing here looking into heaven? This Jesus, who went into heaven, will return in the same way that you saw Him go into heaven. So the Church has been praying ever since, “Come quickly, Lord Jesus!”

            In this sense, every day, every season, every year is an Advent year, because as long as we live in this world as it is, we wait and wait and watch and pray, as our Lord has told us to do. So one part of the Christian life, of living in this world as Christians, is patience. We have no choice but to be patient as we wait. But Christian patience, like Christian hope, is not indefinite, disconnected, uncertain. Just as Christian hope is tied to a particular promise, which cannot fail, so too is Christian patience tied to the object of our patience, which is Christ Himself. It is not just waiting, but waiting for. Waiting for the one who has promised to end that waiting with His full presence.

            It is easy to become impatient, to think we ought to be doing something; look busy, Jesus is coming! But when it comes to the advent of Jesus, to His parousia, to His coming in glory, there is nothing you need to do, because there is nothing you can do. No one knows that day or hour, and there’s no way to hurry God along. Nothing you do, nothing anyone does, will make it happen faster than God has decided it will happen. Nothing to do but wait and watch with patience. And though it’s been a long time since Jesus’ ascension, the promise of those messengers to the apostles, which is the promise of the Lord Himself, is that He will come again. And He is not slow, Peter reminds us, to keep His promises, as we count the slow passing of time. In fact, what really matters here is God’s patience. Why does He take so long, in our reckoning of time? Because He is patient, not wanting any to perish. He waits, so that you and many will be saved. And our patience reflects God’s patience. Patience as we wait for God to do what He will surely do.

            But that’s not all. Some people might think it is. There are those who have sold everything they have—not to give to those in need, but because they’ve been convinced that they know when Jesus is coming. So they go wait in a cave, or in a bunker, or on the roof of a barn. That’s what happens when the patient waiting overcomes the second half of the Christian’s life, which Paul speaks about in Romans 13. There is patience with God, but there is action toward the people around us. There is love, and love is the fulfilling of the law. It is not the fulfilling of the law before God, and it could never be because it is never done. God’s love in Jesus has already done that, and it is finished. Before God you are righteous in Jesus, and there’s nothing you could possibly add to that. How will you improve on Jesus’ work? But before other people, the very specific people God brings to you and those to whom He brings you, before them, you are righteous in your love toward them. Owe no one anything except love.

And in the end of the chapter, Paul talks about the opposite of love. In fact, these things, among other works of darkness, are the opposite of both faith and love, both true righteousness in Christ before God and true righteousness in works toward your neighbor. These things, drunkenness and revelry, sexual immorality and licentiousness, strive and jealousy, these are both idolatry and failures of love toward your neighbor. They make gods of things that we should not worship, and they keep us from loving our neighbor as we should. Throw them off, Paul says, and put on the Lord Jesus Christ. We will not exchange love for the idolatry of our desires, or the idolatry of our or other people’s bodies, or the idolatry of our own pride, or position, or opinions. Instead of holding the marriage bed pure, or the gifts of God in genuine joy and not indulgence, or considering others as more significant than ourselves, the works of darkness continually threaten to consume us and make us think that these things are all there is, this world is all there is, that things go on as they always did and the Lord will not have His advent, His parousia. But action for the sake of your family and your friends and others around you is the way that God cares for this creation in His patience until that day. You know how God has loved you in Christ at His first advent, bearing the entire burden of our sin, refusing to hold it against us because of His cross, delivering you new life, and hope, and patience in His resurrection life. Therefore, you do not need to get and keep everything in this world; you do not hold others’ sins against them, but forgive; you do not make them objects of your sin, but objects of your care; because they, like you, will rise from the dead. So Jesus also, in His first advent, gives the signs that He brings the Kingdom of God in Himself. He cares for people in their bodies, feeding them, healing them, raising them from the dead. He suffers, dies, and rises from the dead, ascends into heaven to be with us in a way greater than He was with the disciples on earth. A holy life of action for us in our unholiness.

Now, as we live in patience, and our faith in Him is daily renewed and refreshed, including by this “salutary gift” of the Supper. The loving action for us before God is complete. But our loving action for everyone with whom we come into contact is never complete as long as this creation goes on. They will continue to need it, and you are the ones whom God has chosen to do it for them. Holy lives of action as we are poured out like living sacrifices for them. Patience in faith toward God; fervent action in love toward one another. That is the advent life, until the parousia of the Lord.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7, ESV). Amen.

— Pr. Timothy Winterstein, 11/29/25