Last Sunday was the first Sunday in the Advent season, which is the season of the church year before Christmas. We sometimes (wrongly) think that Christmas is the beginning of the church year, and thus we sometimes (wrongly) think that the Advent season is the season of preparation for Christmas. We (wrongly) think that just like Lent is about “preparing our hearts” to receive salvation from Christ’s death and resurrection, Advent must be about “preparing our hearts” to receive the coming of Christ at Christmas.

But in fact, Advent is the beginning of the church year. So last Sunday was like New Years Day in church. And instead of Advent being preparation for Christmas, in Scripture it is Christmas which is preparation for Advent!

That is because Advent is about the visible, physical return of Christ to the earth, to rule and reign forever over a new heavens and a new earth, where those of us who have put our trust in him will be resurrected bodily from the dead with bodies like his.

Scripture calls this “the blessed hope” in Titus 2:13. The blessed hope is NOT that we will leave our bodies behind and go to heaven to make our home with God. The blessed hope is that God will descend to earth to make his home among men, as John writes in Revelation 21:3:

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.

Scripture tells us that those who die before Christ returns are present with Christ in heaven, but they are not presently feasting at a heavenly banquet with others who have died. Instead, they are presently doing what we are doing: Waiting eagerly for his return, when they will come with him and the New Jerusalem to the new earth to join us for that banquet. This is why the writer of Hebrews says of those who have died in faith (in Chapter 11 verses 39-40):

These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.

And this is what Advent is about: Waiting. Not “waiting to go to heaven when we die so that we can join in the heavenly banquet that’s already started so we can see our relatives and have a great time there” but “waiting for the completion—the perfection—of God’s plan, which is the physical, visible return of his Son Jesus with his resurrected body, accompanied by all those who died in faith, who return with him to join us and, as the Apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:52 , we all together will be changed:

in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.

So the Scriptures that are given to us in the lectionary to read during Advent all relate to Christ’s return—what the Bible calls “The Day of the Lord”, “The Day”, or “That Day”, or what we sometimes call “Judgment Day” or “The Second Coming”.

We know that even now, the Son, the messiah, the Lord Jesus, rules over all the kings of the earth, seated on the heavenly throne with his Father. The Father has given the Son all power and authority (Matthew 28:18), yet we know this only by faith: As the writer of Hebrews says in Hebrews 2:8, “At present we do not see everything subject to him”. The kings of the earth still rebel against him.  

But as Christ Jesus told Paul in Acts 26:14 when he was still Saul, the persecutor, “It is hard for you to kick against the goads”. That is, resistance is futile; what we know now by faith, we will soon see: On that day, which the Bible calls the day of the Lord, the end will come: All rebellion will be crushed—not only human rebellion, but the rebellion of the serpent, sin, and death. And:

that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:10-11)

Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. (1 Corinthians 15:24)

Because we have this “blessed hope”, the Apostle Paul tells Titus:

It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age.

That’s what we do during Advent: We say “no” to this present age. Or as Jesus says in today’s scripture reading from Luke 21, in verses 34-36:

Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with dissipation, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you unexpectedly like a trap. For it will come upon all those who live on the face of the whole earth. Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man.

Jesus, Paul, and all of Scripture tells us that in fact it is only our belief that Christ will return soon that prevents our hearts from being weighed down with dissipation, drunkenness and the anxieties of life. It is only our belief in the soon-coming Day of the Lord that teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age.

Or, to say it the other way around:

If we lose our belief that Christ will return soon, then our hearts will become weighed down with dissipation, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and we will say “yes” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and we will find ourselves unable to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age.

What we believe about the return of Christ is the most important factor in how we relate to God, to the world, and to each other. If you don’t believe that, then ask yourself why tomorrow, the first Sunday in Advent, is designated as the Christian’s New Year’s Day. Scripturally we can even say that a Christian is someone who, more than anything else, is eagerly awaiting and primarily focused on the Lord’s return.

You may have heard people say things like, “Well, if you’re focused on the Lord coming back, you’re not going to be useful or good at making a difference in the world around you.”

But Scripture strongly disagrees with that claim. It is only when you are eagerly awaiting and primarily focused on the return of Christ that you can say to this world what it doesn’t want to hear, show to this world what it doesn’t want to see, and be in this world what the world despises: a faithful witness to Christ.