The First Sunday in Advent | 30.11.2025 | Matthew 24:36-44 | Samuel David Zumwalt |

Matthew 24:36-44 Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved

36 “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only. 37 But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. 38 For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, 39 and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. 40 Then two men will be in the field: one will be taken and the other left. 41 Two women will be grinding at the mill: one will be taken and the other left. 42 Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming. 43 But know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into. 44 Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.

[In his “On the Councils and the Church, Martin Luther identified seven marks of the Church. The sixth mark is holy worship. Our overarching sermon theme for this year will be that sixth mark.]

HOLY WORSHIP: BE READY!

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

A Parable

Everyone called him “Chip,” as in “he’s a chip off the old block.” He was actually Charles, Jr., but his parents didn’t want him to be called Charlie Brown, as in The Charlie Brown Christmas Special and the Peanuts comic strip everyone read in the newspapers back then.

Chip was a late Baby Boomer born in 1960. He was too young to be overly shaped by the 60s. The Vietnam War was over by the time he was ready for high school. When he was in middle school, his Dad started wearing leisure suits, with chest hair showing, big sideburns, gold chains, and platform shoes. His Mom started going to women’s consciousness meetings and going bra-less. She stopped shaving her legs and under her arms, explaining that’s what European women did. Those were the days Chip begged to be dropped off two blocks from school. Dad and Mom were reading self-help books and talking psychobabble to each other and to their only child.

Chip’s parents had been raised in churches, but they left that behind by the time he came along, so Chip was never baptized or even dropped off at Sunday School. His parents said they didn’t want to be hypocrites. They were doing fine without God. But Chip did get invited by neighbors to Vacation Bible School and occasionally to some church youth group for activities. What he mostly picked up was confusing. Some of his friends talked about God who sounded a lot like his parents’ psychobabble. Ugh! Others talked about God as really angry. So, like his parents, Chip thought of God as unnecessary at best. Chip got good grades, mostly hid his rebellious side from his parents, had some success as a shortstop on the baseball team, and dated around.

When Chip got to college, he took an introductory Bible class from a campus pastor. The guy didn’t sound like he believed in much other than world peace and standing up for the poor. Chip thought the guy was probably still sad the 60s were over. He still wore his hair very long, wore a clerical collar, blue jeans, and motorcycle boots. Chip thought he could smell marijuana on the guy when he walked into the classroom. He talked a lot about myths and how all the miracles could be explained in a literary sense. Chip figured out the guy’s god sounded a lot like the guy. In short, Chip’s sense that God was unnecessary was pretty much confirmed by that pastor.

Chip fell in love with Marianne. They graduated college in 1982. Chip went to law school. She studied for the MBA. They got their professional degrees, got married, went to work, bought a house, got a dog, and began to talk about having a family. They were making money, happy with each other, took great vacations, but children never came. They had a battery of tests and discovered one of them was infertile. They paid for expensive, painful procedures, and nothing happened. They talked about adoption, but each had heard horror stories. They figured they didn’t have time for foster parenting. So, finally, they gave up. They were still very much in love and became even more dependent on each other. God was still unnecessary, although Chip had once sent up a prayer like an emergency flare: “God, if you’re there, give my wife a baby. You know she’s a good woman. She deserves to have a baby. Amen.” Silence confirmed Chip’s doubts..

Chip and Marianne always gave nice gifts to children in their neighborhood and those of their colleagues. They saw cousins occasionally and were generous with their children. Friends often shook their heads sadly and commented quietly, “They would have been great parents.” So, they were no longer young but still very active fifty-year-olds. They were fiscal conservatives and socially libertarians. They had accumulated wealth through frugality. They didn’t change their address or buy expensive cars. They gave to charities that helped children in need. They didn’t talk politics and had nothing to say about religion. In short, they were comfortable, devoted to each other, but could see their future and planned for a time when they would need to be cared for.

One day, Marianne said, “Ouch!” Chip asked, “What’s the matter, baby?” She said, “I just had this sharp pain in my abdomen.” Chip picked up the phone and called a physician who lived down the street. He handed the phone to Marianne who described what she was feeling. The neighbor asked that Marianne come to her office in the morning. Chip asked a young associate to take his morning appointments. Marianne had her assistant reschedule clients. When they went in, the doctor did an ultrasound and showed Marianne on the screen that there was some kind of mass. Chip and Marianne were shocked. Their neighbor called in favors and got Marianne in for scans and bloodwork that afternoon. The news was catastrophic. Marianne had a very aggressive cancer that had already metastasized in her ribs, sternum, and hips. Marianne went quickly.

For the first time in his life, Chip was all alone. His parents and Marianne’s had all died in the 1990s. Chip took a leave of absence from the firm. He hardly ate. Of course, they had a large insurance policy on each other, so money was no problem. The house was paid for. Neighbors dropped by at first and brought food. He froze some and ended up throwing away a lot of it. Chip was paralyzed. The service at a cemetery had been simple with a rent-a-preacher who said pretty words, read a poem, and offered innocuous thoughts about eternity and a god Chip didn’t know. Chip and Marianne had planned for old age and for every scenario except what had happened. Chip didn’t shave. He hardly showered. He had a maid drop in to clean and do laundry. Her husband mowed and trimmed the yard to the gratitude of fussy neighbors. No one ever saw Chip. He grew more depressed and sent an email letter of resignation to his firm, giving his books and clients to a competent younger associate. In short, he cashed out his stake in the firm and gave the proceeds to St. Jude’s Cancer Hospital in Memphis. He thought Marianne would have approved.

The neighborhood grapevine was active. “Has anyone seen Chip outside the house? Did you know he just quit the law firm? The maid and the yard man show up every week. Has anyone tried to contact Chip? He doesn’t answer his phone or emails. He won’t come to the door. The maid and the yard man don’t speak English, and they don’t answer questions. He must be alive.”

Finally, Martha, the doctor that had found Marianne’s cancer, called and left a message that she wanted to check on Chip. She walked over to his house, entered the backyard through an open gate. She saw Chip on the patio, staring off into space. He looked horrible. She said, “I’ve been concerned about you, Chip. Frankly, all the neighbors are. Marianne and you are much loved. Every child in the neighborhood has asked if you’re OK. Have you eaten anything today?” Chip just shook his head. Martha said, “Let’s go into the kitchen, and I’ll find something to fix.” She found one onion, one potato, and two eggs. Once the onion and potatoes started to cook, Chip’s mouth actually began to water. Martha fried two eggs over hard with a broken yoke. A little salt and pepper, and she set the plate before Chip. “Doctor’s orders. Eat.” And he did. She found a can of frozen orange juice, mixed it with water, and poured Chip a glass. He drank. “Is there coffee?” He said, “Keurig.” She made a cup and told him to drink. She said, “Tell me about it.”

Chip began slowly and, then, the words began to pour out of him. Martha was a good listener. She nodded and kept good eye contact. At one point, she placed her hand on his. He began to weep. He said, “No one has touched me since the day of Marianne’s funeral. I’m all alone in the universe. I wasn’t ready. What happened was unimaginable, Martha. How could my beautiful wife, my best friend, my whole world be dead and gone? It makes no sense. I won’t say it’s not fair, because that sounds so childish. But Marianne took good care of herself and me. Now, she’s dead and gone. I’m so alone. I’m all alone. We were supposed to grow old together. What now?”

Martha asked, “I gather you don’t have a church or a pastor, Chip.” He said, “No. I never saw the point. I was raised by people who had no faith, no God. What little contact I had with churches and with a campus pastor did nothing to convince me that God, if he was there, is necessary.” Martha asked, “What about Marianne?” Chip said, “When we first met, she was a churchgoer. She had a better experience with God, but over the years she figured out I wasn’t interested. So, she adapted to my world. Oh, she insisted that we help the less fortunate, especially children, but I think when she found out we couldn’t have a baby, and after we really went through a lot, I think she lost her faith completely. I know I even tried to pray, but nothing came of it. If there’s a God, he doesn’t really care about us. That’s the conclusion I think we both came to. Now this!”

Martha said, “I’m glad you are sharing this with me, Chip.” He said, “I’ve missed talking to my best friend. I miss her so much, Martha.” He began to cry again. Martha said, “I’d like to tell you a bit more about myself. My father was a pastor. He was kind, genuine, and caring, but the work can be hard. Dad was of the generation that smoking was what adults did. It was his stress relief. Suddenly, when he was in his 40s, he dropped dead. A massive heart attack. They didn’t have much insurance. We lived in a parsonage. All of a sudden, we were all alone without Dad. We had to move. Mom had studied nursing but never finished the program, so she went back to school. We moved in with her parents in another state where we knew only them. I was in that awkward stage, not fully pubescent, with no friends. Mom cried a lot but she set her mind on finishing her nursing degree. So, she was gone a lot to classes and labs. Grandpa was a farmer, very Germanic, kind, godly, but not given to public displays of affection. My Dad had hugged me every day and told me he loved me. I was so alone. My world was destroyed in an eye blink. I thought it would be better to die and stop the pain.”

Chip asked, “So what did you do?” Martha said, “I tried to pray, but the words wouldn’t come to me. My Mom wasn’t able to help. But I met this girl who lived in a small house down the road. She said her Dad had been killed by a drunk driver. She told me her world had been shattered. She would go to her Dad’s grave next to their country church and cry. She said she would ask God, ‘Why?’ She said one day an old woman was tending to some antique roses that grew along the graveyard fence. The woman came over to her, hugged her, and said, ‘Do you know that hymn, What a Friend We Have in Jesus?’ The old woman said that Jesus wept at his friend’s grave just like she was doing. The old woman said, ‘Did you know that Jesus was all alone the night before He died? And that some of His closest friends betrayed or abandoned him?’ The girl told me that she said she might have heard that. So, the old woman told her that Jesus isn’t just a man like other men. She told her that Jesus is God’s Son and that He was born to destroy the power of everything wrong in the world even evil and death itself. That the only way Jesus could do that was by suffering and dying on the cross. In short, God sent His Son to take away the sins of the world. God’s love of broken people is greater even than His hatred of all the world’s sin.”

Chip said, “Do you believe that, Martha? I mean, you’re a doctor. You’ve studied science. You’re a very logical person, obviously top notch in your field. It all sounds too good to be true. I still remember this campus pastor teaching us that the Bible was full of myths and fairy tales.”

Martha said, “Yes, I heard the same lies from so-called religious leaders who have no real faith in God. Instead, they promote doubts and destroy people’s hope and lives. I could have ended up there, but God sent that girl who had lost her father, too. And, we began to talk, and read the Bible together, and pray. Then, I wasn’t all alone, and I started going to worship with her, and though I’ve never stopped missing my Dad, I am certain I will see him again. I do believe that Jesus is God’s Son, who destroyed the power of sin, death, and the devil. I won’t ever know in this life why my Dad died so young, but I believe Jesus is risen from the dead. And I will be raised bodily from the dead and live forever in Paradise. My Dad will be there, too. So, Chip, were you ever baptized?” He said, “No, I never saw the point.” Martha said, “The point is that God wants you to be His forever and to see Marianne again.” Chip said, “You think she’s with God.” Martha said, “I do, Chip. Marianne and I had some deep talks. I prayed with her. She died trusting that Jesus had died her death, and that she would live in Paradise. She asked me to speak with you about this when I could. She loved you so much and didn’t want to leave you.”

Chip wept as Martha held his hand. She said, “I wasn’t ready. My friend wasn’t ready. You weren’t ready. But God sent my friend to me at the right time just as God sent that old woman to her at the right time. Chip, I will be here to listen, to talk, and pray with you. Please keep an open heart and mind. Marianne hoped you would be baptized. She said, ‘I want Chip to trust Jesus.’”

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

©Samuel David Zumwalt
szumwalt54@gmail.com
St. Matthew’s Ev. Lutheran Church (AALC)
Wilmington, North Carolina USA