{"id":25659,"date":"2025-11-26T17:02:49","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T16:02:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/?p=25659"},"modified":"2025-11-26T17:02:49","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T16:02:49","slug":"romans-1311-14-matthew-2436-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/romans-1311-14-matthew-2436-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Romans 13:11-14, Matthew 24:36-4"},"content":{"rendered":"

The First Sunday of Advent | 30.11.2025 | Romans 13:11-14, Matthew 24:36-4 | Ryan Mills |<\/strong><\/h3>\n

A Sermon on Romans 13:11-14 and Matthew 24:36-44, by The Rev. Dr. Ryan Mills.<\/p>\n

11<\/sup>Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers;\u00a012<\/sup>the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light;\u00a013<\/sup>let us live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy.\u00a014<\/sup>Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires. (Romans 13:11-14, NRSV).<\/p>\n

[Jesus said to the disciples,]\u00a036<\/sup>\u201cAbout that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.\u00a037<\/sup>For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.\u00a038<\/sup>For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark,\u00a039<\/sup>and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man.\u00a040<\/sup>Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left.\u00a041<\/sup>Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left.\u00a042<\/sup>Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.\u00a043<\/sup>But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into.\u00a044<\/sup>Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.\u201d (Matthew 24:36-44, NRSV).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son +, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.<\/em><\/p>\n

Welcome to Trinity on this First Sunday of Advent, the New Year\u2019s Day of the Church\u2019s year. When our son John was small, one of his favorite things to play with was an old-fashioned alarm clock with the bells on the top. And I remember once as he adjusted the hands to set off the bells, he called out in a voice of perfectly-mixed worry and anticipation: \u201cUh-oh, Look! When this hand is on this number and that hand is on that number it will be 30 o\u2019clock, and time to wake up!\u201d But that mix of apprehension and anticipation is what this new season of Advent is all about, and what our lessons today unveil before us. For the clock of this old world is ticking down, and as we await the coming of Lord Jesus again in glory we ought to have some apprehension, but an even greater anticipation and joy. When one hand is on that number and one on the other, Christ will be on his way, he will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead. So even if we don\u2019t know the *when* of it in any way, we know the *what*, we know the *who*, so \u201cWake up!\u201d our lessons tell us today, awake from the sleep of doubt and sin, because Jesus Christ is coming soon!<\/p>\n

Jesus tells us right off the bat today that about that day and hour of his final return in glory no one knows: not the angels in heaven, not even he the Son knows, but only the Father. And this is the first thing we need to say when we look towards the End–that no one knows! When is 30 o\u2019clock, anyway? Every few years someone thinks they\u2019ve predicted the exact end of the world\u2014a man in South Africa famously predicted on TikTok Christ\u2019s return would take place on September 23 of this year\u2014but even if we laugh at such attempts we can sometimes sympathize, with our own weary sense that the craziness of this broken world can\u2019t go on much longer. Poets chime in, they say the world will end in fire or ice, or with a bang or a whimper, but Jesus says it all ends in him, it finds its goal in him, and that when we come to the end the end is him. And no one knows when it will be, neither the angels nor even he<\/em> knows, and if he doesn\u2019t know, no one else knows, especially you and me!<\/p>\n

But then Jesus describes what the end will be like, and instead of some kind of apocalyptic end of the world scenario, it all sounds kind of normal. Jesus compares it to the days of Noah: a time when violence and bloodshed was great on the earth, like now, when indifference to God was the norm, like now, when people were obsessed with eating and drinking and their relationships, like now, and then out of nowhere came the cataclysm of the flood as a complete surprise. So too will be his coming, Jesus says.<\/p>\n

Jesus asks us: if you knew what time your house was being burgled one night, if you knew the exact moment the burglars would break in, wouldn\u2019t you be ready and waiting? But the fact is we don\u2019t know the hour, we don\u2019t know when 30 o\u2019clock will come! We don\u2019t know, all we do know is that we will be surprised at the hour, it appears there\u2019s no other signs or disasters or predictions that need to come true, all prophecy has been fulfilled, and so all that\u2019s left is for Christ to come, and it could happen at any moment, today even. You\u2019ll be surprised, Jesus says, so keep awake. Martin Luther once said we should live like Jesus died this morning, and rose this afternoon, and is coming again this evening. Even if Christ does not return for a billion more years, there will in fact be an hour long before then when the world ends for each of us: at our death, with our last breath the world is ended at least for us, so live like you\u2019re going to be surprised by my coming, Jesus says.<\/p>\n

If Jesus makes us a little apprehensive today, then it\u2019s only for the sake of the joy of his coming. Romans tells us that Salvation is nearer to us now than when we first came to believe\u2026salvation <\/em>is nearer. Not disaster, not the end of the world, not righteous judgment, though all these things may come with it, but first and foremost salvation. We\u2019re told today the night is almost gone, the day is so near! And this is how faith is, isn\u2019t it, that you can\u2019t wait to see your beloved one! You need that coming, that closeness, that sense of the time being near before the door opens and you see them face to face\u2014even if the arrival makes you nervous for good reason! Those of you who had guests coming in for Thanksgiving, you know the feeling, you look out the window, you count down the hours, it\u2019s all anticipation, you want that time to come–maybe at the end of the weekend you were counting down the time \u2018till they left too–but seriously, you just can\u2019t wait because of the joy, even if it brings apprehension with it, even if it means judgment on a house that hasn\u2019t been cleaned all week, it\u2019s worth it, to see, to embrace, to be held by the one you can\u2019t wait to see!<\/p>\n

You just can\u2019t wait, though \u201cyou do not know on what day your Lord is coming.\u201d Did you catch that? You do not know on what day your<\/em> Lord is coming. Not just any old Lord who is disinterested or uncaring, someone else\u2019s Lord, but your own Lord, the one who calls you his own, the one who gave himself away to death and back to make you his very own.<\/p>\n

Your Lord is coming, who was born of a human mother, your Lord with ten little fingers and ten little toes like you, who snuggled and nursed upon his mother, who grew up in every way like us except for sin.<\/p>\n

Your Lord is coming, who walked through the end of the world for you on that Good Friday, as he was beaten and cursed and betrayed with a kiss, as he opened his arms in suffering for all and to all who would come to him in faith. Your Lord is coming, whose world here was ended so that yours could continue forever with him.<\/p>\n

Your Lord is coming, who after that long weekend of waiting on the third day rose again, and who promises that all those who believe in him shall never die, who upholds you in love and will bring you through his coming to the brightness of his kingdom where all will be at peace and all made right and where you will live and reign with him forever.<\/p>\n

Your Lord is coming, even right now: coming in his living Word, and in this gathering of those who can\u2019t wait for him; coming in the needy around us waiting to be served; coming in his true body and in his precious blood, assurance on your tongue that when he comes again you will be his own, he will take you to himself, when you come to the end you will find that the end is just him.<\/p>\n

Because, Uh, oh. Look! It\u2019s almost 30 o\u2019clock, and time to wake up! We don\u2019t know when. But we sure know who: our Lord Jesus is coming. Your Lord Jesus is coming, for you belong to him. Come, Lord Jesus. Amen.<\/p>\n

And the Peace of God which passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, Amen.<\/p>\n

\n

The Rev. Dr. Ryan Mills
\nNew Haven, Connecticut<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The First Sunday of Advent | 30.11.2025 | Romans 13:11-14, Matthew 24:36-4 | Ryan Mills | A Sermon on Romans 13:11-14 and Matthew 24:36-44, by The Rev. Dr. Ryan Mills. 11Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25641,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,41,605,727,157,853,108,110,944,919,349,3,109,212],"tags":[],"beitragende":[],"predigtform":[],"predigtreihe":[],"bibelstelle":[],"class_list":["post-25659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-matthaeus","category-roemer","category-1-advent","category-archiv","category-beitragende","category-bibel","category-current","category-engl","category-kapitel-13-chapter-13-roemer","category-kapitel-24-chapter-24-matthaeus","category-kasus","category-nt","category-predigten","category-ryan-mills"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25659"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25659\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25660,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25659\/revisions\/25660"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25659"},{"taxonomy":"beitragende","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/beitragende?post=25659"},{"taxonomy":"predigtform","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/predigtform?post=25659"},{"taxonomy":"predigtreihe","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/predigtreihe?post=25659"},{"taxonomy":"bibelstelle","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bibelstelle?post=25659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}