Matthew 24:40 So stay awake, alert. You have no idea what day your Master will show up. (The Message Bible)
My father ran heavy equipment for road building and maintenance; steam rollers, bulldozers and the like. We never knew exactly what time he would get home from work. It all depended on where the job was that day and what they ran into during the course of it. One of my earliest memories, and I’m talking about well before I was school age, is of looking out the window or, in the summer, running up the block and looking for my Dad’s truck to be heading down the street towards our house at the end of the day. I never knew exactly when that would be, sometimes it was pretty late (at least to my preschool way of viewing time), but he always came and then we would have dinner together. Advent is all about waiting and that is why this verse is used on the first Sunday. It refers to Christ’s “Second” coming, what we affirm in the Apostle’s Creed when we say “he sits at the right hand of God from where he will come to judge the living and the dead.” When? We don’t know. We do know that in the meantime God comes to us in many other ways; in the Bible, in prayer, in worship, in other people, in giving of ourselves, etc. Jesus came as a baby at Christmas. He will come again in glory. Will he come to you this Advent, this week? Will you be awake and alert?
Logan Memorial Presbyterian Church 