A homily for the First Sunday of Advent, November 30, 2025
Isaiah 2:1-5, Romans 13:11-14, Matthew 24:37-44
The folks who run Starbucks, Burger King, movie theaters and especially Cinnabon, among thousands of similar outfits, are geniuses.
They have made it impossible for even the most strong-willed among us to pass by their kiosks and shops without pining — yearning! — for their products. Regardless of how bad they may be for us.
My heavens, they smell so good! And those aromas are so pervasive, the companies must have figured out ways to pump them right into our nostrils. Those fragrances, those sweet or buttery or flame-broiled perfumes knock us over; they grab us by our noses and drag us to the sales counter.
Genius.
The ultimate genius of the strategy is not only that their aromas and flashing lights and bright colors lure us like trout in Montana streams, but also that they light our short fuses of impatience. The impatience that is emblematic of 21st-century American life.
We talk a lot about, and even have medicines to cope with, short attention spans. But despite having a special season of waiting — Advent — we are sadly incapable of slowing down. Even when the rose bushes that have resisted this year’s early frosts and chills beg us to stop and smell them (ah, clichés…), we don’t.
Because this is the question we ask ourselves: If we don’t rush now, if we don’t Black Friday and Small Biz Saturday and Cyber Monday and Giving Tuesday and Last-Minute 70-Percent-Off Sale ourselves to death, how can there be a Christmas this year? Or next year, or the year after, or after that, and after that?
Hmmm.
Maybe this year’s early winter chill is as metaphorical as it is meteorological.
Maybe the secondary message of Advent — after knowing that God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life — maybe the secondary message is that Christmas is worth waiting for.
Worth chilling out for.
Worth ignoring the sales pitches and the anxiety-inducing frantic calls from TV, radio and internet to prop up our supposedly failing economy by snagging the last three 65-inch HDTVs at $275 each, on sale only today.
Worth extending Thanksgiving by giving thanks for everyone and everything we already have. By giving thanks to everyone we already have. And especially worth extending the “giving” part of Thanksgiving by sharing our time, talent and treasure with the world around us.
Ah, time. There’ll always be too little of it, as our Scriptures remind us today and on the First Sunday of Advent every year. Its scarcity makes it rare. Its rarity makes time our most precious commodity.
So let’s not race through the time we have with each other. Let’s savor our fleeting moments with family and friends, the family and friends God gave us.
Christmas will be here soon enough. That’s then. Let’s live our God-given lives now.
