Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep.
~Romans 13:11
 
“But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father… Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.”
~Matthew 24:36, 44
 
What time is it anyway? And by what clock? What measure shall we use?
 
Here is one measure. Advent marks the beginning of a new church year and, with it, the hope for something new as any beginning invites. This season comes once a year, though. It comes every year. Why is it we always seem to be hoping for something new? Why is the present so unsettling?
 
It depends on where you sit, of course. If you are just concerned about yourself and you’re doing fine, that’s one thing. But once God expands our perspective, once God grows our loves outward, there is, of course, always more to hope for, long for, work for. There is always more to be done.
 
The wolf and the lamb haven’t settled in together yet, by any measure. Human tendencies will be what they are. Greed always seems to be in season in one form or another. Self-interest too.
 
But we can imagine. We can imagine something better. We can imagine the soldier coming home from war, and becoming the farmer, the protector of seedlings and all fragile life. And this is, at root, the hope of Advent. The refusal to settle with anything less than what can be. And the promise of this Gospel is that God has a hand in bringing it about. God is always bringing it. This is what God always does. This is the Advent of our God.
 
So we watch. We wait. We hope. We stay awake…keeping vigil with the creation that is always ready for something new, something longed for, something built into the very heart of what she is and who we are.
 
Enter into worship.
 
Readings: Isaiah 2:1-5 † Psalm 122 † Romans 13:11-14 † Matthew 24:36-44
 
About the Art, Michael Cook, Swords into Plowshares, Hallowed Art. Retrieved on November 18, 2025 from: https://www.hallowed-art.co.uk/product/swords-into-ploughshares/.
 
Artist Notes: The painting was commissioned by Melbourne Parish Council to commemorate the centenary of the Armistice.

I will raise up shepherds over [my people] who will shepherd them, and they shall not fear any longer, or be dismayed, nor shall any be missing, says the Lord.
~Jeremiah 23:4

He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
~Colossians 1:17
 
[Jesus] replied, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”
~Luke 23:43
 
Christ the King Sunday, or the more amenable Reign of Christ was instituted in the lectionary cycle of biblical readings in 1925. It was enfolded into the Presbyterian calendar for the first time in the early 80s. It’s aristocratic imagery amid a progressive, democratic, partisan setting, requires thoughtful contextualization. Yet its vision of Christ ascended, and now seated at God’s right hand still offers a vigorous check for any tendency to limit our allegiance and our hope to earthly powers, principalities, or personalities.
 
To claim that Christ deserves our allegiance more than any earthly leader or political party is to commit ourselves to a radical notion in the present time. It is to claim that ultimate power and ultimate security lies beyond ourselves and our affiliations and tribes and philosophies and even our economics. It is to make the claim that Christ and this Way can be trusted more than anything else to overcome evil and despair and get us where we truly want to go.  
 
And yet, to trust in this claim is to claim a paradox. The poetic nature of Christ’s reign is further revealed as we turn the page of the liturgical calendar to the new year and to Advent and discover just what kind of a rule and ruler God had in mind.
 
Enter into worship.
 
Readings: Jeremiah 23:1-6 † Psalm 46 † Colossians 1:11-20 † Luke 23:33-43
 
About the Art, Swanson, John August. Festival of Lights, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=56546 [retrieved November 10, 2025]. Original source: Estate of John August Swanson, https://www.johnaugustswanson.com/.
 
Artist Notes: It is a dark night with a star-filled sky. Tiny lights are seen on the distant hillsides, gradually becoming figures carrying candles as they come closer to the foreground of the painting. I thought about liturgical processions I had seen. I remembered walking with groups in candlelight for peace in Central America. The symbol of candles shining in the dark night is powerful to me. Star-filled nights are images that help give me a sense of the place we are in the universe. My original thought was that this would be a procession of children from every city and town. The children would bring light and peace to the world. They would gather from many places, joining an unending procession towards peace and nonviolence for all children of the world.

For I am about to create new heavens
and a new earth;
the former things shall not be remembered
or come to mind.
~Isaiah 65:17
 
When some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God, he said, “As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.”
~Luke 21:5-6
 
So which is it, new creation or destruction? Is this anything but an endless cycle of building and tearing down—two steps forward, two steps back? Three steps? How do we measure progress anyway in light of this story of faith? What kind of a future is God building, and what is our participation in it?
 
David Lang’s 2005 again (after ecclesiastes) comes to mind…again:
 
people come and people go – the earth goes on and on
the sun rises, the sun sets – it rushes to where it rises again
the wind blow round, round and round – it stops, it blows again
all the rivers run to the sea, but the sea is never full – from where the rivers run they run again
 
these things make me so tired – I can’t speak, I can’t see, I can’t hear
what happened before will happen again
I forgot it all before.
I will forget it all again.
 
But we don’t forget it…for long. We don’t give up. We keep going, keep pushing, keep hoping, keep trusting, keep learning, keep keeping. What is this in our prophets and poets that persists? What is this in us that keeps longing, keeps living for a better world for all of us?  What is it if it isn’t the Spirit of Life that believes, deeply, that Jesus’ words (Luke 21:19) are true: “By your endurance you will gain your souls”?
 
Enter into worship.
 
Readings: Isaiah 65:17-25 † Isaiah 12 † 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13 † Luke 21:5-19
 
About the Art, Naïve drawing in the style of an ancient map of Jerusalem, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=55326 [retrieved November 4, 2025]. Original source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/46811478@N03/6300357781/.  

Who is left among you that saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Is it not in your sight as nothing? Yet now take courage…
​~Haggai 2:3-4a
 
Jesus said to them, “Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. Indeed they cannot die anymore,.
~Luke 20:34-36a
 
The task of prophetic ministry is to nurture, nourish, and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture around us.
~Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination
 
What we have here is a failure of imagination. The Israelites return from exile in Babylon to a city that is a shadow of its former self, and all they can see is destruction. They cannot imagine a future that is not only rebuilt, but a better version of itself, seeded by a memory of God’s provision and fidelity even in the worst of times, watered and fertilized with lessons learned and new commitments to self and neighbor. The Sadducees cannot imagine a future in which everyone has enough, in which all humans regardless of gender or race or background have access to the best of what the world has to offer, so they resort to methods of control and power, to “gotcha” questions that resist a better future.
 
The prophet, according to Brueggemann, does not contend against such resistance with use of force, but armed with much more powerful weapons: imagination and creativity. This too is a time for imagination, for the naming and living into a better future by way of faith in a God whose specialty is nothing less than this—a new thing. Do you not perceive it?
 
Enter into worship.
 
Readings: Haggai 1:15b-2:9 † Psalm 98 † 2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17 † Luke 20:27-38
 
About the Art, 2007 photo of painting Resurrection Icon, Chora Church, Instanbul via Wickimedia. Retrieved on October 27, 2025 from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chora_Church_Constantinople_2007_013.jpg.