𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗔𝗱𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗚𝗼𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗹

on the Second Sunday after Advent, 2025

Last Sunday the Gospel that was read to us wasn’t very Christmasy, or even pre-Christmasy. It was the story of Palm Sunday, the day our Lord entered Jerusalem as the people spread palm branches and their overcoats on the ground before the donkey that carried Him into the Holy City. They shouted “Hosanna in the highest! Blessed is He that cometh in the Name of the Lord!” The Gospel for the First Sunday in Advent concludes with Christ cleansing the temple, driving out the moneychangers from its precincts with a whip. This isn’t the Jesus non-Christians like to think of (nor many Christians, for that matter). They want a well-intentioned milquetoast who says, “Can’t we all just get along?” Jesus with a whip – 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚’𝙨the stained-glass window I want to see.

The choice of last Sunday’s Gospel – and this Sunday’s too, with its grim prophecy of the End of the World – isn’t the result of some confusion of the calendar. Fourteen to fifteen hundred years ago, when Advent took its form, our forebears in the faith knew what they were up to, and sometimes we’re just a little too self-absorbed to see as profoundly as did they. Last Sunday – “Doom Sunday” – is about the King coming to judge His own. The heir of David comes to the City of David riding a donkey as did David. He comes as King. Christmas tells of the King Who came; Advent tells of the King Who is coming.

This Sunday the Gospel tells us that what we say in the Creed, “He will come again, in glory, to judge both the quick and the dead” is no pious platitude. In Sunday’s Gospel, our Lord doesn’t mince His words: the world we live in, of supertankers and grocery stores and godlike AI will someday come crashing to a cataclysmic and complete end. When it does, it will be because He is returning to put a stop to our stupidity and open our eyes and make All Things New – us most of all.

We conclude the final weeks of Advent looking back: celebrating the Lord’s first coming as a helpless Child in Bethlehem, a baby born in a barn. But we begin Advent with two weeks looking forward: waiting for the Lord’s Second Coming as the Judge of all His creation, over which He gave us dominion. When the worlds of the universe are blown to bits and consumed in fire, it’s safe to assume the Lord Christ is not pleased with how we’ve exercised the dominion He shared with us. Its complete destruction is a sign that we’ve ruined His gift beyond repair.

But Advent is both prophecy and promise. As with all His Gospel, Advent is Good News. The Gospel – the Good News – of Advent is that despite our failures, personal and common, the coming end is not merely a new beginning. It will be the fulfilling of all things – not their renewal, bur their 𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘰𝘴 – their becoming what they were intended to be all along. After His judgment, for the first time we will really see ourselves as we are, and we’ll discover the true depths of the Love He has for us – and all the rest of His creation - when He makes all things New.