First Sunday of Advent

Isaiah 2: 1-5
The vision of Isaiah son of Amoz, concerning Judah and Jerusalem.
In the days to come
the mountain of the Temple of the Lord
shall tower above the mountains
and be lifted higher than the hills.
All the nations will stream to it,
peoples without number will come to it; and they will say:

‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the Temple of the God of Jacob
that he may teach us his ways
so that we may walk in his paths;
since the Law will go out from Zion,
and the oracle of the Lord from Jerusalem’.

He will wield authority over the nations
and adjudicate between many peoples;
these will hammer their swords into ploughshares,
their spears into sickles.
Nation will not lift sword against nation,
there will be no more training for war.

O House of Jacob, come,
let us walk in the light of the Lord.

Psalm 121
I rejoiced when I heard them say:
“Let us go to God's house.”
And now our feet are standing
within your gates, O Jerusalem.
Jerusalem is built as a city
strongly compact.
It is there that the tribes go up,
the tribes of the Lord.
For Israel's law it is,
there to praise the Lord's name.
There were set the thrones of judgement
of the house of David.
For the peace of Jerusalem pray:
“Peace be to your homes!
May peace reign in your walls,
in your palaces, peace!”
For love of my brethren and friends
I say: “Peace upon you.”
For love of the house of the Lord
I will ask for your good.

Romans 13: 11-14
Besides, you know ‘the time’ has come: you must wake up now: our salvation is even nearer than it was when we were converted. The night is almost over, it will be daylight soon – let us give up all the things we prefer to do under cover of the dark; let us arm ourselves and appear in the light. Let us live decently as people do in the daytime: no drunken orgies, no promiscuity or licentiousness, and no wrangling or jealousy. Let your armour be the Lord Jesus Christ; forget about satisfying your bodies with all their cravings.

Matthew 24: 37-44
Jesus said, ‘As it was in Noah’s day, so will it be when the Son of Man comes. For in those days before the Flood people were eating, drinking, taking wives, taking husbands, right up to the day Noah went into the ark, and they suspected nothing till the Flood came and swept all away. It will be like this when the Son of Man comes. Then of two men in the fields one is taken, one left; of two women at the millstone grinding, one is taken, one left.
‘So stay awake, because you do not know the day when your master is coming. You may be quite sure of this that if the householder had known at what time of the night the burglar would come, he would have stayed awake and would not have allowed anyone to break through the wall of his house. Therefore, you too must stand ready because the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.’

This is the first day of the liturgical year. It marks the start of the season of Advent. In Advent we look forward to and prepare for the coming of our saviour: Jesus.

Today all of the readings have something to tell us about this coming and how we can go about preparing for it.

Isaiah here gives us a poetic description of the kingdom of God.

The psalm sings about the ideal city of Jerusalem (not the temporal Jerusalem we hear about in the news so much these days, but the spiritual Jerusalem we sing of in William Blake's poem).

St. Paul in his letter to the church in Rome gives instructions about how best to ensure we are prepared for the coming of Jesus. Here we get only a snippet of advice and as you can guess we'll get some more in the weeks to come.

In the gospel, Jesus himself explains not what is to come but the manner of its coming. He likens it to the well-known story of Noah: nobody expected the great flood, but it came all of a sudden taking people unawares. He tells us that this is how the Son of Man (i.e. Jesus) will return.

• What kind of world is Isaiah describing?
• Is the world we live in today like it?

• What do you think about Jesus's description of the great flood?
• What about his description of his coming?

• Can you think of examples where we ignore his advice?
• in the world in general?
• in our family?

• How can we put his advice into practice?
• over the next few weeks until Christmas?
• in our church
• in our family?
• generally in our lives?