Preacher's Notes - Waking Up to Advent
The First Sunday of Advent (Year A)
Romans 13:11–14 slides right into Advent’s rhythm because it speaks the language of waiting, anticipation, and the push toward living a better life. Advent isn’t a mere countdown to Christmas. It’s the season in which hope and expectation are drawn out, the call of hearts to remain awake and attuned to what God is doing. And Paul repeats that same urgency in his words. He reminds the early believers that the night is nearly over and the day is approaching, and this sense of time pressing in conditions the whole Advent atmosphere. Advent creates a sense of impending arrival—of something happening, something that will change everything—and Paul appeals to that feeling when he writes the moment has arrived to wake up from sleep. He is not talking about physical sleep but the kind of drifting that happens when people move through life numbed by habit, distraction, or complacency. Advent pushes against that spiritual drowsiness, calling people to look up, pay attention, and prepare their lives for the coming of Christ.
Paul’s imagery of night and day fits perfectly with how Advent works. The season is full of candles lit one by one, hymns that stretch toward hope, and stories of long expectations. In Romans 13, night represents everything that belongs to the old world—self-centeredness, division, and desires that pull people away from God’s purposes. Day represents the new world breaking in through Christ. Advent sits right at that crossroads, acknowledging the world’s shadows but insisting that dawn is already spreading across the horizon. Paul’s call to “lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light” sounds almost like an Advent litany. It invites reflection on what needs to be left behind as the light grows and what habits might need to be exchanged for something that looks more like Jesus’ way of life.
Paul’s instruction to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ” offers another strong Advent connection. Advent is about preparing room—not just in imagination or in worship but in actual living. Paul is saying that this preparation involves a kind of clothing, a daily choosing to be wrapped in the character of Christ. This is more than behavior management; it is a posture of identity. As Advent moves toward Christmas, the story of Christ’s birth shows what it looks like when God steps into human life. On the other hand, Paul answers here by directing believers to enter Christ’s life—to let his compassion, humility, and self-giving love become the fabric of their own existence. Advent has renewed and extended that call. It’s a reminder that the incarnation is not just a past event but an ongoing invitation.
Ultimately, Romans 13:11–14 does join the Advent story by stirring hearts to readiness. It nudges believers to wakefulness, honesty, and hope. It frames the waiting not as passive longing but as active preparation. Advent’s candles, prayers, and hymns mark the journey toward the dawn, and Paul’s words give language to the longing and the resolve that shape that journey. The night is fading, he says, and the day is almost here—so live as people who expect the light.
FOR FURTHER EXPLORATION
How Christians can discern where they have been sleepwalking through faith and where God might be stirring them to renewed attention.
How hope becomes a moral force that shifts priorities—relationships, speech, generosity, restraint, and vocation.
Ponder more deeply the theological mystery of Advent—God becomes like us so we may become like God.