Preparing for the Unexpected King

True preparation for Jesus' unexpected return involves fulfilling the law through love and putting on Christ.

This sermon was preached by Pastor Ted Carnahan for the First Sunday of Advent on November 30, 2025.

Grace, mercy, and peace be with all of you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

"But about that day and hour, no one knows, neither the angels of heaven nor the Son, but only the Father."

Our society, especially American society, is very focused on the kinds of things that we learn on television, on the radio, especially when it comes to religion. Too often, the way that we learn about the things of Christ is not in our own church, it's not from our own pastor, but it is from other sources.

Some of them are quite reliable and good, and others of them are likely to lead us astray. One example of the latter is the way in which we speak of the end of the world.

The End of the World in Matthew's Gospel

Jesus is teaching us about the end of the world today in our reading from Matthew's Gospel. As he speaks of the end of the world, first he says,

as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.

The Son of Man, of course, is language he is pulling in from the Old Testament, language which is messianic in nature. It's pointing to a Messiah, and it's pointing ultimately to himself. Jesus is speaking of himself in the third person here, and he's saying that the coming of the day of the Lord will be like the days of Noah.

Well, that doesn't sound so bad, does it?

Sings: "God said to Noah, 'there's gonna be a floody, floody.' Get those children out of the muddy, muddy."

The Reality of Noah's Story

Let's be honest about what's going on in the Noah story:

God looks upon creation, and especially the ways in which humanity has warped and twisted his intention for creation, how all of the universe has fallen as a result of the wickedness of human beings, and as a result, God has decided to make a complete end of all of them. God decides to declare his own holy war against humankind, and decides only to save one family.

I'm guessing that if you had Noah's ark decorations in the nursery of your home or children when they were little, that you didn't include all the people in the water drowning, saying, "help me, help me." It's kind of off-brand, isn't it?

Until the day that Noah entered the ark, everybody thought that things were going just fine, just dandy.

• They were getting married and having wedding feasts.
• They were harvesting and doing whatever the heck they wanted to. (That was part of the problem.)

And then, suddenly, it started to rain. And it didn't stop.

We hear about this idea of the end of the world, and so far it squares with what the apocalyptic folks on the radio say. They say that the end of the world is coming suddenly, and it's going to be a time of terror.

Then they start riffing on this idea that Jesus has:

• Two will be in the field, one will be taken, one will be left.
• Two women will be grinding meal together, one will be taken, one will be left.
• Keep awake!

Misconceptions of the Rapture

This is where the unscriptural and unchristian idea of the rapture comes from.

The idea that someday Jesus is going to come back, and the first thing he's going to do is he's going to grab a bunch of people out of the world and carry them up into heaven with himself, and then the world is going to go to hell in a handbasket. So you better be afraid!

Keep in mind that those who are taken in Jesus' parable here, if you'll call it that, are those who are being judged and found lacking.

• They were eating and drinking in the days before the flood, and then suddenly they were wiped out.
• In the same way, two women grinding meal together, the one who is taken is not the favored one! She's not the one that is excited and says, "Hooray, I get to be with my Lord!" She is the one who is wiped out by the flood, who is taken away immediately.
• Two in the field harvesting, one taken and one left. The one who is taken is not the one who is the good one, but rather the one who has found judgment.

The purpose of this is not to teach a rapture, where humans who have pleased God get to go up into the heights and watch the rest of the world get wiped out again, this time not with water but with fire, but instead to show us how suddenly Jesus will in fact return.

"Keep awake, therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming."

To make it clear this is what he's saying, at the end, he says:

"If the owner of the house had known at which part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and not have let his house be broken into."

You all know this to be true. If I said, "tonight, someone is going to break into your house," what would you do?

• Perhaps you would call the police and tell them, "I've received a threat against my house." They'd say, "okay, we'll increase patrols or maybe we'll park a car in front of your house for a couple hours and let one of the officers eat donuts there in the donut shop parking lot."
• Or, if you're more like me, you'd have your shotgun loaded and you'd be sitting in the front living room waiting for that door to open.

One way or another, you would be ready. You would be prepared.

The Sudden Coming of the Son of Man

"Therefore," Jesus says, "you also must be ready for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour" and then there will be no do-overs. He will come to judge and there will be no take-backs.

Yet, when we look at this, this is not a time for us to be afraid. Or rather, it's only a time for us to be afraid for those of us who are not committed to Jesus Christ. Because there will come judgment and the end will be a terrible one for those who are not in Christ, but for those who trust in the promises of the gospel, it will be good.

In fact, what God intends to do at the second coming of His Son, Jesus Christ, is to wipe every tear from every eye, to judge the nations with righteousness and justice, to arbitrate for many peoples and not just a few chosen.

He says famously, "they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks."

• Swords will no longer be used for cutting down people, but for cutting down wheat.
• Spears will be used no longer for stabbing people, but for pruning trees so that every person has their own vineyard.
• Nations shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.

This is a very different kind of coming than the first one. When the Lord came to destroy the earth in the days of Noah, the flood that He sent was a flood that wiped out humanity.

Here, this will be a flood of justice. The world will be made new. Those who are prepared to accept it will be welcomed into the new and coming kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Preparation Through Love

Therefore, if there is a coming kingdom, how should we prepare for it?

St. Paul has the answer for us:

Owe no one anything except to love one another, for those who love another has fulfilled the law.

Then he goes to the commandments, and he says things like:

• You shall not commit adultery
• You shall not murder
• You shall not steal
• You shall not covet
• And any other commandment are summed up in this word, "love your neighbor as yourself."

He's quoting Jesus directly here, and when Jesus himself put this teaching forward, love your neighbor as yourself, he wasn't coming up with something new. This is coming straight out of the Old Testament.

The important thing that he tells us is that there will be accountability for this. When it seems like the world is torn by war and rumors of war, when it seems that violence threatens to drown us, when it seems like there is no justice in this world, Jesus says, "I am coming, and I am coming soon."

We as Christians reply, "Amen. Come, Lord Jesus."

To prepare ourselves is to make ourselves more ready for the coming kingdom of Jesus Christ by striving:

• not to do wrong to our neighbors, because in this way "love is the fulfillment of the law."
• to do the things that are honorable, as in the day, not in reveling in drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy.
• to become the kind of person who is at home in the kingdom of God.

Putting on Christ

Paul sums it up this way:

Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires.

On this side of the return of Jesus, there will always be within us a war, a war of the Spirit against the flesh. And we should make no provision.

If we are to make war on anyone, let it be war upon ourselves and our desire to please ourselves instead of to please God. For the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour, and he will expect us to be ready.

• May you keep awake in this time of preparation.
• May you repent of your sin, because the coming justice of Jesus Christ is at hand.
• May you look with anticipation both to the cradle of our Lord Jesus Christ, the manger, and also to his return, where he will right every wrong and establish justice and fill the earth with his presence.

And may the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, keep your hearts and minds strong in Christ Jesus our Lord to life everlasting. Amen.