An Advent Wake-Up Call

Dec 3

The Fourth Sunday of Advent
November 30, 2025

The Rev. Josh Evans
St. John’s Lutheran Church
Albany, NY

For the second year in a row,
we at St. John’s, along with an array of other churches across denominations,
have been observing an extended Advent season
of not just the traditional four weeks
but also the three weeks prior.
After all, our texts for the past couple of weeks
before “Advent proper”
indeed sound rather Advent-like –
concerned with things like the reign of God and end-times –
all calling us to keep awake and be ready.

At St. John’s,
as we observe the fourth Sunday of Advent,
today the rest of the church (finally) catches up,
joining us in our Advent observance.
Today is really Advent,
and golly, does it ever like it.

“Wake up!” our texts scream at us –
“the moment for you to wake from sleep,” Paul writes,
while Isaiah prophesies about God’s impending judgment
on a people who had strayed from God’s teachings
and about a future day when war and violence will be no more.
More emphatically and even with a tinge of dread,
Jesus calls us to keep awake
because no one knows the day or hour.
Even our prayer of the day
calls on Christ himself to “stir up [his] power” –
what does that mean? –
getting ready for something unexpected,
something out of the blue.

This is a season of waking up,
of being called to attention,
of making ready
for the coming of Immanuel, God-with-us.

Advent is like a wake-up call:
Stir up your power, Lord Christ, and come…
Keep awake…
Be ready…
A time for beating swords into plowshares,
for studying peace, and un-learning war…

***

Seven years ago tomorrow,
on the eve of the traditional First Sunday of Advent,
at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in (you guessed it) Chicago,
I was ordained into the ministry of Word and Sacrament.

If you’ve ever been to an ordination,
or if you watched Presiding Bishop Yehiel Curry’s recent installation,
one part of the liturgy you might be familiar with
is the laying on of hands –
as each pastor or deacon present is invited to come forward
to offer a brief individual blessing.
Most say something pretty boring like:
“Blessings on your ordination…”
“Blessings on your ministry…”
“God is with you…”

Like I said, boring.

But not The Rev. Dr. Mark Bangert,
former worship and church professor
at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago,
whose blessing was distinctly Mark Bangert:
“Pour down, O heavens, from above,
and let the skies rain down righteousness.”

Talk about a wake-up call.

These words,
as I would later discover,
come from an ancient chant of the church,
based on the writings of the prophet Isaiah,
known in Latin as the Rorate Coeli,
the Advent Prose –
a lesser-known but nonetheless stunning liturgical text
well-suited for this season of waking up, preparing, and making ready,
speaking with honesty of the human condition
of which we hardly need reminding
and of the prophets’ longing for the coming Messiah
who will redeem all creation.

In one contemporary translation
we read: