Gospel Reflection Sunday 30th November 2025 | First Sunday of Advent

With Fr Brian Maher OMI

Gospel Reflection Sunday 30th November 2025 | First Sunday of Advent

All of us know what waiting is like; we do it all the time. We wait for a bus, we wait for the birth of our child, we wait for the results of a scan, we wait to see the dentist, we wait for the bride to arrive, we wait for the game to begin. 
Whether mundane or exciting; anxious or peaceful; fearful or confident we know what waiting is like. However, while all waiting shares certain characteristics like looking forward or anticipation or expectation, the emotions it elicits are hugely different. 
Waiting even affects the way we experience time. If, for instance, we are watching an important football match and at the end we see there are eight minutes of injury time, our experience of passing time will be very different. If our team are narrowly winning, injury time will feel like an eternity. If our team are narrowly losing time will seem to pass at the speed of light.  

This week’s Gospel is also about waiting. But here is the question that needs answering: What kind of waiting is it, or in other words, what emotions do the words of the Gospel draw from you; joy or fear, peace or anxiety, excitement or agitation, keen interest or deadly boredom? 
Do you earnestly hope that the time described in this Gospel never comes, or do you long for it, hoping against hope that you are alive to witness it?  
“…for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.” Is this something to look forward to or something to dread? 

All of this is important because Advent is the time when we are asked to truly reflect on what emotions the coming birth of Jesus elicit in us. You see, the “Son of Man” mentioned three times in this week’s Gospel is the same person, Jesus, who arrives in our cribs on December 25th. The small child born in that stable in Bethlehem is the one who “…is coming at an hour you do not expect.” 
We don’t often think about it like this, but the birth of Jesus signalled an earth-shattering moment in the history of our world. When God entered our world as one of us, the clock began ticking towards the final, definitive coming of God’s Kingdom.  

I have mentioned ‘child thinking’ and ‘adult thinking’ a number of times in recent reflections. I did so to highlight how important it is for us to mature spiritually as well as physically and emotionally. We must listen to, and take seriously, the words of St. Paul, “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. But when I grew up I gave up childish ways…” (1 Corinthians 13:11) 
The Christmas story for a child (and I have no doubt we can all still remember the awe and mystery and happiness our childhood Christmases brought us) is a wonderland of stars, angels singing, Mary and Joseph tenderly guarding their newborn child while shepherds come to pay homage to the newborn King. 
It is a beautifully told story, capturing in colour and symbol the wonder and significance of the birth of Jesus. 

Viewed through the eyes of a child, we can stay with these images of singing, rejoicing, starlight, peace and a newborn child but even in these images the Gospel writers are inviting us to put on the glasses of adulthood and view the wider truth of what is happening. 
The reason the child was born in a stable in the first place was because the occupying Roman Empire had demanded a full census of those living within its borders. The sole purpose of doing this was so that more taxes could be imposed on those already living under its tyranny. 
The Gospels also inform us that the very first task faced by Jesus’ parents after his birth was to flee from the jealous rage of the insane King Herod, puppet of Rome. Even as the child is being born his future is mapped out for us – a future shaped by the jealousy of the leaders of his own people, the Pharisees, and the suspicion and cruelty of Rome who try to silence him with the weapons they know best, torture and death. 

Viewed through adult eyes, we might notice some more clues left for us in plain sight. It is no accident that the first group who hear of Jesus’ birth and who visit him are shepherds. At that time shepherds were among the poorest of the poor, spending long periods wandering from place to place, alone and far from family or friends. Already, at his birth, the Gospels point us to the poor. Later, as an adult, Jesus will read in the synagogue the words of Isaiah, “He sent me to bring good news to the poor…” 
Likewise, the coming of the ‘Kings from the East’ remind us that the message of Jesus is not just for the Jewish people but for all the nations and Kingdoms of the World. 

The Gospels, indeed all the books of the Bible, are adult stories written for adults. They are rich in poetry, symbol, image and metaphor, many of which hold a truth about God easily accessible to children. But as adults, when we read the Christmas story, we are invited to welcome the child among us, while seeing beyond the child to the God who lies in that crib with nothing other than love for us. 
For a child the Christmas story is filled with wonder and awe and mystery. As children we see the child Jesus at peace with his loving parents, and in the star shining above the stable we recognise him as God. This is indeed the true story of Christmas understandable to children. 
But when we, as adults, read the story as it was written for adults, there is so much more to see in it; there is more to wonder at, more to be awed by, more to rejoice in, more to understand and more to learn about the mind-blowing love our God has for us. 
In the child at peace in the crib the Gospel writers already show us the man he will become – the man baptised by John in the Jordan; the man dying on a Cross; the man Risen from the Dead; and the “Son of Man” of this Gospel who will come again in glory at the end of time. 

As adults, the Christmas story also invites us to see the threat this child poses to the Kingdoms of this World. 
And this is the challenge of Christmas. The birth of Jesus brings about the clash of two Kingdoms – the Kingdom of God and the combined Kingdoms of the World. 
The values of the Kingdoms of the World are all too familiar to us. They rely on ambition, power, greed, wealth, domination, fear, mistrust and violence to survive and remain strong. They were the values Jesus saw all around him as he grew up; they were the values that ultimately killed him. 
The Kingdom that Jesus preached was utterly new and unexpected. Its values stood in total opposition to the values of the Kingdoms of the World.  
The Christmas child looks out at us from the crib and says, “Love one another, do good to those who hate you, forgive one another as God forgives you, feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, heal the sick, be gentle and compassionate.” 

In this clash of Kingdoms each one of us must make choices. We know the Kingdoms of this World and we know their Kings. These Kingdoms survive by having superior armies and weapons. They bring peace and security to friends and death and destruction to enemies. They sow fear and confusion to hide truth and transparency. They offer comfort to some through domination of many, and they offer wealth to ‘pals’ through manipulation and lies. 

All of us may well recognise ourselves living in these Kingdoms – after all, they are the Kingdoms of the World! – but that does not mean that we must belong to them. Within these Kingdoms our allegiance is to a different King, God and Jesus, and the values we are called to espouse are found in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus himself and in the Gospel values of forgiveness, peace, hope, compassion, tolerance, sharing, openness and generosity. 

Ultimately, as Christians, we know with certainty that it is the Kingdom of God that will ultimately reign.  “At an hour we do not expect” Jesus will return to us, the same choirs of angels which sang at the birth of the baby will sing once more, “Glory to God in the Highest…” and the prayer of the adult Jesus, “…thy Kingdom come…” will be fulfilled. 

In the meantime we wait.  

The four weeks of Advent urge us to reflect seriously about the Kingdom of God, made manifest to our world at the birth of Jesus. Advent challenges us to choose again for ourselves and our families the values of the Kingdom of God and reject the false values of the world. 
If we listen carefully, the child in the crib this Christmas will whisper to us, “I came to show you a love which is certain and eternal. It is why I was born and why I will return to you again. Trust me.”  

Many thanks, 
Brian