Finishing with Grace

A sermon for the First Sunday of Advent
November 30, 2025, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hot Springs, AR

Readings: Isaiah 2:1-5; Psalm 122; Romans 13:11-14; Matthew 24:36-44

What God has started, God will finish. This is the core conviction of the Advent season. The God who created all things good will come again and restore all things in goodness. The Son of God who died and rose again to reconcile all things to God will come again and finish the work, seated on the throne of grace. The Holy Spirit, who is at work among us even now, will descend with fiery power and heal the universe in love. What God has started, God will finish. And God will finish it with grace. 

Isaiah paints us a picture of that Day–the Day of the Lord. Isaiah writes, “In days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it. [God] shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” This is the peaceable Kingdom of the Lord where the wolf lies down with the lamb. This is the restored and new heaven and earth. And it seems a far cry from the brokenness we feel today, from the world where nation rises against nation all the time, where ploughshares are more often beaten into swords than the other way around. 

The gospel reading is about the Great Day of the Lord. It is not about the Rapture, which is something the early Church would have been confused by. The idea of the Rapture–this escape-hatch for the people of God as the world burns–comes to us from a poor interpretation of the Revelation to St. John in the 19th century. You heard that right: Not the first century, or even the 9th, but the 19th. The biblical idea is not Rapture; it is not escape-hatch to glory. The biblical idea is parousia, which is what Jesus is describing here. It’s what St. Paul describes elsewhere. 

The people of Jesus’s time knew what parousia was. The ruler would arrive in your town, and you would be watching. You would be awake, waiting for the entourage to crest the hill. And when the ruler arrived, a procession of the ready would go out of the town to meet him, with palm branches, and to bring him back to the town to establish justice and peace and equity. So it will be at the end Jesus says. Two people are working in the field, but only one is watching. Two women are grinding meal, but only one is watching. And when the King arrives at the end of the Age, they go out to welcome him, not as an escape-hatch, but to bring him back. Why? To restore all things. To establish justice at last. To reign with goodness and grace and love. To bring about that mountain Isaiah once saw.

Put differently, Christ comes back to finish what was once started. For what God has started, God will finish. And he will finish it with grace. The end result looks like Isaiah’s vision of peace, not our present-day headlines. 

But we aren’t at the Last Day yet. Isaiah’s mountain feels a long way off. Right now we are walking in darkness, in sleepiness even, weighed down by the heaviness of life and sorrow. St. Paul exhorts us to wake up, and to live right now in the light of the promise. And as we are awake, to be clothed with light, with grace, with love, with the assurance of God’s faithfulness. For what God has promised, God will do. What God has started, God will finish. And he will finish it with grace. 

What does it look like to be awake and watchful? It’s living in Christ, knowing that God is faithful. To hold on to what he has said, even in the midst of brokenness around us and within us. To know that the fallenness of the world does not have the last word. But our God of grace and goodness will have the final word. To be awake means not to give into cynicism; not to throw our hands up in the air in disgust; not to give up on the world around us–for our God hasn’t given up. We keep watching with hope in our hearts, answering God’s call, doing the next right thing, loving God and our neighbor, and knowing that Jesus is present even now and has given us power to be ambassadors for the Kingdom of God. For what God has started, God will finish. And he will finish it with grace. 

I once read about a man named John. John had been sentenced to death for murder. He said he didn’t do it—he said that for the 20 years he was on death row. John had been a good prisoner; never got into fights, and he had even started a small Bible study group. He read his Bible over and over and over again, and the guards said he prayed a lot, especially toward the end. And all along, he said he didn’t do it. He said he was innocent. 

Jesus says he doesn’t know the day nor the hour. But John did. March 7 at midnight. He gave an interview toward the end of his life. He said he didn’t do it. He said he was innocent. The journalist asked him, John, are you angry that you’re in here, if you are innocent? 

“I used to be angry,” said John. “Sometimes I get sad. Sometimes I’m mad, too. But I can’t do anything about it now. So I just live in the light.” He was scheduled to be executed by the state of Texas the following month. He knew the day and the hour. 

Well, the journalist asked, do you have any negative feelings toward the people who accused you? John replied, “I used to. But I’ve forgiven them. I’m living in the light.” 

Why? the journalist asked. “Because Jesus told me to,” said John, so simply and as matter-of-fact as you can get. He was living in the light.

On the day and at the hour, John gave some last words. He said he didn’t do it, that he was innocent. He said he was at peace with God and that he forgave everyone. His final words were: “I know God will make it right.” Not even the darkness of execution could extinguish the light within him. 

A year later DNA evidence exonerated John. He hadn’t done it, after all. He had died unjustly. But here’s the thing: I don’t believe that such injustice gets the last word. To believe that is to give into darkness and cynicism, to believe evil could win. I don’t believe that that’s the end of it all. Because I believe that when Christ comes again, the record will be set right, justice will be done for John. That’s the Christian hope, not only for John, but for all of us. 

What God has started, God will finish. And God will finish it with grace. Sure, we can make a mess of things. We can make a mess of ourselves, of our world. And sometimes we can be tempted to throw our hands up in defeat, to surrender it all to the darkness and evil, to give up on hope, on a new start, on healing and restoration. It can be tempting to think it is all beyond repair–that I am beyond repair. But my friends, that’s not true. We have hope because Christ is coming back. We have hope, because when he comes, he will establish justice, peace, and love. We have hope, because he will make all things new and right every wrong, for John, and for us. 

Stay awake. Keep watching so you know to meet him in the skies and bring him back to restore and heal the world, to make all things new. Even in the middle of darkness, let your light shine. For what God has started, God will finish. And God will finish it with grace.