We have now begun the season of Advent—a time of waiting, watching, and preparing for the arrival of the Christ. And, as we are people who live in the in-between times, we watch and wait not just for the baby in a manger, but for the coming of Christ on his throne of glory.

And it is a busy time of year. Churches are buzzing with activities—everything from caroling to Advent festivals to Christmas coffees to service projects. And then there are the personal preparations: trees to decorate, lights to hang, cookies to bake, and gifts to purchase and wrap. And it seems like we have just finished getting into the swing of fall activities, school, work, and sports; we have just finished preparing and cleaning up our Thanksgiving feasts, and now we launch headfirst into Advent. And it is a busy time for all of us.

And all these preparations and added tasks come on top of our regular work, our everyday caregiving responsibilities, and the navigation of the uncertainties of daily life. Indeed, we know all too well that the hurts and unsteadiness of the world do not get put on hold just because it’s Advent. We live in the tension between excitement about the season and the all-too-present realities of loss, grief, violence, and division. Some of us prepare with excess and generosity—gifts and food and décor—while others of us struggle to make ends meet or feel separated from family and have to figure out what Christmas might look like this year. And so here we are. We find ourselves not only overwhelmed by our to-do lists, but also overwhelmed by the cacophony of messages coming from inside and beyond us about how we should feel and what we should be doing.

So with everything to do and everything going on in the next four weeks before Christmas, Jesus’ reminder to “be alert” in our text today maybe feels tone-deaf or like it misses the mark. I mean, doesn’t Jesus, of all people, know how busy we all get this time of year preparing for the celebration of his birth? Doesn’t he understand the collective stress that comes with this season? Isn’t Jesus, as a friend and Savior, tuned in to the millions of things that are keeping us alert and up at night? It seems to me, this isn’t the kind of pep talk we need from Jesus right now. I would much rather hear him say, “Don’t worry, it will all get done.” Or even, “You know, I’m going to quiet all the pressure and hurt and anxiety down so you can just relax and enjoy the season.” But no. Instead, Jesus’ words ring through the centuries as a harsh reminder to “be alert,” to “keep watch.”

At first glance, it seems ridiculous, even mocking us. It feels like piling on. But I do wonder if, in the midst of our hectic, over-scheduled lives, we may be busy but are not actually alert. I wonder if, in the midst of our overwhelm, we focus on the wrong things or lose the capacity to focus altogether.

After all, there is so much in this world vying for our attention. Between news alerts, social media feeds, TikTok videos, text messages, email, advertisements, and just the drone of daily living, there is so much that seeks to steal or keep our attention. And as a result, we may tune out what is most important. We may be aware of much, but not alert to what matters.

As a young child, I lived a few houses down from a fire station. I grew up hearing sirens all the time, and so as a young child, I learned to kind of tune them out. I could sleep through them, play through them, talk through them. When other children would come over to play and hear the sirens, they would stop what they were doing, rush to the windows to see what was going on, but I would sit and roll my eyes and think, “C’mon guys, let’s just keep playing!” Now my ability to tune out the sirens was a blessing and not a problem until about 8–10 years later when it came time for me to drive. I will never forget one of the first days out driving on my own. I was headed to youth group and had a friend in the car. We were talking and laughing, and all of a sudden my friend, Jeremy, tensed up. “Kim, you need to pull over,” he said sternly. “Why?” I asked, thinking he was just being a pain. “Kim, pull over…” and before he could get the rest of the sentence out, I looked in my rearview mirror to see an ambulance with lights flashing right behind me. I immediately pulled over, and the vehicle flew by me. As I got back on the road, Jeremy didn’t say anything (clearly he knew better than to antagonize me when my adrenaline was pumping). So, I finally broke the silence and tried to justify my obvious error: “They really should have turned on their sirens if they wanted to get people’s attention.” At that, Jeremy turned to me with a face that was a cross between fear and disbelief, “Kim, their sirens WERE on. Didn’t you hear them?” Honestly, I hadn’t. I had grown up tuning them out so much that my ears and my brain were trained to ignore them. Between the distractions of my friend and my childhood practice of drowning out those sounds, I completely missed the ambulance’s piercing squeals and dissonant wails.

I think in many ways the same thing can happen to us, particularly in this Advent season. In the busyness of our schedules and the demands of preparation, amidst the noise of Christmas music blaring, text messages ringing, and the barrage of media messaging, we may find ourselves tuning out the sacred sounds of Advent. After all, after years in church, we get used to the noises of Advent: the stories of angels and mangers and shepherds, the lighting of candles, the words and songs of the coming of Christ. We get so used to these sounds that they become a low, dreary rumble in our ears, or perhaps we fail to hear them altogether. In the bustle and pressure of the season, we may miss the very thing we are preparing and watching for—the coming of Christ.

But Jesus reminds us in our text this week that as we anticipate Christ’s coming this Advent season—both his arrival as a baby in a manger and his second coming as the king on his throne of glory—we are to keep alert for signs. After all, this is the season of signs and wonders.

But these signs, as Jesus offers in Luke, might not always be what we expect. In the first part of this text, Jesus gives us bold and even frightening images of celestial shifts, roaring oceans, and the heavens being shaken. And then, in the next breath, Jesus suggests that these signs may also be as subtle as the leaves on a fig tree—blossoming and bursting forth, indicating summer is near. “Be on guard,” Jesus warns. “Be alert” for the kingdom of God is near. Be ready, for Christ is in our midst. Don’t get so distracted that you miss it.

Advent is a time of waiting. But, as our text makes clear, it is not a time for passive waiting. It is a time of active waiting. We are to live preparing, anticipating, expecting that Jesus may show up at any moment. After all, Jesus, in our text today, insists that, in spite of all that is going on, in spite of all that seeks to steal our focus, we are to see the world not with the tired eyes of exhaustion, overwhelm, or even apathy. Instead, we are invited to see the world with eyes of expectation and hope. We are to “be alert” to where God already is present, whether in large signs or in mundane realities.

I remember one of the first youth mission trips I led when I was pastoring my congregation in Virginia. We took about 15 youth to the heart of Appalachian country in West Virginia. And on the third day of the trip, our group was tasked with driving up into the mountains to help out on a farm that provided food for hungry folks in the area. However, when we arrived, we discovered it was less of a farm and more of an overgrown backyard garden, complete with an old farmhouse and rusty tools scattered about. The woman who owned the property, Sheree, came out of the house when she saw our vans pull up. She greeted us warmly and, from her rocking chair on the front porch, proceeded to have all of us stand in the hot yard as she told us about how the farm has provided healthy food to so many who normally only get canned donations, and she shared how she has opened her farmhouse as a sort of halfway house for folks who need help after being in drug recovery or transitioning out of homelessness. We then got to work under Sheree’s direction, weeding the overgrown garden and planting new rows of peas and squash. Now planting was a challenge as the ground seemed to be more rocks than soil, and everything had to grow at a pretty sharp angle on the side of that mountain. In addition to the rough terrain, the day was incredibly hot and humid, and the only shade to be found was the porch, which remained fully occupied by Sheree and her current houseguest, Marta, who would occasionally shout profanities into the yard at nobody in particular. It was a long, hard day. And at the end of our time on the farm, I went up to Sheree and asked if there was anything else we could do before we left. “Can you help me put the tools away?” she asked, pushing her creaking body out of the rocking chair. “Sure!” I said, half-heartedly, looking around to see that all of the youth and other leaders had already settled into the air-conditioned vans. So, on my own, I picked up the tools scattered across the yard and began to carry them back towards Sheree, who was making her way down the porch steps. “No!” she hollered across the yard, “They go in the shed,” she said, pointing up the hill. “Yeah!” echoed Marta, “the shed, you idiot!”

At that, I looked up to find a structure that had clearly been nailed together by unskilled hands with scrap wood and bits of tin and aluminum and even some spots covered with cardboard and duct tape. Now to call it a structure would be generous, much less a shed. But I followed Sheree’s directions and made my way up there, slowly, with Sheree by my side. The closer we got, the worse that pile of mismatched textiles looked to me. I feared that this so-called shed would do little to protect the tools as it was bound to blow over with the strain of a light breeze. But I was distracted by the heat and the sweat and the bugs and the impatient youth in the van, so I hurried Sheree up the hill, wanting to get it over with. But when we finally got up there, Sheree stopped and just stared at the structure with a smile. Setting her hand on the side of it, she said, “Whenever I come up here, I see God.” “That’s lovely,” I said, wanting to get the tools put away and get back to the host church for a shower. “Don’t you get it?” she said, turning towards me, her face shifting from a smile to a scowl. She then proceeded to touch the different scraps, telling me the story of each of them—how this scrap of aluminum siding came from Mr. Brown’s property after his barn had burnt down; how the roof tiles were left over from when her sister had built her house about 30 minutes up the road; how the pieces of scrap wood were “recovered” by a teenage boy from her church out of a dumpster at an abandoned construction site; how each person had offered these raw materials hoping they might be helpful in some way to Sheree. “So, I made a shed,” she said. And in an instant, the rickety edifice transformed before me into a cathedral, into a tabernacle of God, where God’s grace transformed these scraps and the stories they carried into something far more. All of the sudden, I, too, could sense God’s presence bursting through the cracks and crevices of the pieced-together structure. “Isn’t it just… heavenly?” Sheree sighed. “It is,” I responded. “So, you get it?” Sheree asked gently. “Yes, ma’am,” I responded, quietly. And as if snapping out of a trance, she removed her hand, shook her head, and barked, “Good. Now put away the tools and get on your way.”

Friends, I know all too well that this Advent is filled not only with excitement and preparation, but with endless to-do lists, the weight of present realities, and the difficult mix of hope, joy, grief, and anxiety. But Jesus encourages us in our text today to not get so weighed down that we miss what matters; to not get so overwhelmed by the cacophony of those things that seem urgent that we drown out what is important. He urges us to “be on guard” and “stay alert” so that we might not miss the signs of Christ’s movement all around us. Because God might just show up when and where we least expect—whether in the roaring of oceans, the shaking of heavens, the blossoming of trees, or the construction of sheds. Jesus begs us at the start of this Advent season to approach each experience, each moment, each encounter looking for evidences of Christ’s presence. After all, Christ is already among us; the Kingdom of God is near. If we are tuned out, we may just miss it. So in these busy and holy days, let us be alert and ready for where God might just show up. Thanks be to God, amen.