“Do We Know?”
November 30, 2025
Rev. Rebecca Migliore
One of the Christmas carols that always brings a smile to my lips is “Do you hear what I hear?” We are asked, “Do you see? Do you hear? Do you know?” Do you see the star? Do you hear the song, high up in the trees? Do you know there is a child, shivering in the cold? It is a timeless song—as much about our own time as about the time of Jesus. And it is a perfect way to get ourselves into this strange season called Advent.
Yes, Advent—the beginning of the Christian Year. One commentator mused how strange it was that we start the year this way. Not with the Trumpets of Easter. Not with the cooing child in the manger. Not with the flames and power of Pentecost. But with images of terror and destruction, of a breaking apart of everything we know—one is taken and one is left. What in the world were those who created this beginning to our story thinking? Maybe they were thinking—let’s be real about our world. Maybe they were imagining that there would be those in other times who needed to have their lives lifted up. Maybe it is a way of saying, “We feel you. We feel your pain. We’ve been there. And the good news is God is there with you as well.”
I know I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s go back to that word, Advent. It means “coming” or “arrival.” And Bernard of Clairvaux, a twelfth-century abbot and theologian, wrote of “three Advents”: first, the Incarnation—the coming of Jesus; and last of all, the Coming Again of Jesus, the Advent at the end of the age (what Matthew is talking about in our reading).
Wait, you skipped one. What’s the second Advent, the middle one? That is “the everyday arrival of Jesus: the host at the table, the still small voice, the hungry mother, the weary migrant.” (Matthew Boulton of SALT)
Jesus, in talking about the coming age is pointing us to the advent that has to be in our lives, right now. Seeing, hearing, knowing, in our every day the presence of God. Waiting, Watching, Hoping, Praying for God’s reign to come. And working to be ready.
Do you see what I see? Do you hear what I hear? Do you know what I know? In the days of Noah—such a long time ago, and yet so familiar to us—there were a lot of people who didn’t see or hear or know. They just thought life was to be enjoyed for themselves: eating and drinking and getting married, in other words—party time! But what was Noah doing while they were having a good time? Noah was building an ark. And not just for himself, but for a pair of all of creation. Think of the hours that huge ship required. The money laid out for building materials. The ridicule of neighbors and friends alike. But Noah had heard, Noah believed that God was coming, a change was coming. And so Noah got ready.
Jesus is challenging us to be like Noah. To get ready. To do things that others might find foolish, impossible to understand. And what might those things be? If we follow in Noah’s footsteps, it might look like, working for a country that would have a place for all of God’s peoples. It might look like, braving the catcalls and fear mongering of others (the way some of our former military people who are in Congress did when they told serving military they would have their back if they did the right thing and refused to obey an illegal command.)
It might look like, being willing to spend a little time each and every day filled with the wonder of the stars, with the beauty of Scripture’s dreams of a new world—like the picture that Isaiah paints today—of a world where swords are beaten into plowshares, where no one learns war anymore. It might look like, lighting a candle for hope, for peace, for joy, for love—and pushing aside any voices that demean our child-like belief that God really is there, God really does hear us, God really has come, and really will come again.
I liked how Professor Catherine Sider Hamilton of Working Preacher. Org put it. She points out that there is a knowing and a not knowing in this passage. We start out with not knowing, “No one knows the day or the hour—and I mean no one, not the angels, not the Son (meaning Jesus), only God in heaven knows.” So to the question, “do you know?”—the answer is No. We don’t know. We don’t know the day and we don’t know the hour and we don’t know if it will be in our lifetime or not.
But then, the passage turns. We don’t know, but we do know something. We don’t know when Advent is coming, when Jesus is coming again. But we do know THAT it is coming. It’s not as if we are totally in the dark. Jesus has given us a clue—just like Noah got a clue in his lifetime. It doesn’t let us in on everything—but it gives us enough information to know we should get ready. For if the householder knew the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and been ready for him. So, you have heard—God is coming, stay awake.
So when we find ourselves in soul-numbing times, like those of Jesus’ time: Hear, See, Know. When we want to shout to the heavens, “why is it taking so long?
Why can’t you come now?” Hear, See, Know. When we think there is nothing that we can do, nothing that we can contribute to this planet, this place: Hear, See, Know.
Know that we have been given a sign. A sign as large as a star in the sky, with a tail as big as a kite. We have been told that a world gone hay-wire is not the final reality. We have been called to find ways to bend the arc of our moral compass toward justice, to fashion instruments of war—into instruments of peace, to lean into the grueling work of being concerned for everyone, everything, in this world that God created and made and said was “good.”
Do we hear? Do we see? Do we know? We can hold up Isaiah’s vision before our eyes. A vision of a time when all nations will stream towards the Holy. When we will put down our divisions and our petty differences and walk towards God together. And within that idyllic picture there is a commandment—to the house of Jacob, to the people of God, to those chosen by God to be blessed to be a blessing. And the commandment is to be an example. To walk the walk. To talk the talk. To do what needs to be done, whether that is to build an ark, or to put bags of food into hungry people’s hands, or to find ways to bring a smile to someone’s lips, or to gift someone with a few minutes of peace, or to care for God’s beautiful creation. What are we to do? Walk in the light of the Lord.
The church used to see Advent as a somber time. A time to solemnly prepare for the coming of Jesus. And there is much to be said for recognizing the seriousness of Jesus’ message. We don’t want to be like those who think we can put off until tomorrow what needs to be done today. So yes, Advent is serious stuff.
But this year, in the midst of all that is going on around us, in our country, in our world, on our planet, I don’t hear a message of fear or even of worry. I hear a message of hope. I hear a message of good news.
On this great stage of life, God is in the wings. God’s entrance time is coming. We need to make sure we know our lines. We need to make sure that we are playing our part. We need to make sure that we have placed the set where it must go, and we are to carry on, even if we don’t have the final pages of the script. It is enough to know. It is enough to know that God is there. It is enough to know what we should be doing. It is enough to carry the dream, the vision, inside ourselves, and to work to make it so.
Maybe the readings of the first few weeks of Advent are a reminder that there are so many who live in a world of shadows. We see them on our tv or phone screens. We read about them in our news feeds. Maybe we are living the nightmare ourselves. But as the psalmist writes in that beloved psalm, “Ye though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death”—even if all else is dark, “thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.”
Advent isn’t about darkness, Advent is about the coming of the Light. And if you have ever been up in the wee hours of the morning you know that daylight doesn’t switch on like an electric light bulb. It isn’t dark, and then, poof, light. No, the darkness is dark, and then it is dark but a little less so, and then it’s grey, and then you begin to see all around you, and the sun still hasn’t risen yet. There might be faint colors of light on the horizon.
There might be the waking of the world around you—for those closest to creation often sense what we cannot yet see. And then there is the blush of light, and it gets brighter and brighter and then the sun crests over the horizon.
If you are waiting for it, it seems to take an eternity! But there is no rushing the coming of the day. There is no rushing the coming kin-dom of God. There is no knowing when it will happen. But if we wake in the night, we know that day will come. As sure as the sunrise, we say. Yes, there is no rushing it, but Jesus wants us to make sure we don’t roll over and go back to sleep. For walking in the light takes patience and energy and hope and love. Walking in the light is easier than walking in darkness, maybe because you know something you didn’t before.
We will hold onto what we know, Jesus.
We will walk in the light of the Lord.
We will stay awake this Advent.
We will try to be ready for your coming.
May it be so, Alleluia, Amen.
