Time to Make Jesus Bigger

30 November 2025  Romans 13:11-14

The First Sunday in Advent

“Besides this, you know what hour it is.” Romans 13:11

So, did Paul even know the Christmas Story? Indeed, did he know any of the gospel texts that have been the daily bread of the church for centuries? The Sermon on the Mount, the Prodigal Son, Bethlehem, the Wise Men, the Star?

It is not a time to be subtle, but to be blunt; not a time for economy, but extravagance; not a time to understate, but to underline. Salvation is at stake now, “nearer than when we first believed.”

There are some who say that he did not, in fact could not have because the gospels had not been written before he died.

However, Paul did know Mark and Luke, and the likelihood is very strong that both Mark and Luke were in Rome at the time of Paul’s death (Luke for sure). Not only that, but the likelihhod is also very strong that both Mark and Luke had completed their gospels before Paul died. A great many scholars believe that the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke (also Acts) appeared first in the 60s A.D., and it is at least probable that Paul knew about them, perhaps even encouraged Mark and Luke to write theirs.

So, if Paul maybe did know at least some of the gospel stories, why didn’t he use them? Why didn’t he reflect on a parable, or meditate on the Sermon on the Mount, or tell the Christmas story?

All literature and literary forms are contextual in nature – they arise in particular times and places because of the specific character and needs of those times and places. The first New Testament documents to appear were Paul’s letters (I and II Thessalonians, Galatians, I and II Corinthians, Romans), which dealt with mostly theological and some moral issues. That appears to have been enough, until Paul’s arrest and imprisonment. In the years prior to Paul’s arrest, Christians had been banned from Rome due to disturbances among the Jews regarding Jesus (around A.D. 50, see Acts 18:1-2). Then in 54 the emperor Claudius had died under suspicious circumstances, succeeded by Nero, who almost immediately had conflicts with his mother, and there were several attempts on her life, which many attributed to the jealousy of her son. She was finally assassinated in A.D. 59. It was right around then that Paul was arrested. A man who got around as much as Paul did was certainly aware of all the talk about Nero, and a man as smart as Paul was knew that all this meant danger for the Church that was not very far off. Nero was unstable and a danger to the Roman state, and the moment that danger burst into public view, there would be a search for scapegoats. Christians had already been identified once (though only as a subset of Jews, not a different religion). It wouldn’t take much for suspicious people to find Christians again. The arrest was just the beginning.

It is in this context that we see the faith and genius of the earliest Church at work. Mounting danger might indicate to some that it was time to withdraw, diminish your profile, and not attract attention. This is precisely what the Church did not do. Christians didn’t try to make Jesus smaller, but in fact chose to make him bigger, and the principal way it did this was a new literary genre – the Gospel. It wasn’t just biography of Jesus, but a powerful vehicle of evangelization. Danger told Christians to make Jesus bigger, and louder. Paul’s career was the bridge between those two eras. This pattern would be repeated several times more before Christianity became legal – each time danger increased, Jesus increased more.

“You know what hour it is,” Paul said to the Romans (13:11). It is not a time to be subtle, but to be blunt; not a time for economy, but extravagance; not a time to understate, but to underline. Salvation is at stake now, “nearer than when we first believed.” So, the Church started writing bigger things about Jesus. It isn’t too much to suppose that Paul encouraged his friends Mark and Luke to get busy. He was under arrest now, but they weren’t. Write bigger.

We know what hour it is, too. It is the hour of confession, not concession; conversion, not diversion; not passive accompaniment, but active witness.

It is the time to make Jesus bigger.