The Time to Wake from Our Sleep

The Church celebrates her new year with the first Sunday of Advent. The liturgical season of Advent lasts roughly four weeks, and even for faithful Christians, it can be a difficult time to engage with its message fully. The season of Advent demands that we consider two main themes. For one, we are to prepare spiritually for the upcoming feast of Christmas. The second, and the harder one to wrap our heads around, is to prepare for the second coming of Christ.

Even though the two themes seem distinct, they share a common denominator: the human heart’s desire to live forever.  From the earliest times, only union with God could fulfill this wish.  In our first reading from Isaiah, the prophet gives an image of ascending a mountain to the house of the Lord. He further describes that all nations will stream toward it and learn the ways of God.

The imagery of Isaiah’s learning God’s way (becoming holier) demands action on our part. We need to make space for God to enter that inner sanctuary where our hearts listen to the loving heart of God. We need to withdraw to that private place where we can meet with God, renew our relationship with God, and let God’s wisdom guide us.

And what is the wisdom of God we seek? To further understand the immense gift of Jesus becoming man. By taking on human flesh, the Son of God allowed his creatures to enter the most intimate relationship with God since the Garden of Eden. And it happens each time we receive the Eucharist. By thanking God for the great gift, our preparation time this Advent is to delve deeper into the mystery of love by Jesus assuming our nature in all things but sin. The desire of the human heart to live forever is fulfilled in the Incarnation.  

The much harder theme of the second coming of Christ should also be part of our preparation. There are two ways we can understand the theme. We can understand it from a historical perspective and behave like the early Christians. When they thought the second coming of Christ was imminent and did not happen, they fell back into their old habits, forgetting that he will come again.

St. Paul, in our second reading, describes the feelings of the time. “For our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed; the night is advanced, the day is at hand. Let us then throw off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light”. We often fall into the sentiment that Christ’s second coming is so far off that we needn’t pay attention or change our ways.

The second coming of Christ hasn’t happened to the world en masse, but it has happened to individual disciples throughout the centuries when they pass from this life to eternity. This is why Jesus, in this week’s Gospel, instructs us as he does. “For you do not know on which day your Lord will come.”  Further, he states, “So too, you also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.”

As we begin the season of Advent, let us keep in mind the present and future and hold them together. Open your hearts to receive God’s wisdom and be in awe of the Incarnation and how this one act of God has changed your life. Death no longer is our destiny; the life within God is.

Equally important is to take this time to do a spiritual inventory and determine how well we are prepared for the coming of Christ when our earthly journey ends.  “You know the time; it is the hour now for you to awake from sleep.”

Keeping the preparation for the feast of Christmas and the end of our life in tension is an Advent well-lived.