Today we come again to the beginning of a new Church year. This is Year A in the three-year cycle. The word ‘Advent’ comes from a Latin word meaning ‘coming’.
What ‘coming’ are we talking about? Well, clearly as we are coming up to Christmas, we are preparing to welcome the coming of God among us as a human being, when Jesus was born in the stable at Bethlehem and the great work of our salvation began.
But that welcome is for a past event and is more a remembering than a welcome strictly speaking. But it is a remembering that we need in order to remind us of what happened, of why it happened and how it affects my life here and now.
What coming are we talking about?
At this time, we also remember another coming and that is the final coming when Jesus will come as King and Lord to take to himself all those who have been faithful to the call of his Kingdom. This time of Advent is also a reminder of the need for us to prepare for that Second Coming and to be ready to welcome Jesus whenever he comes.
A great vision
The coming of Jesus and its significance is expressed in the great vision from Isaiah which is our First Reading for today. Mount Zion, the hill upon which Jerusalem is built, is seen as a holy mountain, the centre of the earth and the focal point of the whole world. “The mountain of the Temple of the Lord shall tower above the mountains and be lifted higher than the hills.”
A magnet to the nations
The idea is contained that Israel is a light to the nations and the Israelites are not told to go out and convert the nations but rather to attract them by their worship on Zion. In the world of this vision, all nations will come together to the central city of Jerusalem and thus will acknowledge the ultimate kingship of Yahweh. “All the nations will stream to [Zion], peoples without numbers will come to it and they will say: ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the Temple of the God of Jacob that he may teach us his ways so that we may walk in his paths.’
Lasting peace
In this way God is seen as wielding authority over the nations and sitting in judgement between them. Weapons of war will be melted down and turned into peaceful implements of agriculture. It will be the end of wars between nations and of preparation for war.
The temple of the Lord
As we read this from a Christian standpoint we see deeper meanings. For the new Temple of the Lord is the human body of Jesus in which the Son of God was incarnated and came to live among us as one of us. In Bethlehem that day, the Temple of the Lord was not that massive building in nearby Jerusalem but the tiny Baby in his Mother’s arms in the poverty of the stable. It was to this Temple that the shepherds went to worship and adore. It is from this Temple that we learn God’s ways and learn to walk in God’s paths. And he is the Prince of Peace.
It is the coming of God into that little baby’s Body that we are preparing to celebrate during these four weeks of Advent.
Warnings of the end times
Yet in today’s Gospel we are not talking about this. Rather it is full of warnings about the end times and about being ready for them. However, we need to remember that the celebration of Christmas is not – as it can easily become – just a nostalgic recalling of what happened in Bethlehem more than 2,000 years ago. The whole purpose of the celebration is to remind us of what this birth is ultimately about. Where are we going in life? What is our ultimate goal? It is not a question of looking back but of looking forward. It is a question of being ready.
Examples from the past
The Gospel consists of a set of warnings from Jesus about readiness for his final coming. He cites the example of Noah and the flood. He says that in the days leading right up to the Flood “people were eating, drinking, taking wives, taking husbands“. They suspected absolutely nothing and suddenly they were swept away. Only Noah, his family and the animals they took into the Ark survived. The coming of the Son of Man will be like that, Jesus says.
My day of judgement
In fact, this coming is not just at the moment of Final Judgement. Or, let us put it another way. The Final Judgement is not so much a day when all will be gathered together but rather it is that moment when each one of us is called to come face to face with God. When Jesus speaks of two men in the fields where one is taken and the other left or two women at the same millstone grinding where one is taken and one is left, it is difficult not to think of the horrific event in New York on Sept 11, 2001. That is exactly what happened here. While thousands were caught in the collapse of the two towers, many others escaped, some of them almost miraculously. It was an experience that made many people – including those who were nowhere near the towers – reflect. Why them and not me? It also made them reflect on the deeper meaning of their life and its ultimate goal.
Staying alert
“So stay awake,” Jesus tells us today, “because you do not know the day when your Master is coming.” That applies just as much to the victims of Sept 11 and all such disasters as it does to the individual who gets a sudden heart attack or is involved in a fatal car accident or the child who drowns in a swimming pool. There is absolutely no one to whom this warning does not apply.
Night and day
Similar warnings are given by Paul in the Second Reading, which is from his Letter to the Romans. He calls on the Christians to ‘wake up’ because the day salvation is closer than they realise. “The night is almost over, it will be daylight soon – let us give up all the things we prefer to do under cover of the dark; let us arm ourselves and appear in the light.” All of us can identify with this warning. Many of us have skeletons in our closets, things we would probably be ashamed to let others know of our past, or even our present, life. It is time now to come fully out into the light, to be people of utter transparency with nothing to hide either from God or man. Obviously, too, he says it is time to put an end to any grossly immoral behaviour (drunken orgies, promiscuity, licentiousness, wrangling, jealousy).
Day by day
It seems then that the best way to honour the first coming of the Lord and to prepare for his final coming is to live our lives in a coming of the Lord that happens every day and at every moment of our lives. We do not prepare for the future coming either by leaving things to the last minute and getting caught out nor by living in fear and anxiety of a judging God.
Moment by moment
By far the best way is to live our daily lives constantly in the presence of the Lord who touches our lives at every moment. One writer called this the “sacrament of the present moment”. Every moment of our lives, every experience, every person, every action and every word is a sacrament of God’s presence. He can be found there and responded to. When we live our lives constantly surrendering to his presence and seeing his hand in everything that happens to us, we will not be afraid when the final call comes. We will not be caught unawares. Perhaps there were some people like that in World Trade Center that day. Perhaps they had already begun their day with prayer or had already celebrated Mass on their way to work. Even in those last terrible moments when they saw the inevitable, they united themselves to their Lord and went to meet him. We will never know.”
No need for fear
In any case, all of us have had plenty of warning but this is not meant to instil us with fear. On the contrary, it is to encourage us to live constantly in the loving presence of a God who is closer to us than breathing. As the poet said so beautifully:
“Thee God I come from, to Thee go.
All day long I like fountain flow
From thy hands out, swayed about,
Mote-like in Thy mighty glow”