First Sunday of Advent
Thanksgiving is over. Perhaps many of you also used the holiday to put up your Christmas tree and get a jump start on Christmas shopping. I know some very wise people who began their Christmas shopping on the 26th of December last year. In many ways our Christmas preparations have begun. Isn’t that what Advent is all about? What are you expecting to get out of Advent? How is this Advent going to be a preparation for Jesus? This is my hope – that as we prepare for the holiday, that we are also preparing on a much deeper level; that this Christmas is a real encounter with Christ.
Today’s first reading is a perfect starting point for Advent. The context of this reading is the Babylonian exile. The experience of the exile has made the people of Israel look at their past, their present and their future. The reading is an honest assessment of Israel’s life as a nation and as individuals. They do this in three steps: a) look back at their past, b) examine the present realities, and c) accept a path to renewal. Using this very reading I would like to suggest the same three steps for us as we enter Advent in preparation for Christmas.
1. Step back. As the exiled people of Israel looked into their past, they saw very clearly their sins that lead them into exile. So they pray to God and say, “Behold, you are angry, and we are sinful; all of us have become like unclean people, all our good deeds are like polluted rags; we have all withered like leaves, and our guilt carries us away like the wind.” The acknowledgement of their sin becomes an important step toward renewal. Today, everybody is asking us to step forward. For the sake of the economy, we are all being compelled to go on the shopping spree. God, on the other hand, is asking us to step back. God is not killing our fun and frolic However, we are certainly being invited to be prepared for Christ in a real and tangible way. How can we do this? Perhaps, we can step back for twenty minutes each day in prayer. I seriously recommend reflecting and praying the daily mass readings because they prepare us for the coming of Christ in ways that others cannot do. To be found unprepared for Christ this Christmas will be the greatest tragedy of this season.
2. Examine. As we step back in prayer, like the people of Israel it is also time to examine our life. What is the direction that our life is taking at the moment? There are three directions that our life could be going –backwards, or is stagnant or we are moving forward toward God and eternity? Or perhaps, all these three things are happening simultaneously. There may be areas where we are sliding, others where we are stagnant and others where we are moving forward. Let us not be afraid to bring before God the areas where we need God’s healing. As the people of Israel prayed, could we be like clay in the hands of a potter? As Jesus says in today’s gospel reading, “…whether in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or in the morning,” we must find ourselves ready for the Lord of the house.
3. Renew. It is when we have stepped back and made time for God; it is when we have come before God and presented our life to God in honesty and sincerity that we can experience renewal. The people of Israel prayed for renewal in these words: “Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down….” And again, “No ear has ever heard, no eye ever seen, any God but you doing such deeds for those who wait for him.” Let us anxiously wait for our God this advent season. Renewal does not merely come from what God does to us because of our prayer and introspection. God is the renewal. Renewal happens because God is now present to us in a real and tangible. Isn’t that the Christmas story – God becoming flesh and coming to us? This Christmas, it is my hope that each one of us might find restoration, healing, love, peace and life because our life has been made ready for the Lord of the house.
As we prepare to bring the bread and wine to altar, like the people of Israel let us lay our own lives on this altar. And just as this bread and wine is transformed into the body and blood of Christ, may we too be transformed. May we pray “Yet, O Lord, you are our father; we are the clay and you the potter; we are all the work of your hands.” Amen.
- Fr. Satish Joseph