Wake Up and Turn Around
First Sunday of Advent. Fr John Farrell reminds us that Advent is for adults.
In this season of Christ coming to us, we celebrate three advents. The first is in history, and here John the Baptist looms large in the second and third Sundays of Advent with his call for acknowledgement of sin and repentance. The fourth Sunday, and the last seven days before Christmas, have gospel readings from Matthew and Luke on the events leading up to the birth of Christ. The second coming of Christ at the end of time is the theme of the Gospel of this first Sunday.
But it is the present, daily coming of Christ into our hearts and lives that is crucial, and St Paul urges us to ‘wake up.’ If, as they say, ‘Christmas is for children,’ then Advent is for adults. Life has probably not turned out as we expected. There is something shoddy and time-worn about us: we are shop-soiled by life. We have been let down by others, and by ourselves. Rightful expectations have not been met. We have become habituated to the usual and the more or less adequate. Our spiritual lives have become ‘greyed out’ without colour, music, joy, vitality, creativity. But spiritual complacency is dangerous, seductive and corrupting. It leads to a form of blindness – like cataracts slowly growing on the eye. By force of habit, we ‘just let things be.’ We need to open ourselves to the grace of Christ’s coming to rouse us from our torpor, free us from our inertia. ‘Wake up’ says St Paul.
Similarly, John the Baptist will urge us to ‘turn around.’ We are heading in the wrong direction. A good Advent question would be to ask oneself: ‘What sort of person am I in danger of becoming? Do I like the sort of person I am in danger of becoming? We need to acknowledge sloth and sin, complacency and lack of direction – or moving in the wrong direction. ‘Turn around.’
St Paul urges us to wake up to the dawning light – ‘the night is far gone, the day is at hand.’ Repenting, not out of near despair but out of joyful hope; out of Isaiah’s outrageous, over the top, joyful hope in the first reading. Indeed, the first readings throughout almost all of Advent will be passages from Isaiah with vivid images and poetic force, and the gospels will be chosen to show the realisation of these promises in the life and ministry of Jesus, the Light of the World. Advent is not Lent – it is shorter and easier to deal with – but it is also, as the liturgical books put it, ‘a season of devout and expectant joy.’ Hope and joy and courage.
Christian Hope is not to be confused with optimism. Ours is a dark world of warfare, violence, injustice and heart-breaking sorrow. Things will not necessarily get better. Our hope is in God, and in all that Christ has given us in our lived-out lives of faith, hope and charity – scriptures and sacraments, teachings and devotions, mission and communion, truth and life. Perhaps Advent is a time to stop taking these Christmas gifts for granted and instead as gifted, to be appreciated and developed. The Advent wreath recalls the lighted candle given to us at baptism. We are called to be lights to the world bearing the light of Christ. ‘Stand ready’ says Jesus in the gospel.
Christian Hope is not a sentiment but a style of living – just as expecting a house guest involves preparing a guest room, laundering sheets, buying food or even flowers. So our hope in Christ leads to two almost contradictory virtues – humility and ambition. A diminishing of the ego and an enlarging of the heart. With God’s grace, hope leads to an off centring of the self and the courage to think big and be large hearted. ‘Be ambitious for the higher gifts…. Gifts that are for up-building, encouraging and consoling’ (I Cor 12.31-14.3). On Christmas night, the angels above Bethlehem will sing of peace to people of goodwill. The world needs such people and Christians of hope and courage and joy. Wake up!
Wake up to the dawning light. In order to be increasingly receptive to Christ’s advent in our hearts and lives over the next four weeks, we need to be more disciplined in our Christian living, especially in this noisy and busy Christmas season. To give ourselves dedicated time for prayer and pondering, charity and neighbour, so that Christ can enlighten us and give us the grace of repentance and renewal of way of life. Today Isaiah exhorts us: ‘let us walk in the light of the Lord.’
Readings: Isaiah 2:1-5 | Romans 13:11-14 | Matthew 24:37-44
Image: detail from St John the Baptist by Randy Greve (CC BY 2.0)
