Be prepared

This weekend as we celebrate the first Sunday of Advent, the Church starts the new liturgical year B.  In that way it is appropriate to wish you all a Happy New Church year. We start the season of Advent in which we prepare for the Feast of the Nativity of the Lord with Christmas. We looking forward to the coming of Jesus in our world in his first coming but also in his second coming. In a very special way he is coming to us every week in the Holy Eucharist. Advent means literally: arriving, coming or emerging. And this world is eager for the arriving of a Lord. A world that is suffering from a pandemic, a world that is dark, corruption around us, famines, war and hate. We are truly in need of a savior.
 
One of the themes that we can start our preparation with is found in today's first reading from the prophet Isaiah. Namely, that we have to return to God, confess our sins and hope for better days. And hope is what the world needs, always in these dark days before Christmas but especially this year as the whole world suffers from Covid 19 and it's restrictions. We need hope that there will be better days ahead of us. That we can return to normal soon again. Isaiah is eager for God to come down, as we are:. “Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down….to make your name known to your adversaries”.  In a way that is always the case. Gods adversaries is everything that goes against his plans and that includes our own shortcomings. Our shortcomings make us like an polluted garment, Isaiah tells us. And in the Gospel Jesus warns us against to walk too much inline with worldly things and it's rulers, for the end is coming sooner than we expect. Nothing will last forever and we need to be ready. 
 
Everything that is contrary on God is his adversary and will disappear eventually. And that includes human made  systems and leadership.  Therefore we need not to put our trust in “human leadership”, that failed hopelessly throughout the ages, and keeps on doing so. We need to trust in God almighty only. At the end He is the only One that you can truly rely on. He will never leave or forsake you. If your complacent with the world you will lose at the end.  We need to prepare for Gods coming in the flesh and submit to his plans.
Advent invites reassessment of where our ways are leading us. This reminds us that the world as we know it will one day end. When that is we don't know but we know that every individual will pass on someday. That might be scary but on the positive note we know that Jesus prepares a place for us. And  But the positive side of this is that a new Spring day is dawning over the horizon, when Christ will come again into our lives with power to save us.

All of us travel once in a while. And not matter which form of travel you use to your destination, people that await you are eager for your coming. And if everything is well you as well. There is often excitement, ready with the broad smile of greeting to embrace the returning traveller. So looking for someone’s coming goes both ways. I believe the same it is the same with Jesus.  We too wait for the Lord’s coming with eagerness, because we long for his presence…and Jesus is eager for our presence.  

The waiting is important because, during our life’s pilgrimage, we are incomplete. As Augustine once said, “You have made us for Yourself, o Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” At some deep level of our personhood we are in need, a need that only God can fill. This is a time to open our hearts and invite the Lord to bring us to completion. We begin Advent, yearning for his coming. Today’s first reading puts this yearning into an image, that “We have all withered like leaves… blown by the wind.” The whirling, withered leaves of autumn are a familiar scene these past few weeks.

Isaiah proposes the dead leaves as symbols of all that is dried up and withered in our lives. But he also calls us to look for a better day. God is still in charge of creation, and our personal lives are under his loving care. We pray this Advent, “Come, Lord Jesus,” and make our own the words of the psalm, “Visit this vine and protect it, the vine your right hand has chosen.” It is a central plank of our faith that the Lord never abandons His people.

When people are waiting for their loved ones to arrive from travelling abroad it is an alert, active waiting – keeping an eye on the time. In today’s gospel Jesus says, “Be on your guard, stay awake.” He wants us to focus on our task here and now. We are to grow more mature in our relationship with others and with him, paying attention to prayer, and living with his message in our hearts. That’s what waiting for him should be like. And while we wait, we can enjoy his gifts, as promised.
Amen.