1st Sunday of
Advent
Cycle A
As I get older, I tend to
think about my mortality more than when I was younger. I think most of us do. There
are more years behind us than ahead. Friends our age are dying. We’ve lost our
parents and sometimes our siblings. Our bodies start failing us. Maybe we’ve
gone through a serious illness. When we are young, we feel invincible. We don’t
think about our own deaths. As average lifespans get longer, many young people
are never touched by death. Grandparents are in their lives, healthy and
active. Or they live far away, sight unseen.
Death is for the old. When
a young person, especially a child, dies it is always seen as a tragedy. We
have become desensitized by the violence and death we see in the media. Two
whole generations have never lived through a major war. Death always seems to
take us by surprise, and I think it is because we don’t think about it. We
don’t want to think about it.
I have seen more and more
people my age and older falling away from God, and it doesn’t make sense to me.
I would think that as death is closer people would prepare for it, try to get
closer to God and many do, but what must have happened in those other peoples’
lives to have caused them to either shut themselves off from the reality of God
or even more common, to become indifferent to faith. I would think that now is
the time to get ready for the inevitable, to make changes in my life to correct
bad habits and atone for sins of the past, to make my peace with God and others
while there’s still time.
I don’t think most of
those folks are actively rejecting God or their faith, they just have lost
interest. They are indifferent to faith, it has faded in importance, or life
has beaten them down so much they have come to a fatalistic view of death. It
will come, there’s nothing they can do about it, and after all, why should they
worry about an afterlife? It either isn’t there or everyone will go to heaven.
They don’t think there will be consequences for their actions.
The
church teaches that there are three comings of Christ. The first is the actual
incarnation in the person of Jesus of Nazareth 2000 years ago. The second is
the final judgment, when Christ will come in all his glory to judge the living
and the dead. The third is… today. That’s the coming that most affects us. We
weren’t there 2000 years ago to witness the first coming, and we have no idea
when he will come again in glory, nor can we control it. The only thing we can
control is our acceptance of Jesus’ coming into our lives today.
If
we take care of Christ’s third coming, the second coming will take care of
itself. It is through the third coming that we are prepared for the second.
You have been preparing
for today for the whole of your life. You have been preparing for your death
from the day of your birth. You have been making ready for the coming of the
Lord from the day you were baptized.
How ready are you? What
have you done with the grace that God has given you throughout your life that
has brought you to today? More importantly, what do you intend to do going
forward? How will you respond to God’s call in the future?
It’s
the first Sunday of Advent. New Years Day for us Catholics. The word Advent
means coming, as in the coming of an event that has been anticipated. Today we
begin the new liturgical year, and as you can see, the colors have changed to
purple from green, we have our Advent wreath all set up and lit, and the gospel
readings are from Matthew rather than from Luke. Of all four gospels, Matthew
has the most references to God’s judgement, that it is a reality we need to
prepare for.
Every
year, as we prepare to celebrate and commemorate Jesus’ first coming at
Christmas, the readings focus our minds and hearts on His second coming. And
so, we are called to remember that there will be a judgement day, there will be
a time when Jesus will come in glory to judge the living and the dead. And we
need to prepare for it.
One
will be taken; the other will be left behind. How many times have we and a
friend been at an event, or heard a homily or listened to a talk, or read a
book or an article, and one of us gets it and the other one doesn’t? Many times,
our understanding of these things is due to our openness to the message, our
level of commitment to it, or our level of knowledge about the subject. It’s
the same with the gospel. We are all here this morning celebrating together,
hearing the same scriptures and saying the same prayers. Who will be taken and
who will be left behind? Which of us will acknowledge Jesus’ coming into our
lives this day and which of us won’t? And which of us will use that knowledge
to change our lives in preparation?
The
Son of Man will come when you least expect him. When you don’t think he’ll show
up. When you don’t want him to show up. When you think everything’s going just
fine and you don’t need him. When you don’t have time for him in your busy
lives. He has a habit of just showing up, uninvited, at the weirdest times.
Those
are times of opportunity. The beauty of the gospel is that you can accept it at
any time in your life. Even if you haven’t exactly been a saint, and few have,
you always have the chance to choose God. Whether you recognize or acknowledge
it or not, God has always been there, calling you to him. Even at the very last
moment of your life, if you’re finally ready, He’ll be ready for you.
