First Sunday of Advent – Year A
Readings: Is 2: 1-5; Ps 121; Rom 13:11-14; Mt 24:37-44
The Second reading of today announces the common belief of the time that the second coming of Christ was immanent and the closeness of this coming should inspire or drive Christians to choose certain behaviours and to avoid others.
Today. I dare to say the reverse of that common belief prevails. There is an attitude of carelessness and even loss of faith in the second coming of Christ. The perceived delay has the opposite effect on Christians, a sort of complacency and lack of urgency when it comes to Christian living.
At this juncture it is important to remind ourselves about Jesus’ teaching on his second coming, his parousia, a word denoting the coming of a king to take possession of his city.
Jesus said only the Father know the hour. Thus, God alone is privy to the exact timing, and we know that Gods time is Kairos time, the appointed time, that bears no resemblance to our human concept of time. Hence the church cannot affirm whether the coming of Christ is immanent or remote in human time. What the Church can affirm as its profession of faith is that Christ will come again and that in fact Christ comes to his people at every moment through the life of faith. Christ comes to us in the moment of death in order to birth us into life eternal.
Scripture affirms that the second coming will be sudden, unexpected, taking the godless by surprise as in the days of Noah and the flood.
One of its effects would be separation. Two people working together at the mill or in the fields would find themselves apart. The bad fish would be thrown out of the net which they have shared with the good. The division of the weeds and the wheat from the parable would then take place.
Like the thief who comes at night without warning, so shall the Son of Man.
This is what we know brothers and sisters. This is all we need to know according to Scripture.
Through the ages Israel had many warnings of the coming of the Messiah and that they should prepare for his coming. However, they started to forget it as part of their collective consciousness and became too immersed in the demands of daily living, too concerned with temporal matters and neglecting eternity perhaps? Concerns of putting food on the table, providing education for the children, cementing social positions, having fun and so on. After a while the only Saviour that made sense to them was someone who would make their daily lives easier. At the time of the first coming, that we are preparing to celebrate, the Jewish leaders were also more concerned with time than eternity. More concerned to escape the military, political and economic rule of the Romans and to restore the Kingdom of Israel to its long-lost glory. The ordinary folks too, longed for a powerful Messiah; one who would be victorious in battle and solve all their problems and who they could be proud of and to whom they could sing Hosanna. Thus, the first coming went by unnoticed, unappreciated and largely ignored except for the small group of Mary and Joseph, a few shepherds and three foreigners who suspected who He was. May we not make the same mistakes with his second coming.
The remedy is watchfulness. To be constantly preparing to meet the Lord in his coming. To encounter Him in word and Sacrament, the faith community, the rest of creation and in the poor and needy. Then we will be ready to die and ready to live, fully live. In our time this watchfulness does not evoke the same necessity as it did in biblical times, when watchmen were depended upon to keep the city safe. Today it might be called ‘mindfulness” by some, “awareness” by others. The mystics call it the practise of the presence of God. Is this not what we are called to during the Advent season?
Matthew wanted from his readers a busy, active Christianity and not mere endurance. He might well have had lax second-generation Christians among his readers who needed to be brought back to their first fervour and recover their first love and enthusiasm. The words of Matthew are as relevant to us today as it were then.
Let us pay heed to these words and wake up and be watchful (the right “wokeness”). Let this Advent count. It might very well be the last for you or me. What is important is the “today” of scripture. Now is the time. This is the day salvation. Today, if only you listen to. his voice, harden not your hearts (Ps 95:7). Behold, now is the favourable time; now is the day of salvation (2 Cor 6:2).