Waiting in Tension

November 28, Sunday

FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT

 “Stand erect, hold your heads high.” This is the message the Lord speaks to us on this First Sunday of Advent. There are terrible civil wars, there is famine in many parts of the world, and there are millions of refugees seeking safety. Yet our Lord assures us that we should keep up our hope and expectations, for he is still with us and near to us. Be attentive to his presence, not only here in the Eucharist but also in the life of every day.

 

First Reading: Jeremiah 33:14-16

A Fresh and True Shoot from the David-Tree

 “‘Watch for this: The time is coming’—God’s Decree—‘when I will keep the promise I made to the families of Israel and Judah. When that time comes, I will make a fresh and true shoot sprout from the David-Tree. He will run this country honestly and fairly. He will set things right. That’s when Judah will be secure and Jerusalem live in safety. The motto for the city will be, “God Has Set Things Right for Us.” God has made it clear that there will always be a descendant of David ruling the people of Israel and that there will always be Levitical priests on hand to offer burnt offerings, present grain offerings, and carry on the sacrificial worship in my honour.’”

 

Second Reading: 1Thes 3:12—4:2

May God our Father himself and our Master Jesus clear the road to you! And may the Master pour on the love so it fills your lives and splashes over on everyone around you, just as it does from us to you. May you be infused with strength and purity, filled with confidence in the presence of God our Father when our Master Jesus arrives with all his followers.

One final word, friends. We ask you—urge is more like it—that you keep on doing what we told you to do to please God, not in a dogged religious plod, but in a living, spirited dance. You know the guidelines we laid out for you from the Master Jesus. God wants you to live a pure life.

Keep yourselves from sexual promiscuity.

 

Gospel: Luke 21:25-28, 34-36

“It will seem like all hell has broken loose—sun, moon, stars, earth, sea, in an uproar and everyone all over the world in a panic, the wind knocked out of them by the threat of doom, the powers-that-be quaking.

 “And then—then!—they’ll see the Son of Man welcomed in grand style—a glorious welcome! When all this starts to happen, up on your feet. Stand tall with your heads high. Help is on the way!”

“But be on your guard. Don’t let the sharp edge of your expectation get dulled by parties and drinking and shopping. Otherwise, that Day is going to take you by complete surprise, spring on you suddenly like a trap, for it’s going to come on everyone, everywhere, at once. So, whatever you do, don’t go to sleep at the switch. Pray constantly that you will have the strength and wits to make it through everything that’s coming and end up on your feet before the Son of Man.”

 

Prayer
Lord our God,
we are your people on the march
who try to carry out the task
of giving shape to your kingdom of love and peace.

When we are discouraged and afraid,
keep us going forward in hope.
Make us vigilant in prayer,
that we may see the signs of your Son’s coming.
Let Jesus walk with us already now
on the road he has shown us,
that he may lead us to you,
our living God for ever and ever. Amen.

 

Reflection:

Vigilant in Prayer

One who is in love knows that the person loved always comes back in thoughts, dreams, fantasies, and conversations. To believe in Christ means to fall in love with him. He does not abandon us. In the year “C,” evangelist Luke highlights Jesus’ tenderness toward the least, the marginalized, the excluded and the sinners.

Today is the First Sunday of the season of Advent. The word Advent referred to the visit of a king to a city or the day of the king’s coronation. The Christians adopted this practice to indicate the period of preparation for the visit of God who manifested himself in Jesus.

It might be our experience that we expect a friend’s visit and wait for his arrival in the wrong bus station or terminal or we miss the time of the appointment and are not able to meet him.

It also happens with God. He has already come many times in human history. He showed the place where he can be met, but perhaps we have not understood well because we end up waiting for him where he does not come. Advent is a time that helps us prepare well to receive the Lord into our lives.

Today’s Gospel gives us some dramatic expressions of something that would occur. We could easily mistake it for some predictions that Jesus is giving in advance about what will happen at the end of the world. But that is not the meaning of the text. The apocalyptic images used by Jesus does not refer to explosions of stars, to catastrophic collisions of stars and planets. They speak of what is happening today. It becomes impossible to live in our world. People commit abuses and injustices; hate reigns; there is violence, war, inhumane conditions. Nature herself is destroyed by the exploitation of resources.

Jesus does not intend to provoke fear, but to get just the opposite. He wants to free us from fear, inspire joy, and infuse hope. Today’s Gospel invites everyone “to lift the head.” There’s no chaos from which God cannot obtain a new and wonderful world.

How to stay awake, alert, and ready to seize the moment and the place where the Lord is? It is very easy to get confused, deceived, waiting for him where he is not – that is: in our bad habits, our attachment to the goods and positions of this world.

There is only one way to stay vigilant: to pray (v. 36). Prayer—Jesus says—will have two effects: it will give us the strength to see all the events in life with God’s eyes and it will ensure that we are not caught by fear. Prayer will make us ready to welcome him and go with him to the extent where he wants to lead us.

 

Video available on Youtube: Vigilant in Prayer