FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT (YEAR A)

[cappie]

 There is a word that seminary students tend to love – maybe because it’s a big word and makes people feel intelligent: “eschatological”.  

Today’s readings are eschatological in nature. That is, they deal with the end of the world, the end of humankind, the Judgment Day, the destiny of humanity.  So,  what’s the point, you might ask, of Jesus bringing up the end of things just to tell us that we don’t know anything about it?

By telling us that we don’t know about the eschaton, Jesus tells us a lot. It can be easy to fall into the trap of making our faith about the end goal – heaven! As a people who are marked by death and resurrection, we can become enamored with thinking about what God’s kingdom will be like – and, when that happens, we can lose sight of the gift we have been given in this world and in this life.

 At the beginning of Creation, when God was busy forming things and Adam was naming all of the things with feathers, or fur, or leaves – God called this good. This world: good. Us, made in God’s image: good. Our lives of faith are not supposed to be focused on the world and creation to come to the detriment of this one – we have been given a mandate to love the place where we are.

Many of us, of course, are concerned about climate change. We are in a climate crisis, and our world is on fire. Given this predicament, it makes sense that we would also be eager to look for the eschaton – another world, coming to save us from this mess we’ve made! Trying to find solutions for problems like climate change can be too big to imagine – too much to bear. The problems are immense, and in trying to address them, we confront our own finitude. Into this particular moment, these words coming to us from Jesus seem particularly important to hear – “about that day and hour no one knows.” Living in the unknown – in what we cannot fathom or plan for – can make us crazy. We want certainty! We want to know how things are going to be!

Unfortunately, that’s not what Jesus is offering us. He is offering us an invitation into the world we are already in – an invitation to this planet, to this world, to this time and place.

How are we to ready ourselves for the day of his coming? Paradoxically, we can ready ourselves to leave this world by truly living in it, by soaking up every grace-filled moment. This Advent season is one that too often comes and goes without our noticing it. We gather family and friends but often focus on the shopping we haven’t done or the menu that didn’t turn out quite like the picture.

Jesus is coming at an unexpected hour – it might be in the moment you have on Christmas Eve. Maybe you will find Jesus in the flicker of candles at church. Jesus might come as your child bursts through the door, happy to be home after the first semester at college. We don’t know when Jesus could surprise us – but we can be sure that it will be in this world, using what has been ordinary and transforming it into something wonderful. After all, this is the God who comes to us in the most ordinary bread and wine each week, transforming these simple elements into food for our journeys.

The hour is late as we begin a new Advent. Let us begin again in this Eucharist.

As we sing in today’s Psalm, “let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord.” Let us give thanks to His name, keeping watch for His coming, knowing that our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed.

“About that day and hour no one knows,” says Jesus – today, may this be for us an invitation. Jesus is waiting, ready to surprise and delight. Amen.