In Jesus’ time, the problem Jesus faced was NOT that no one was waiting for the Messiah; NOT that NO one was looking for a savior, but the problem was that Jesus turned out to be a different Messiah from what the people were waiting for… therefore, not only that they did not recognize the Messiah, right in front of them; they killed Him.
Similarly – our own concepts of what or who God is could be our own obstacle to knowing and encountering God. We could be blinded by our own concepts and prejudiced ideas of what God is – of Who Jesus is; of how God would come into our lives; of how God works in our lives. The truth of the matter is that people did not recognize Jesus then and they do not recognize Him now. Just as John the Baptist declared: “There is one among you whom you do not recognize (Jn 1:26).
As one author wrote: The world did not recognize Jesus then because:
They were looking for a Lion, He came as a Lamb.
They were looking for a Warrior, He came as a Peace maker.
They were looking for a King, He came as a Servant.
They were looking for their temporal needs to be met. He came to meet their eternal needs.
They were looking for someone to liberate them from Rome, He submitted to the Roman Cross.
AND - It is NOT ONLY in terms of WHAT the Messiah will be like but there were and even in our time, there are still misconceptions as to WHEN and HOW the Lord will come.
The admonition for this first Sunday of the church’s new year is: Stay awake! Keep alert! Be on guard! What does that mean?
Sometimes the Second Coming of Christ is spoken of in the New Testament as a grand, cosmic event in which Jesus will descend on clouds from heaven. Trumpets will sound, the dead will be raised, and Christ will return in glory.
But - Today we have another image of Christ’s coming. In our Gospel, we hear Jesus say that the Lord will come like “a thief in the night.”
Meaning - God comes to us in unexpected, surprising ways. This is actually what we celebrate during Advent and at Christmas.
What the incarnation means for us, God becoming one of us in the flesh, and what we celebrate throughout this holy season, is that God is with us… Emmanuel.
The challenge for us is to be spiritually alert and watchful which is the true meaning of Advent but unfortunately Advent has become an almost routine commercialized season – just a time for parties and shopping for Christmas gifts.
So – How do we “Stay awake! Keep alert! Be on guard!”
That’s the challenge for all of us: Our real worry should not be that the world might suddenly end or that we might unexpectedly die, but our concern must be that we might live and die, ASLEEP, so to speak.
Father Anthony DeMello, a Jesuit priest said: Spirituality means waking up. Most people, even though they do not know it, are asleep, so to speak. They're born asleep, they live asleep, they marry in their sleep, they raise children in their sleep, they die still in their sleep without ever waking up.
Meaning - They never understand the loveliness and the beauty of this thing that we call human existence… never understanding how to be fully alive.
Meaning – People live and die without really loving, without properly expressing their love, and without tasting deeply the real joy of living because they are so consumed by the worldliness, business and busy pressures of living that they never quite get around to fully living.
St. Irenaeus said: “The glory of God is a man fully alive.”
That is why Jesus said: “I have come that they might have life and have it abundantly (in other translation) – to have life to its fullest.” (John 10:10)
You see - being alert, awake, and being vigilant in the biblical sense is not a matter of living in fear of the world ending or of our personal lives ending.
Rather, being awake is a matter of having love and reconciliation as our chief concerns. It is a matter of always being grateful, thanking, appreciating, affirming, forgiving, apologizing, and being more mindful of the joys of living in human community and within the sure embrace of God…every day – meaning – Christ’s ongoing coming by grace into our lives every day… not just at the first coming; not just at the second coming but coming into our lives every day.
We need to be awake spiritually. Again, the end of the world should NOT concern us, nor should we worry excessively about when we will die. What we should worry about is: IN WHAT STATE our dying will find us… meaning – in what state our hearts and our souls will be when we die.
We are called not only to wake up to life, but called also to stay awake, so to speak. We are being reminded of how easy it is to become lazy in our life of faith. We are being reminded that our hearts can become drowsy from “carousing and drunkenness and the anxieties of daily life.”
A simple practical illustration - This is also the season of holiday parties especially now that people can gather together again, people are excited… You can pretty much imagine some people standing in front of their closets – anguishing - with the silent cry, looking at all the clothes: “Which one am I going to wear?”
From our Second Reading today, St. Paul also mentioned: “It is the hour now for you to awake from sleep.” He urges the Romans to find a renewed intimacy with Christ. St. Paul – using metaphor drawn from the closet - asks his readers to “put on Christ.”
To “Put on Christ” means to dress our inner being/person, not the outer body, and “to put on Christ” is thus a call to place priority on our relationship with God more than our relationships with the world.
St. Paul encourages us to dress our inner being, our character, our soul with more attention than we give to dressing up our bodies.
St. Paul is telling us to strive to please God, the One who looks upon the heart rather than the face, to dress the soul more carefully than the body. As Thomas Merton observed, “the very desire to please God, already pleases God.” It is our highest calling and purpose.
How do we please God? What are the “garments” – so to speak - of the well-dressed soul? Remember, we cannot serve God or love God without also serving and loving our neighbor. If we would put on Christ, we must “behave properly”.
Meaning - We are to enjoy life but in moderation (“not in orgies and drunkenness”);
We are to enjoy relationships of intimacy but within God’s plan for marriage (“not in sexual immorality or lust”);
We are to enjoy honest and real friendships with companions, with our family members and co-workers (“not in rivalry or jealousy”).
So, what are we going to wear, so to speak, this Advent season? Today is the beginning of our season of introspection, going deep within, of examining our conscience, of renewing our covenant relationship with God and season of spiritual preparation for the coming of Christ whenever and however that might be.
St. Pope John XXIII said that if we live according to God’s will, in communion with Christ, then any day is a good day to die even if death comes like “a thief in the night” because our true home is in heaven – living our lives with eternity in view – recognizing that we are just passing through in this earthly life.
Let us dress appropriately spiritually.
Let us clothe our minds with thoughts of repentance.
Let us wrap our hearts in hope for God’s coming. Let us gird our souls - in glad service of the poor and powerless - for the love of God.
So, my brothers and sisters in Christ, when we stand before our packed closets, filled with clothes, instead of asking “Which of these clothes should I wear?”, may the Christ who was born in a borrowed cave, wrapped only in a few strips of cloth; may Christ who died on a cross wearing even less, - May Christ call us to ask the more important question, “Which of these clothes can I give away?”
God bless…
