The first Sunday of Advent starts our new liturgical calendar for Year B in the three-year cycle of meditating on the Word of God. It is a season of faith, as we are led to focus on the coming of the Lord and of the reign of God. We live in patient expectation, waiting on edge (Mark 13:33-37).
The Lord is coming
Our present life is a matter of what is still to come. At no point is it everything already, nor is everything there. Our life is about birth, growth, and maturation; there is even fullness expected in the end of life, in death, into what is eternal. There are depths and dimensions in one’s life and in the world at large still to be discovered and explored, forces to be unlocked so that life can be brought to its full potential. Creation is in progress and its plenitude and completeness are waiting: an optimism that is an essential component of Christian faith.
But life is also filled with endless conflicts and catastrophes, the world a killing field of inhumanity and self-destruction. What is there to wait for? Where is hope? Precisely in this state of the unredeemed and of sinfulness, we need a new tomorrow, to accept redemption and for humanity to pick itself up and finally do what must be done in response to the divine initiative. In the very midst of anxiety, corruption and poverty, broken dreams and divisive illusions, we live in the hope of salvation. The Lord, the Redeemer, is coming. We live in the spirit of Advent. We believe that God can indeed rend the heavens and rain down upon us the conquering charity and justice of a new heaven and a new Earth. Pitch black the night may be, but we are sure there will be a new dawn of light.
Stay awake
IN our condition, Jesus has only one insistent recommendation to his followers: “Stay awake!” It could not be otherwise, since no one knows the when and the how of this advent or coming. We must learn the asceticism of the watchman. Jesus gave us the parable of the gatekeeper to emphasize the active vigilance that is the courageous and creative attitude of one aspiring to be open to the wonders of God. It is a focusing of energy, holding back the demons of the night trying to detain the dawn of a new world. It is watching in prayer, giving full attention to God and to others in need. It is staying patiently with Jesus, who at the garden of Gethsemane told his disciples to keep watch with him “lest you fall into temptation” (Mark 14:38). We must stay awake with him amid the global crisis in values and priorities, in the confusion induced by secularism, in the inactivity of the good and the apparent triumph of what is evil.
We watch with Jesus, the first born of the new creation, the first born of the dead—of the world sold to sin and death. The waiting of Advent prefigures the vigil of Easter and the marvelous dawn of the new time, a time that is already there but not yet fully so. It comes again and again in a spiral of purity and clarity. Advent is recurrent, because we are in progress and in the making, in time never complete already and finished. The waiting on edge and with patience takes us out of ourselves and apart from what we may consider our real worth. It liberates us from smugness and much-ado over nothing.
Alálaong bagá, our Christian faith tells us there is so much to hope for and look forward to. We need to stay awake and wait on edge and patiently. We have to understand here the patience of God who cares for us. For He is like a gardener who awaits the growth of the seeds He has planted, patiently expecting and preparing for the maturation of the flowers and the fruits, knowing the course will take its time. The roots have slowly to grow deep into the ground so that the tree can hold fast till its fullness in the end. The purer is our joy and thanksgiving to Him who has planted in us the seed of the harvest to come.
Join me in meditating on the Word of God every Sunday, from 5 to 6 a.m. on DWIZ 882, or by audio streaming on www.dwiz882.com.