The word advent is defined as coming into a place, view or being; arrival. For Christians, Advent is the season before Christmas, about a month of preparation and waiting expectantly, not just to celebrate the birth of the Christ child in the world, but also to mark the return of Jesus in the Second Coming.
The first exhortation is stay awake, for we do not know the hour the Son of Man is coming. We are close to the end of the calendar year, where spirits tend to flag, and we may have lost a little of our zeal to bring God glory, weighed down by our recent failures and our own self-indulgent ways, so the liturgical wisdom of Advent is timely. Wake up from our distractions, prepare our hearts to receive Jesus, allow Him to be born within us in new ways.
Physical and mental exhaustion have left me in a rather blasé state of mind, so I welcomed Advent with hope; hope for my own renewal of spirit, hope to release my disordered attachments to the Lord, and hope to be restored to Righteous Peace and Godly Glory promised in Baruch chapter five, verses one to nine.
The readings at mass have been rich, brimming with God’s true intention for humanity: the physical and spiritual healings, the miraculous feeding of the hungry thousands, the reminders of how much God loves us all and how He wants to shower us with blessings. We need only turn around and return into His loving arms to experience all His promises.
Certainly it can be a mite challenging to do just that, return to Him, stay awake and hope for a better day tomorrow when our hearts are aching with sorrow and loss, and we feel battered down by life and all the evil we seem to be surrounded by, and yet, this is the true beauty of being Christian, we have an ace in the hole in the Christ baby.
He will be born to share in our humanity wholly, experiencing all we ourselves experience. He will take on all our failures and sins by the horns and fling them where they don’t matter one smidge, and we will be rewarded with a redemption that wraps us in loving arms and unifies us with our Maker. We will live forever in glory, beyond the limitations of our current existence.
Advent encourages me to think with that long term view of eternal bliss and to transform my heart and mind now such that I can experience a foretaste of future glory by living as closely as I can with Jesus in the here and now. This intimate relationship with the Lord is what will give me the ability to be alert and not falter presently, to be one with Him in heart, mind and soul.
We will pass this way but once, YOLO as it is often tossed around, so make it a great life, a great day every day, live as Jesus did, in close communion with the Father, acting with righteousness and compassion to all He met, with no exception. There are great rewards for doing so, not just in the future, but even now.
So heed the call and act on it. Shake off the tiredness of body and heaviness of heart and serve with enthusiasm and good cheer. He was, is, and always will be our Saviour King, God who is with us. Welcome Him come Christmas Day with grateful hands and a joyful heart.
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