CHRIST IS COMING: STAY AWAKE

HOMILY FOR THE FIRST SUNDAY IN ADVENT YEAR A

THEME: CHRIST IS COMING: STAY AWAKE

R1: Is 2: 1- 5, 

R2: Rom 13: 11-14, 

Gospel: Mt 24: 37-44

Dear friends, today is the first Sunday of advent. Advent means coming. It is a time we anticipate the coming of Christ in three different perspectives: at Christmas (his physical birth), his daily coming into our lives and his second coming at the end of time. This coming brings four important things; hope, peace, love and joy. These gifts make up the different four themes of advent, celebrated in the four Sundays of advent. 

Because of this wonderful coming, the whole Church is full of expectations. This expectation demands preparation. That is why, we see different kinds of decorations, lights and flowers in shops, malls and homes. Some people buy new clothes, shoes etc. This is only a physical or material preparation for the celebration of Christ coming at Christmas. But Christ’s coming demands more than just material or physical preparation. 

His coming brings hope; hope for salvation. Just as in the first reading of today, Isaiah speaks to the Israelites who were facing different terrors from different angles and had lost hope,  that the Lord will come soon and that his coming will make Jerusalem blossom again. This is to say, God will bring salvation at His coming. This is a message of hope to not just the Israelites but to all Christians especially now that Christianity is facing attacks from different opposing authorities who want us to do away with Christianity. As we cry to the Lord, let be assured that the Lord will surely come and bring us salvation. 

Meanwhile, as we wait for that time of salvation, St Paul in the second reading advises us to give up all things we do in the cover of the dark and arm ourselves and appear in the light. Hence, this is an invitation to a healthy living and a reawakening to be faithful to our baptismal promise of rejection of the devil and his works. This is a call to a total inward preparation that is beyond the material or physical preparation of decorating our house, malls and bodies. We must prepare our hearts.

This inward preparation is what the gospel reading is challenging us to do, to stay awake and pray so that we do not fall away (Mt 26:41). Thus, we must be conscious of not rejecting the gospel message so that we would not be swept away just as those who refused to enter the ark of Noah, enjoying themselves with the pleasure of the world were swept away by the food. God’s salvation will be only for those who are awake and fully prepared at His coming. Advent is the time for such preparation. Stay awake.

Rev. Fr. Chukwuemeka Vincent Livinus, SMMM.