NOW IS THE TIME TO AWAKE OUT OF SLEEP

 A SERMON FOR ADVENT SUNDAY

The Gospel this weeks sounds mighty familiar, doesn’t it!  The signs in the sun and the moon and the stars, distress of nations, the coming of the Son of man in power and great glory…  And you may wonder why we’re hearing almost the exact same thing this week in last week’s Gospel.  Only one week separates these two Gospels.  Is God trying to drum something into our head, do you think?

Actually, truth be told, this week’s Gospel couldn’t be further away from last week’s!  Because today is the first day of the Liturgical Year.  We’re looking at it backwards—it is today’s Gospel that actually comes first, and we won’t hear its counterpart until the very last Sunday of the year 52 weeks from now.  The liturgical year begins and ends with this same presentation of the End Times, the two Gospels framing, like book ends, all the twelve months in between with their focus on the Four Last Things.

Obviously, this is no accident, no coincidence.  The Church fully intends to encapsulate the entire story of Redemption with this reminder of what it’s all really about.  The coming of our Saviour at Christmas is merely a part of this central element of our faith.  So are all the other feasts and seasons of the year, whether they be joyful like Easter and Pentecost, or sorrowful as in the case of Lent and Passiontide.  Joys and sorrows are just elements of our life, but it’s life itself that’s the most important thing.  Without life, we can’t even experience these joys and sorrows.  Our eternal life is the same—without this everlasting life in heaven to look forward to, neither the happiness we experience in this life, nor all the trials and tribulations we endure, have any relevance or consequence.  Even the Life of Christ himself would be meaningless to us if it were not for the Salvation he brings with him.  And we should never forget this—it’s the single reason why he came.

Is it any wonder then, that the Church goes to such lengths at the beginning and end of every year to remind us of this?  We begin the year with the season of Advent, looking forward to the Birth of Christ and the Hope of Salvation it brought us.  And 52 Sundays from now we’ll end the year with that same Hope of Salvation that Christ will bring with him at his Second Coming.

We’ve been preparing for Advent the past few weeks by considering the hope we should have in the face of adversity.  Now Advent is upon us, and we prepare for the Nativity of our Saviour with that hope, “knowing”, as St. Paul says in the Epistle, “that now is the time to awake out of sleep.”  “Know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand.”  Christ is coming—we’re all very much aware by now that Christmas is just around the corner, and we look forward to our Lord’s birth in the stable of Bethlehem.  But he’s also coming with power and great glory to judge both the quick and the dead.  Let’s make sure that we really do awake out of sleep and reform our lacklustre, tepid lives by firmly committing ourselves to a renewed fervour for the things of God.  Then and only then can we truly look forward not only to Christmas, but also to his Second Coming and the Judgment that will be ours, hopeful and confident in his infinite mercy.