First Sunday of Advent Scripture Readings Like it or not, we’ve entered into the season of new beginnings. Since most of our mythology arose among the peoples of the northern hemisphere, our mythemes—those fragments of common understanding that are woven together to form a kind of map key to life—are derived from the approaching winter. We think of the fading sunlight and the shortening of the days. We think of the harvest and the plant life that sustains us slipping into dormancy. We begin our annual longing for the return of warmth and new growth. In short, we step into the season of Advent—the season of anticipation. I find in today’s gospel a particularly fine example of Jesus’s message, and how it relates to the message of this season. I think it’s particularly relevant this year as we face what John Pavlovitz calls ”an incoming tide of unfathomable chaos”[1] that’s been unleashed in this country. Look at what Jesus is saying. He starts out speaking about the signs of the end of the world and our human reactions to those signs. Remember Chicken Little, the little fellow who ran around crying, “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!” It’s the end of the world? Stop, look, and listen. All over the world, people are gorging themselves on the news, and what’s the result? “People will die of fright in anticipation of what is coming upon the world …” Well? What is “coming upon the world?” The story of the universe is being written one boson at a time from its birth through its expansion and growth across countless changes, as it hurtles toward an uncertain future. And every component of that universe gets to recapitulate that pattern: birth, growth and change, and dissolution into that uncertain future. Humanity is capable of comprehending its origins, mapping its growth, studying the forces of change, and standing awe-struck before the mysteries that await it. We recognize in the evolution of the universe, in the evolution of humanity, and in our own evolution from birth to the present, a great revelation of that Mystery. At every point, we shrink in terror of the possibility that all of it, the universe, life, ourselves, and even the great Mystery might ultimately prove meaningless. The important message in today’s gospel isn’t about “signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars and on earth, nations … in dismay, perplexed by the roaring of the sea and the waves.” Throughout history, there have been signs of global catastrophes about to overtake us: plagues, famines, earthquakes and tsunamis, shifting climate and crop failures, wars, slaughters, and genocides. Almost every generation has found itself saying, “Yup. This is it. This is the last straw. This is the thing that will send us all into the meaningless void.” The gospel message today says exactly the opposite. Jesus counsels us. “Beware that your hearts do not become drowsy …” What does he mean? Perhaps, he’s talking about becoming discouraged and depressed. Maybe he’s talking about the temptation to give up. Isn’t he talking about the attitude that says, “What’s the use? Why bother? Let’s just get drunk and party?” Isn’t he talking about allowing the “anxieties of life” to get the best of us? So, what’s Jesus’s message? What does he mean when he says, “Be vigilant at all times and pray that you have the strength to stand before the Son of Man”? Don’t think of the coming of the Son of Man in terms of the “second coming” of Christ as people try to picture it. Think of it, rather, as that great Mystery toward which everything is moving. All of creation, after all, is the work of the Word of God forming and driving all of reality and all of time so that, at just the right moment, the Mystery could break through into the human story with the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. And at just the right moment you, too, could break through into the human story to add your own unique chapters. So, what it means to stand before the Son of Man is nothing less than to confront face-to-face that Mystery that created us, that accompanies us, and that awaits us as our destiny. What it means to stand before the Son of Man is to stare into the eyes of God. What will we see there, but a perfect reflection of who we are, freed from all pretense and excuses? It’s like standing before a full-length mirror stripped entirely spiritually naked. This isn’t to feel shame for who we are. To stand before the Son of Man means to see ourselves entirely as God sees us in truth, free of the trappings of falsehoods that we’ve so carefully weaved. The most deadly lies we tell are those we tell ourselves. Who would we be without them? Advent is all about the breaking through into our world of that great Mystery that awaits us and all that is. Advent is about preparing to encounter that Mystery. Advent is about searching for that Mystery in the stable at Bethlehem. Advent is about standing naked in front of that Mystery now, and at the hour of our death. Amen. [1] John Pavlovitz, 2024. Get articles from H. Les Brown delivered to your email inbox.
