Life is a waiting game. We find ourselves waiting for the birth of a child, for the traffic light to change, to get on the ferry, for friends to arrive, or for dinner to be served. Hardly a day goes by when we don’t find ourselves waiting for something or someone and when the moment arrives, we are filled with joy and delight. Friday night, for example, I had dinner with some long time friends. The date had been set months ago, knowing that they would be in town for the Apple Cup. Today, the long wait of many years is over now that we find ourselves actually praying from the new Roman Missal. And of course, as soon as we finish one wait, we begin another. On this first weekend of Advent, we begin our wait of four weeks to celebrate the birth of Jesus.
When it comes to waiting, how do we pass the time? I can picture the father pacing the floor while the mother-to-be is in labor, impatient drivers drumming their fingers on the steering wheel staring at the traffic light, reading a book or chatting on a cell phone as they slowly inch toward the ferry loading area, or a host making certain everything is in place before the guests arrive. The ultimate question raised by these readings is this: what are we doing as we wait for the Lord to come? Jesus gives us pithy advice: “Be watchful! Be alert!”
Does he mean for us to sit still and stare at the heavens? Hardly. He is inviting us to share the present moment with him, to surrender to him, to hear his voice, to do his will, while we wait.
As I said, life is a waiting game. Ultimately, we are waiting for the moment we cross the threshold of death, hopefully to eternal life. This will be the moment when we will encounter the Christ in a way we have yet to fully imagine. Scripture is filled with many descriptions of our pending personal judgment. Jesus will judge our willingness to accept his offer of eternal life by the manner in which we lived this lifetime waiting for him to call us home.
The real challenge of Advent is to prepare ourselves in body and soul for that great moment, by letting God’s presence and power get to work in our lives. Life is incomplete without God and we are inadequate without his presence. God alone can fill us with true inner peace. This season makes us aware of our need to turn to God in hope and humble prayer, begging him to save us from our sin so that when we stand in judgment before his son, we will hear words of welcome, not rejection.
If in the past year, we have abandoned God, neglected prayer, or broken the commandments, now is the time to make a fresh start at building a closer relationship with the Lord. Liturgically speaking, we begin a New Year, so this would be a fitting time to adopt resolutions that would enable us to keep “watch” as Jesus urges us to.
Christian tradition has long interpreted his message to be watchful for the moment of our death, our final moment in this life. We are advised, “Be ready to die, be ready for the moment, don’t be caught off guard when God taps you on the shoulder and asks for an accounting of your stewardship.” While that is a valid understanding of these readings, it isn’t the only one. We should be on the watch for the many opportunities in the course of any given day when we can respond to God’s presence.
God values our response to his love and when you stop to think about it, there are countless ways we can respond; visiting the sick, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, welcoming the stranger, being neighborly, seeking reconciliation if necessary, spending quiet time in prayer, reading scripture, attending daily Mass to name but a few. We pass through this world only once and any good we can do should be done now. While Advent is a time of waiting for God to come into our lives, keep in mind that God has been waiting for us longer than we have been waiting for him.