Do you remember the comic strip, Calvin and Hobbes? Calvin is an eight year old with a stuffed tiger named Hobbes. Hobbes comes to life whenever Calvin is alone with him. Hobbes is his conscience as well as his secret friend. One strip presented the bane of Calvin’s existence, the most disliked person in his life, his neighbor eight year old Suzie, walking to the mailbox on a cold, snow-covered December day, carrying her letter to Santa Claus. Out of the corner of her eye she sees Calvin, ready to hurl a big fat snowball right at her head. “I see you, Calvin,” Suzie warns, “and you better not throw that snowball! I’m mailing my letter to Santa right now.”
“Is the envelope sealed?” Calvin shouts back, the snowball in his mittened hand, set for launch. “Yes, but I can always write a PS on the back of it.” “Do you have a pen?” “As a matter of fact, I do,” Suzie replied.
Calvin then sadly drops the snowball as the triumphant Suzie walks away. “I bet she’s bluffing,” Calvin says to Hobbes, “but this isn’t the time of year to tempt fate.”
There is never a time to tempt fate. Essentially, that is what the Gospel for today is telling us. This passage is a difficult one to hear and understand. At a glance, one could be easily scared by what Jesus is saying but there really is no reason to be. Jesus is using vivid language familiar to the people of his time to make the point that we must always be ready to face God.
Simply put, God gives us this lifetime to discover him and come to know him through the love of others and the goodness of this world. Every day of our lives, when you stop to think about it, is an advent of expectation, preparation and hope as we await the coming of Christ. This is not a time to tempt fate for we never know when we will encounter him, be it at the hour of our death or at his second coming.
The day will come, sooner than we expect, when we must stand before the Son of Man. There will be no second chance. When we exhale our last breath, our lives will be over. We won’t be able to go back in time and correct our mistakes or apologize for our sins. Instead, we will find ourselves standing before Jesus, the same Jesus who offers himself to us in the Eucharist.
Perhaps, contrary to our imaginations, Jesus won’t have a big record book or be holding scales of justice. Most likely, he won’t have to say much for he knows us intimately. What could we possibly say that he doesn’t already know? Will he be able to read in our hearts that we did the best we could, living our faith and heeding his words of wisdom? Will he see that we heeded Paul’s advice and grew in love? If so, he will welcome us into his eternal love, that place we call heaven.
On the other hand, if he reads in our hearts that basically we did not want to deal with him and his demands, that for whatever reason we opted to keep distant from him, then he will judge that just as we refused the fire of his love in this world, we do not care to warmed by the fire of his love in the next.
The Church begins a new liturgical year with the season of Advent, a time for us to prepare for what really matters in life. For most of us, December is one month we find ourselves doing much preparation. The frantic shopping that began for many on Black Friday, mailing out packages and cards, putting up the tree and lights, cooking and feasting will keep us busy but for the most part, all those acts come to an end when we retire for the night on Christmas. What really matters is our preparation for the Lord, not the infant whose birth we celebrate on Christmas, but the Lord whom we will meet face to face at the end of our lives or the end of the world, whichever comes first.
Luke provides sound advice on how best to wait for the coming of Christ into our lives. Instead of waiting passively and doing nothing to deepen our relationship with him, we are cautioned, “Beware that your hearts do not become drowsy from carousing and drunkenness and the anxieties of daily life…Pray that you have the strength to stand before the Son of Man.”
We are not being called to a doomsday mindset of hopelessness but rather we are called to be hope-filled witnesses to the very presence of God in our lives. After all, such a belief determines how we live each day. By living our faith in the manner Jesus prescribes, people can see that following him does make a difference.
Being vigilant gives us the upper hand to resisting temptations that can unexpectedly surface, temptations that can lead us to do things we could later regret. Being vigilant requires being spiritually fit and that comes through prayer. No matter how busy you may be, spend time each day in prayer, contemplating how you can be a better witness of your faith to others.
Quite possibly, what you say and do could make a difference in bringing someone back to the faith. Many Catholics tempt their fate by placing Christ on the back burner of their lives. Maybe an invitation from you is what they need to join others who will be coming home to Christ and renewing their faith.
We should regard every day of advent as an adventure filled with hope, expectation and preparation. Not a time to tempt fate, thinking that we will always have tomorrow to get our act together, but a reminder that today may provide the best and possibly last opportunity we have to seek God by loving tenderly, walking humbly, and acting justly. As Paul points out, doing what we can to “be blameless in holiness before our God.”
If we live in preparation for the coming of Christ in this way, we can look forward, not only to a merry Christmas, but also to a merry eternity.