Keep Awake!

What is in question is not the coming of Christ,
but my own response. Am I ready?
—Thomas Merton
In tomorrow's Gospel reading, Jesus speaks of his second coming, telling his followers,

Keep awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.

The United Methodidts' General Board of Discipleship carry these thoughts on beginning Advent with apocalyptic writings:

The Christian Year begins at the endings. The good news of God's incarnation and reign in Jesus is only understandable as good news in that it marks the breakdown and end of the claim of every other reign. What the biblical writers knew, and we still know, is that every human reign is disordered, sinful, full of injustice and oppression. Those who hold the reins of power find ways to legitimate their way, to make it seem normal or even good. But those against or in spite of whom that power is exercised, often the silent or silenced ones (the poor, the sick, the dying, the outcast, the hungry, the persecuted, among others), know in their bodies and can carry in their psyches for generations the wounds and scars of these powers.

Advent tunes us into their voices. Advent reminds us that the good news we seek, indeed the only really good news there is, is precisely for them, and for us in their redemption. Advent lays before us starkly their usually silenced voices, the voices of prophets who speak to them from God, and the assurance that indeed the worlds that try to keep them silenced for their own benefit have only one future—utter destruction and replacement by God's reign.

As such, Advent can—if we let it—disorient us from the dominant culture's experience and expression of "Christmastime" and its thorough domestication of the wild prophet, God's own Son, Jesus, loudspeaker and embodiment of this world's end and God's reign coming upon us.

King of Peace's website has some resources for how to better use the four weeks leading up to Christmas. This season of Advent runs counter to the shopping-driven message of Christmas, to ground this time of year once again in expectation of God's presence in our lives. We have our Advent page, and an Advent Wreath service, as well as a PDF file Celebrating Advent in the Home.Finally, our archives contain the reflection Prepare for a Meaningful Christmas.

peace,
Frank+
The Rev. Frank Logue, Pastor