Advent 1

Advent 1 “Keep awake!” (Mark 13:24-37)
Jesus sets us free to be.

The imperative to keep awake is the call to the present moment.

Jesus understood time more completely than anyone who has ever lived or will ever live. In his pre incarnate form Jesus is the pattern by which our heavenly Father created time, space, matter and energy.

The Beloved of the Father voluntarily left the realm of the eternal to enter the world of time. Jesus entered time to seek and to find a people who are lost in time.
How is this possible?

The Bible presents a clear and consistent record of how most people most of the time simply do not pay attention to the world as it is in the present moment.

Moses encountered this aspect of human nature throughout his ministry. When the people lived in slavery in Egypt they longed for deliverance and cried out for the future Messiah to come quickly. When Moses led them out of Egypt into the desert the people forgot their plea and would only complain that they no longer had the food and comfort of their past lives as slaves back in Egypt.

The persistent preaching of the prophets called people into the present moment of the Sabbath, the day of divine Real Presence. It was a call to worship most people most of the time ignored then, and continue to ignore now.

Moses came to understand how the people chose to live for a future paradise or a past pleasure. The prophets were dismayed to realize that the people largely abandoned the Real Presence of God for the illusions of philosophy and the memory of past glories and future pleasures.

The Bible is very clear. Now is the acceptable time. Now is the day of salvation. Now. Not yesterday or in the distant past. Not tomorrow or in the distant future. That is why Jesus teaches that the signs of his return are fulfilled in that generation. Nothing needs to happen before Jesus returns.
Jesus could return at any moment.

Because Jesus could return at any moment it is folly to try to predict let alone announce the exact date. Of that time and of that hour no one knows, not even the angels, not even the Son. Only the Father knows the time and the hour.
Jesus warns against the folly of predicting the future and admonishes us to be wary, to keep alert and to keep awake. The teaching is to wake up, pay attention to what is. Live in the present moment.

Philosophers and psychologists often observe that many people sleep walk through life. Many people live by default rather than by conscious intent.

We sleep walk through life by adopting an easy routine, the path of least effort and least resistance. We live by default by accepting without question the conventions of our culture and the expectations of other people. As we do this we disconnect from the reality of the present moment. We allow past fears or anxiety about the future to set our priorities and form our lives.

The invitation to keep awake is the call to make a real choice to live by conscious intent in the present moment here and now. The best and only way to live most fully and completely in time is to hear the call to meet the at the time and place of worship.

This is how Jesus lived and moved and experienced time. He formed his life in the here and now of the present moment by attending to the eternal now of the eternal Sabbath Day of Real Presence. In Jesus the timeless touches time as the eternal God unities his divinity with our mortal humanity.

It is as we make a real choice to immerse our souls in the timeless touch of Real Presence that the eternal sets us free from past fear or anxiety about the future. The timeless touch of the Real Presence of Jesus Christ on the seventh day at the altar of sacrifice liberates us from the tyranny of time and the tedium of time to live most fully in the present moment: now.

It is the perfect love of the incarnate co-eternal Beloved who releases us from the bondage of past fear into the ineffable joy and wonder of the present moment. It is the Beloved who has come to earth and promised to be present to us on the Seventh day to assure that the future is safe and secure in the everlasting arms of our Heavenly Father.

Jesus sets us free to be.

Jesus sets us free from fear and anxiety to be exactly who our Heavenly Father created us to be. From God’s perspective we are the beloved of the co-eternal Beloved. It is only our stubborn insistence on wandering in the wilderness of past fear or in the anxiety of future distress that blinds us from this reality.
During this Advent season the one holy catholic and apostolic church invites us to experience a new life in the midst of the present moment. The first step in this new life is what Jesus teaches us today. Keep awake.

Pascal, the French scientist and philosopher, once commented that all of man’s problems can be traced to his inability to sit still in silence for five minutes. Pascal understood how the sin nature perpetuates humanity’s original choice to separate from God.

As a species we are lost in separation. We perpetuate that separation by choosing to be lost in time. We remain lost in time until we make a real choice to be found in the present moment of the here and now.

Set aside time to encounter the eternal. This is called meditation. It isn’t easy. It requires a choice and a commitment. Make a conscious intent here and now to set aside five minutes a day to sit in silence. You may choose to hold your intent before God in the words of Psalm 62:1 “For God alone my soul in silence waits.”

It is in the real choice to meet the co-eternal Beloved in a moment of silence that we discover how we are lost and where we are lost. The fundamental challenge is that our sin nature does not want to be found. The great promise of God in Jesus Christ is that through the incarnation God has already found us. All we need to do is say: yes. All we need to do is to say what Holy Mother Mary said: Let it be.

Let it be. Be who you are. Make a real choice to enter into the Real Presence of the Living Lord Jesus Christ in the present moment of the eternal “Now”. Wake up to who you are in Jesus Christ.

And, once you wake up keep awake in the Present Moment with the conscious intent to be the beloved of the co-eternal Beloved, Jesus Christ.