Advent I

Advent I Mark 13:24-37 “Keep awake!”

Most people most of the time sleep walk through life.

The Biblical writers observe that people have a tendency to live by the default values of the surrounding culture. We question little and when we do ask questions we question to challenge not to learn.

The Bible is a book of observations. It is a book written by specific individuals within the context of a community, a tradition, a revelation, and within the context of a personal relationship with God.

The least effective way to understand the Bible is to read it out of context. Curiously enough, the least effective way to live is to live out of context.

In speaking about his second coming, Jesus reminds us of the context for his personal presence on Earth. The context is our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Creation, Salvation and Sanctification.

God the Father created all of us and each of us by the power of the Holy Spirit according to the pattern, plan and purpose of the Son. God created us to live an abundant life in union with infinite and eternal love as the governing principle of our lives. God designed us to live in a personal relationship with Him and with each other.

The choice Adam and Eve made to separate from God is the choice to reject love and abandon relationship as the pattern for our lives. The Biblical writers observe how people are lost in separation and therefore in active rebellion against God and in conflict with each other. The defining principle of separation is death.

Jesus is God’s solution to this problem. Jesus and Jesus alone is the plan of salvation. Jesus unites humanity with divinity to seal the breach our species created. Jesus is the second Adam who resets the original pattern our species broke. The original pattern is steadfast, holy, unconditional and universal love manifesting is a series of personal relationships.

The Holy Spirit now moves throughout the world to accomplish the next part of the Plan of Salvation. This is the Church Age, the Age of Grace, and the Age of the Call to reunification with God, each other, and the original pattern of our individual souls.

This is the age of evangelism. The fundamental purpose for the church is to be the instrumentality of our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation. Everything we do can only succeed as we follow the Plan God set before us in Jesus Christ.

This is the context for understanding the Second Coming. At some point in time, known only to God the Father, He will send Jesus back to this planet. God the Holy Spirit is preparing all of us for that time. Some of us reject Him. Some of us resist Him. Some of us only superficially accept the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

When Jesus commands us to keep awake he is teaching us to pay attention to the work of the Holy Spirit.

Do not be misled by the cynics and the skeptics who reject the Plan of Salvation. Keep awake. Stay focused.

Do not be discouraged by the difficulties we face in this secular age. Keep awake and alert to the real presence of the Holy Spirit speaking to us from the Bible and ministering to us through the sacraments.

Resist the seductions of the surrounding culture. St. Paul actually advises that we flee from the temptation to allow the secular world to redefine our faith by the categories of individual political or philosophical belief. Keep awake and stay loyal to Jesus. He is the author and the subject of our Faith. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you reset your priorities to match God’s priorities. As we do that we experience the blessing of God and the power of God,

Jesus once commented about his miracles that we would do even greater miracles as we live and move and have our being from the place of divine love in accord with God’s priorities. God’s priorities are very simple: Jesus, Others, You. God’s priority for us translates into joy. That joy is worship, compassionate service to others, personal transformation.

Joy is the universal gift of God that the Holy Spirit gives to all. The gift is the pattern of Triune Love. The gift is Jesus. Jesus warns us to pay attention lest we miss it. We miss it by a deliberate choice to remain in separation from God, from each other, from the original pattern of love imprinted on our souls. We participate in the gift as we ask the Holy Spirit to help us fulfill God the Father’s  command in Jesus: stay awake to the real presence of grace here and now and forever.