FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT Year "A"

FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT (YEAR A)

Introduction:      During this period of Advent the readings and the prayers remind us that time is not unlimited. In these reading we look back to the Old Testament and are reminded of how Christ’s coming was foretold. Today’s first reading is a good example of this. But we also see in the New Testament readings that Jesus Christ has in fact already come, and these are supplemented by reminders that he is to come again. The history of the story of our salvation has been worked out in time and will be completed when time as we know passes into eternity at Christ’s second coming. The second reading tells us that the time we have for preparing for the second coming is to be used in rejecting the power of darkness and evil in our own lives.

The Homily         There is a story somewhere about Satan and a young apprentice devil who is to be sent to earth to deceive mankind. Satan questions him about how he plans to proceed in his mission. The trainee devil says that he will try to persuade humans that there is no God. But Satan says that experience has taught him that this ploy does not work. The young devil then suggests that could discredit belief in hell. Satan commends him on this idea but insists that this one will not be wholly effective either. Then the young devil cooks up a third idea, which is heartily accepted by the boss who tells him to go ahead with his plan which is simply to tell men and women that there is plenty of time.

          In time as we know it there is a past, a present and future. It has a beginning and an end. In the Bible, however, there are two kinds of time. The first kind is that which is to do with events in world history. The word used for it is “chronos” in Greek, from which we get the word “chronology.” That Jesus was born during the reign of Caesar Augustus is the “chronos” time of the Incarnation. The other kind of time in the Bible is that which is called “kairos”; it is God’s time, a time which humans cannot manipulate or interfere with. You can push people around but you cannot push God’s time around. The Incarnation happened in God’s time too. It was his plan from eternity and humans had no control over it. When Christ comes again it will be in God’s kairos time, and as today’s Gospel says, it will be an hour we do not expect. But Jesus does tell us that it will happen at a time when people are eating, drinking, marrying and in a state of unpreparedness, just as it was before the flood in Noah’s time. A carefree business attitude was typical of the contemporaries of Noah. What they were doing was not wrong in itself, but they had no thought of God. Their end was sudden and unexpected. In the second short parable, Jesus wants to tell us that that people will be judged as individuals and not in batches. Two men, two women, will not necessarily share the same judgement just because they work at the same occupation. One may bring love and gentleness to her work, the other anger and irritation. One may be looking for vainglory and reputation, the other only self-effacing service. One will be taken, the other left, as one was taken aboard the ark for salvation, another left behind for destruction. The third parable is about the householder securing his house against dacoits. Jesus warns us to be alert and steadfast, never slacking in zeal for his work which calls for much endurance and suffering. Warning of his return like a thief in the night is a way of telling us: “be prepared.”

 Jesus certainly is not against eating and marrying, but he observes sadly that God has gone out of the lives of busy people who have become indifferent to God’s plan. How relevant his words are to our own generation.

          I need not repeat the story of the ant and the grasshopper; but the old fable has a lesson for us. We can choose whether to be the ant or the grasshopper. It’s good to dance and sing and enjoy life, but we not neglect important duties. Time is our most precious commodity. It is the one thing we can never hoard, purchase or reclaim. Do you have time on your hands? Lucky you! The best way to kill time is to work it to death. Acting in good time can save us a lot of worry afterwards. A few minutes or even seconds can spell the difference between life and death. Napoleon Bonaparte, after his great battle of Austerlitz, said, “The reason I defeated the Austrians is, they did not know the value of five minutes.”

          So the young devil in the story may have chosen the best course after all by planning to bluff mankind into believing that there is yet plenty of time. It would be much safer to listen to Paul’s words and follow his plan in the second reading: the time has come to rise from sleep and take off the works of darkness.

          Today’s Advent liturgy is an invitation, or perhaps, more accurately, a challenge to look at life and living it from a new perspective. The readings challenge us to look at time, to look at our world with the eyes of God, to realise that he has a plan, a vision for you, for me, for the whole world, and that for God a ‘a thousand years are like yesterday, come and gone, no more than a watch in the night.’ We hear something of that vision in those hope-filled words from the prophet Isaiah: “they will hammer their swords into ploughshares, their spears into sickles. Nation will not lift sword against nation, there will be no more training for war. Words of hope, indeed. Words, incidentally emblazoned on the walls of the United Nations building because they find an echo in the heart of every human being of good will.

PRAYER

Lord God, teach me how not to live for the pleasure of the moment, but enable me accept the challenge of the truth, to raise my mind to your divine way of thinking, in order that I may derive true strength and security from the promise of salvation that Jesus makes to us all who try, however imperfectly, to follow him.  Amen.