Year A Advent I Romans 13:11-14 Matthew 24:36-44

You know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers.

Paul is speaking to the Roman Church, an congregation he did not himself establish, and so he curbs his rhetoric, refraining from the often scolding and sometimes angry way he addresses congregations of which he has been the founder, and speaks kindly to this faithful group. We, another faithful group, hear his words and wonder what exactly he means by “wake from sleep”.

Here we are today, at the beginning of a new Church year, at the start of the Church season we call “Advent”. The name of this season, Advent, comes from "ad-venire" in Latin, or "to come to", and it encompasses the four Sundays leading up to Christmas. We recognize this Season in part by lighting one more candle on the Advent wreath on each successive Sunday.

We tend to think of the Advent season as time of preparation for the birth of our Savior, a time to get ready for Christmas. But, as our sometimes somber readings remind us, it is also a time during which we are called to direct our hearts and minds to Christ’s second coming at the end of time.

From the earliest days of the Church, people have been fascinated by Jesus’ promise to come back. But the Bible readings during Advent tell us not to waste our time with predictions. Advent is not about speculation. Our Advent readings call us to be alert and ready, not weighted down and distracted by worrying over the future or by the cares of this world.

Like Lent, the liturgical colour for Advent is purple, the colour of contrition. In fact, in the early Church, Advent began as a fast of 40 days in preparation for Christmas. In the Church today, purple and black are the colours used for funerals. How odd, in the rush and happiness as we ramp up for the joy of Jesus nativity, that we should speak of fasting and see purple hangings on our altar.

But Advent, like Lent, is a season that is meant to prepare us for a great holy day, a great celebration. We know we are sinners, and not really worthy of God’s great love for us, and so these two seasons, Advent and Lent, even today, include an element of penance. In Lent we sorrow and are penitent for our sins. In Advent, we are directed to be filled with the sense of preparing, quieting, and disciplining our hearts for the full joy of Jesus’ birth. However, even in Advent we are still called to ponder our unworthiness at the coming of the Christ Child.

We see this attitude of penance especially during the first two Sundays of Advent. But then we come to the third Sunday which is not a purple Sunday – it is a rose, or Refreshment Sunday. Why “refreshment”? Because when Advent was still a time of strict fasting, on the rose Sunday, the fast was relaxed

There are only two rose Sundays in the Church year, one in Lent, and one in Advent. The Advent Sunday is called Gaudete Sunday, “rejoice” Sunday. The name, Gaudete comes from the first word of the Introit, sung in Latin, and used for the communion service, or Mass, on this Sunday in the Roman Catholic Church. Though not a lot of congregations these days own a rose altar cloth or vestments, and thus continue to use the purple, we have a rose candle in our Advent wreathe.

So, here we are at the start of Advent. From what does Paul call us to awaken?

Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; let us live honorably as in the day…

Advent, is certainly the time to awaken – if not from the vices to which Paul refers, “drunkenness, debauchery and licentiousness, quarreling and jealousy”, then to our addiction to materialism, technology, gossip, and self-centered pursuits. We can all draw up a list of the things for which we should be thankful, or for which we should repent, actions and attitudes that have become distractions from our spiritual lives and need to be corrected by our centeredness in Jesus.

This Thanksgiving, I asked my Goddaughter what had drawn her to Judaism. She explained how compelling she had found the way the Jewish faith draws everyday life into the rhythm of the religion itself - how whatever one’s nationality, or political leanings, or pronoun, one is first and foremost a Jew. Jesus lived this way Himself, and the early Church would never have envisioned one’s faith being anything other than part of one’s deep rooted identity.

But the early Church became diverted from faithful living, and members became focused on the Second coming of Christ. Losing that bond between daily life and their faith, people fell into sinful actions and habits. If we look around us today, we know exactly what that looks like. People talk what they call Christianity, but their lives do not in any way reflect Jesus’ love. Paul wants to encourage the Church in Rome, and us, to not make this mistake.

Speaking of the last days, Jesus tells His disciples and us, “But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”

This is not permission to stop concentrating on Jesus coming again, but a warning to be constantly prepared for it. to live in the here and now, in this day. And what better way to do this, to be prepared than to weave together our spiritual identity and our daily lives?

We have no need to worry about the things that troubled the early Church, the Second Coming and, later, persecution. Advent is the time set aside each year to refocus and realize that we need not worry at all, but rather, that we need to weave joy at Jesus salvation and sorrow at our own failings, into a tapestry, or, perhaps more in keeping with the present day, into a shawl. We can wrap ourselves in a warm shawl, in a woven blanket composed of faith and daily living, and thus be always the people Jesus has called us to be, always prepared.

Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.

Let us pray in the words of the hymn:

Come, Thou long expected Jesus, born to set Thy people free; From our fears and sins release us, let us find our rest [and center] in Thee. Amen.