Keep Awake. Be Ready. Jesus is Coming.
Most people probably consider January 1st to be the start of the new year. When else could it be? That’s the day we break out the new calendar we bought in December and we flip to the new year (this year we go from 2025 to 2026; can you believe it?). It’s a time of new beginnings and possibilities; of hopeful expectations that this new year will be different (maybe we will even keep the new year’s resolutions we make!); that it will be better, in some ways, than last year; that the world will change and we will all flourish and live our best lives in the year ahead.
Yes; January 1st is one way of marking the new year. There are others; it all depends on which calendar you follow.
When I was a young adult, I worked in human services, providing support to people who needed some assistance to flourish and live their best lives. These services were funded through contracts with the state government (which received some reimbursement from various federal government programs). Our funding cycle followed the state’s fiscal year; running from July 1st through June 30th. This meant that, for us, July 1st was the start of the new (fiscal) year. It was the time of new beginnings and possibilities; of hopeful expectation as we had another year of funding to provide quality services to those who could use them.
As time went on, and our children grew older, I came to associate the first day of school (usually in late August in our town) as the start of the new year. It was a time of new beginnings and possibilities and hopeful expectations that our children would flourish and live their best lives in the year ahead.
There’s something special about starting a new year; turning the page on the old year; greeting the new one with hopeful expectation that this year will be different; it will be a better year; filled with possibilities and new beginnings.
Today is the first day of the new liturgical year. With hopeful expectation, we enter the story of Jesus from a new perspective. For much of this liturgical year, our gospel readings will come from Matthew. We’ll hear stories that focus on Jesus as a Jewish rabbi (teacher); stores that connect him with the prophet Moses and the giving of the Law and the quest for liberation. We’ll think about how we are situated in these ancient stories and what they mean for us now, in the time and context in which we currently live.
Ordering our lives around the liturgical year helps us keep attentive to God’s presence in our individual and communal lives and in the world. It gives order to our spiritual lives, amidst the chaos of our secular lives.
As we follow the story of Jesus through each season of his life (his birth, his ministry, his death, resurrection, and ascension) and through the season of the growing of the church (the body of Christ), made possible by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the witness of the disciples, we are continually reminded that God is with us; now and always and in the days to come.
We begin the new liturgical year with the season of Advent; a short season; only 4 weeks long (the 4 Sundays before Christmas); a beautiful season of anticipation as we center our hearts, minds and bodies on the coming of Jesus; in the manger in Bethlehem; in our midst today; in the world to come. It’s a time of active waiting; of preparing, with hopeful expectation, for that day when Jesus is coming into the world and the world is about to change.
Advent is a very different time from the secular holiday season of Black Friday and Cyber Monday and holiday shopping and decorating and reveling and drunkenness and….whatever else draws us into busyness and consumerism and self-centeredness and draws us away from the good news that Jesus is coming and God is with us.
You’ve heard that expression – that no one can be in two places at once? Advent reminds us that we live in two different times at once – we live in kairos; that is, in God’s perfect and eternal time (the fullness of time; in the day to come) and we live in chronos; the worldly, quantifiable time of minutes and hours; days and weeks; and schedules.
Our Advent challenge in these busy chronos days of the secular holiday season is to keep awake; be ready; live faithfully and watch for the kairos moments; those moments when, in the fullness of God’s time, God’s kin-dom breaks into the world and Jesus is coming and God is with us and all nations will be at peace.
Even now, Jesus says, no one knows the day and hour when that (God’s kin-dom breaking into the world) will happen; we only know that it will happen – and it does happen – in God’s own time. With hopeful expectation, the prophet Isaiah describes it this way: In days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established…and all the nations shall stream to it…that (God) may teach us (God’s) way and that we may walk in (God’s) paths…they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation; neither shall they learn war any more…come, let us walk in the light of the Lord! (Is 2:1-5).
Our Advent discipline in these busy days is to put on the armor of light; (to) walk decently as in the day (and) put on the Lord Jesus Christ (Rm 13:11-14). This is the time for us to follow the example of Jesus and act boldly to love the world and all God’s people, even as we wait for Jesus to come.
Even now, when we are awake and ready; centered and paying attention; we catch glimpses that Jesus is coming and God is with us. We taste and see Jesus in the bread and wine; we feel and hear Jesus in the water and the Word and the cross marked on our forehead; we touch Jesus as we serve people in need – the least of these – the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, the prisoner (Matt 25).
The good news for today is that we live in kairos time – God’s eternal time of hope, peace, joy, and love – and for God all things are possible. (Matt 11:6).
The good news for today is that Jesus comes to us every day, in unexpected ways, revealing God’s love for us and bringing the light into the world. We follow that light and reflect that light for the wellbeing of all creation.
The good news for today is that what we see happening in the world today (violence and quarreling and jealousy and greed) is not the full story; it’s not the end of the story. With hopeful expectation, we know how the story ends…with the birth of a child…and the healing acts of a teacher…and a death on the cross…and resurrection…and new life eternal…all in the fullness of God’s time.
Keep awake. Be ready. Jesus is coming and the world is about to change.