Our first thought on hearing the gospel text proclaimed today might be, What again? Haven’t we heard this, a few verses at a time over the last few days? Yes, the Son of Man is coming again. We do believe! Yes, somehow, someway there will be signs of that advent. We do believe. Yes, that mysterious end will be sudden and perhaps frightening. We do believe! As we reflect on the scriptures of today, may we find something that will touch our hearts anew and make this Advent a rich experience for us.

For centuries now the people of God have, over and over and over again, pondered the words of Jesus as they were remembered, passed on, and recorded by the evangelists. To his disciples then, to his followers over all these years, to us now, today, Jesus speaks words of warning, words of challenge, words of comfort. His coming might be frightening, his coming will finalize our redemption, his coming demands our vigilant preparation.

Before any of the gospels were composed, St. Paul was preaching and teaching and writing letters to those coming new to faith in Jesus. The 1st letter to the Thessalonians is considered to be the very earliest of all the writings collected in the New Testament. It’s worth noting that in the passage shared with us today, Paul is calling God’s blessing down on the people that they might abound in love for one another and for all. And for ALL. They were to look beyond their own and reach out to the stranger, the enemy, the undesirable, as Jesus did. And why? So that their hearts will be strong and they will be blameless for the coming of the Lord. He calls them to live in such a way as to continue to please God. He calls for preparedness, for getting ready for the Lord by the way they live.

Luke and the other gospel writers wrote their narratives later, well after the death and resurrection of Jesus, after the early followers of Jesus had come to identify themselves as communities of love, worshipping together, attending to needs of all, and looking forward to the return of Jesus in glory. But what had been passed on by word of mouth in their gatherings, a coming of the Son of Man in a cloud, hadn’t happened. What they anticipated as “coming soon” had not occurred in the lifetime of many of their brothers and sisters. They themselves had lived through the destruction of Jerusalem, with its accompanying horror, and still the Messiah had not come. Had they misunderstood?

Scholars today still look closely at the writings attributed to Luke, and try to determine whether or not he personally had abandoned the belief in an early expectation of the end-time and, if so, what was he teaching? At the very least we can note a subtle shift in emphasis in Luke’s writings. No longer is the stress on looking ahead to a future coming. Rather the focus has become to attend to the details of daily living, for showing in their every day lives what Jesus taught.

Luke quotes Jesus as stressing the importance of preparation. Earlier in Luke’s gospel, Jesus tells the story of the servants who didn’t know when the master would return, and the misfortune of the one who was found unprepared. Here and elsewhere Luke seems to indicate that Jesus was saying there isn’t certainty about when the end will come.
Writing, it is believed, between the years 80 and 90, Luke has put his own spin on the message of Jesus. He has shifted the emphasis away from when the coming will take place (perhaps a pre-occupation of the early Christians) to what needs to be done to be ready. In this passage for our consideration today, Jesus talks about how frightened people are liable to be at the perplexing signs in nature, but then he attempts to dispel fear and calls for looking at this event with expectation and joy. It is to be the moment of bringing the faithful to the freedom of the reign of God. He says the people are to stand erect and raise their heads. It is cause for joy.

Then Jesus warns them not to become lax, but to avoid laziness and excess. He reminds them to pray and cautions that uncertainty demands vigilance. Perhaps Luke sensed that as years of waiting passed, the people could become less concerned about the imminence of the final coming, so he emphasized preparation. Regardless of when the Son of Man will come, NOW is the time prepare. Then and now, it is to be remembered that this preparation is not so much out of fear of judgment or punishment, but rather to guarantee expanded hearts, open to receive the fullness of God’s love at the final coming

We have had centuries of history now and that call to prepare re-echoes. Everyone must be prepared. That is what Advent is for. A time the Church gives us rich liturgies and symbols to refresh us and instruct us. We celebrate in four weeks the first coming of Jesus and what that meant. We look forward to what his second coming will mean and we do so in joy and expectation, while steadily meeting the challenge of living each day as Christian with all that demands.

So what is the word of God saying to us today, centuries after it was written down, after thousands of years of waiting? Our history and our personal experience tells us that God has come to countless individuals and taken them to glory. Yes, people experience their individual “comings” when they die. Some do not have much warning: Joyce and Jeanne, those killed in the deadly train crash in Russia yesterday. For others, there can be frightening warnings: fearsome hurricane warnings, the pain, diminishment and suffering of the elderly, the constant threat of warfare for the people in Afghanistan, the violence in high crime neighborhoods. Some at death’s moment are fully prepared. What about others? Are there ways that followers of Jesus can so share God’s love that throughout the world, justice and peace can prevail? Could it be that Jesus is waiting for our world to be transformed? Can the prayers and actions of those of us who believe they are called to love unconditionally, help to show people who might not know God, that they are loved, help to prepare the world for the coming of the Messiah in glory? There is nothing to fear when one’s life is spent in openness to God’s presence and in extending God’s love where it is needed, as each is able, to those we know, those we dislike or fear, and those who are hard to love, here at home and anywhere in the world. I guess the question for each of us is: What can I do?

Perhaps part of the Paul’s letter to Thessalonians today, as translated in the Jerusalem bible, can be a blessing for us as we begin Advent and recommit ourselves to preparing the way of the Lord:

“May the Lord be generous in increasing your love and make you love one another and the whole human race … And may he so confirm your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless in the sight of our God and father when our Lord Jesus Christ comes with all his saints.”

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