1st Sunday of Advent 2022
Isaiah 2: 1-5; Romans 13:11-14; Matthew 24: 37-44
“Wake up! Wake up! Stay awake! Stay awake!”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake, why? It’s almost winter. Sensible animals are hibernating. Why do we have to stay awake?”
Of course, you already know. It is because Christ is coming. No, I don’t mean at Christmas, plonked in a manger, looking old enough to be at school, serenaded by often gloopy carols. That is a past event, to be recalled and celebrated certainly, though we don’t begin preparing for that until 17th December.
Nor do I just mean at the end of time, when He will come for judgement, bringing everything to a close, establishing the fullness of the Kingdom; though you will hear more about that than about the first Christmas during the early part of Advent.
No, I mean what St. Bernard called the third coming of Christ, which falls between His first and second comings, and which happens every day. Christ is coming here and now, today, in every moment of your life and mine; and it is for that coming, that Advent, that St. Paul, writing to the Christians of Rome, and Jesus, warning His disciples, call us to wake up, to stay awake, to be alert.
Christ is coming, and He is here. Where? You know that too. Especially is He present in the Mass, in four ways, as the General Instruction of the Missal reminds us. Firstly, He is here in the gathering of His people; in you, and the people around you. “Wherever two or three gather in my name, I shall be there with them” He told us, so already He is here, in and among you. Take a quick look around, and see the face of Christ in all the people here, and remain awake enough to take that recognition of His face, in the faces of His people, away with you.
He is here in the person of the priest, standing at the altar, representing Christ the High Priest, offering the sacrifice with and on behalf of you, God’s priestly people. He is here in His word, proclaimed in the scriptures, sinking into you now, being absorbed by you to become part of you and of your ongoing daily life.
Most powerfully, He is present in His body, broken for you, and in His blood poured out for you, making present here and now the sacrifice of Calvary, offered to the Father, given to you as food and drink, the very life of the crucified and risen Jesus.
The Eucharist is the sacrifice which reveals the meaning of Advent, which speaks always of the already and the not yet. All through the early weeks of Advent, we shall be reminded of the already and the not yet of the Kingdom. We shall repeatedly hear the Prophet Isaiah looking forward, mentioning some sign of the Kingdom; then the Gospel will show us Jesus fulfilling that sign, revealing that the Kingdom is already present, though its fullness is not yet.
In the broken body and the poured out blood of the Eucharist, we share in the Messianic banquet which Isaiah will foretell as part of the Kingdom, though that banquet is far from complete as yet. We shall see, touch, and receive Jesus the Son of God, but hidden under signs, not yet present in glory. And so we shall be reminded of the truth of Advent, that Christ is coming, and that He is here; that the Kingdom will be established, and that it is already present.
All of this was set in train by the first coming of Christ at the first Christmas; it will be completed by His second coming at the end of time; it is present in that third, intermediate coming which takes place every day, which is both revealed and concealed in the Mass, and which we shall fail to notice if we are not awake. Wake up to the present Advent of Christ, and His future Advent will not take us unawares.
