HOMILY FOR THE 1ST SUNDAY OF ADVENT YEAR B


             

Isaiah 63:16b-17.19b; 64:2-7
1Cor1:3-9
Mk13:33-37


                                “ STAY AWAKE UNTIL THE LORD COMES

As we celebrate this important liturgical period, Advent, we are all invited to stay awake until the Lord comes back.  There is a story of a man who dreamt a big  and angry lion chasing him. A man  tried his best to run away from a lion, yet as soon as he run faster to escape the lion, in front  he saw the tiger coming in his direction he was running, when he tried to turn to the other direction also he saw a leopard coming to his direction, the question is that how  would he have escaped these dangerous animals? The answer is to wake up.


By waking up one enters a whole world of reality different from that of the dream world. What was  the problem in a dream state becomes non- issue in the waking state. In this context as we celebrate the first Sunday of advent we are all invited to have a new focus in our spiritual life. We are asked to strip away the old  way of doing things and acquire the new ways of spiritual maturity. Spiritual maturity entails the capacity to love and to be Christ like. With the above example we are invited to make a distinction between the dream consciousness and awake consciousness. A Similar distinction can be made when we become awake from  a state of being spiritually sleep to spiritually consciousness.

In today’s gospel Jesus encourages his disciples/followers to stay awake and to remain conscious in spirit, it is because he was to leave them about unknown length of time. By their faith in Jesus the disciples are like people who have been aroused from spiritual sleep. However, with the absence of Jesus, this will be a time for the disciples to undergo trials and temptations in their life of faith thus Jesus encourages them to stay awake  so that when he comes  he finds them awake and thus ready to welcome him.


Today we enter the season of advent, a time of special preparation for the coming of the Lord. Mark portrait of the doorman watching out to be ready to open for the Lord whenever he comes, we can pose this question to ourselves that “who is this watchman keeping the gate/door waiting for the master to come”? The answer is very clear, the gatekeeper/watchman is every person who has been baptized in the name of Christ, more especially spiritual leaders, Parents, guardians, Catechists, Priests, Bishops, and Pope, all of these have been mandated to take care of the group of people they have been entrusted by the church. Recognition in this perspective is crucial because the master/Lord does not come the way we expect.  Where do we recognize the Lord Jesus? We recognize him/ he comes to us through our brothers and sisters yearning for basic needs like food, clothes and medication etc, when these vulnerable of the society are neglected we cannot be in a position to claim that we are awake in Jesus Christ. For example at Bethlehem he came in the form of  a baby  and people did not recognize him. Moreover, in the parable of last judgment, last Sunday readings, he said he came to people in the form of the most needy and disadvantaged of this world and many did not recognize him. Faith is a gift of seeing and recognizing from God.



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Chapisha Maoni