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