Stay awake!  Be alert!  Get ready!  Repent!  The readings of these first weeks of Advent press upon us with an urgency which frankly, I find  disturbing.  As I read these texts, I found myself thinking: Enough already!  There’s already enough bad stuff happening in the world – terrorist attacks,  refugee crisis, environmental crisis, economic crisis – do we need another Gospel reading about the end times?  Besides, I’m already too busy as it is!  What more do you want!  (I’m not sure about you, but November was a very hectic month for me!)

But if we pay close attention, we will notice that our readings focus more on the issue of our attitude than our action, more on hope than on fear.   This is why the word hanging over the altar this week is not “busyness”, but “vigilance”. In fact, one of our biggest problems – as individuals, as a society- is the feeling that we always need to be “doing” something more.  We’re busy all the time, we multitask, we find ourselves trying to look things up on our smartphones, carry on a conversation, and work on a project – often all at the same time! Then at the end of the day, we ask ourselves, “What did I really accomplish today?” What difference did all my activity really make?”  Lately, I seem to be having a lot of those kinds of days. 

With all the clutter, with all the demands and expectations coming at us from others – and from ourselves – we find it hard to slow down.  It’s not easy to sit still, to really pay attention, to focus on just one thing at a time.  Yet that is precisely what Advent seeks to create in us: a space of waiting, a space of hope, a space of expectant desire.

It’s a message we hear every time we celebrate the Eucharist, right after the Our Father: “Deliver us, Lord, from evil; grant us peace in our day; keep us free from sin, and safe from all distress (anxiety), as we await the blessed (joyful) hope, and the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

So “how” are we to wait?  In blessed, joyful hope.  And how do we do that?  To answer this question, it helps if we know what … or more to the point, for whom … we are waiting.  As we begin our Advent journey, it is a question worth asking. 

So what ARE we waiting for, preparing for, anticipating? The obvious answer is “Christmas!”  Our whole society – secularized as it is – is also waiting, in some sense, for Christmas.  But which Christmas are we talking about here? I find it very instructive – and disturbing – that as our American brothers and sisters celebrated Thanksgiving this past week, the focus is less and less on families and friends gathering, to give thanks for a fruitful harvest and for all of God’s blessings.  So-called “Black Friday” sales are rapidly encroaching even on Thanksgiving Day itself – so much so that “shop till you drop”, rather than “give thanks to the Lord, for he is good,” is becoming the main takeaway of the Thanksgiving weekend.

There is nothing wrong with looking forward to receiving gifts at Christmas, with scoring a good bargain every so often; and there is a joy in sharing a special something with a loved one as a tangible sign of my love and gratitude for that person’s presence in my life.  But when “shop till you drop” becomes the central goal, something very important is being lost. As a cynic once remarked: “What do you mean, Santa doesn’t exist? The whole North American economy depends on him!” 

Some of us can resist the pull of commercialism fairly easily.  (I used to think that was the case for me, as nothing depresses me more than facing a busy mall in December.  But then I discovered Amazon.ca! Every book or DVD I could desire, just a mouse-click away!) In today’s Gospel, Jesus cautions his followers: “Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighted down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life.”  Having lots of friends, a big family, and a wide network of parish, university, and diocesan connections, I get caught up in the social side of Christmas. I don’t think I’ve ever been actually drunk, but I certainly know what it is to feel dissipated!  Scattered, fragmented, overextended, at odds with myself: too many events, not enough evenings!  

We all know what this is like. Whether it’s gatherings of family, co-workers, work colleagues, or friends – a lot of energy is expended in the shopping and decorating and preparing and entertaining, not to mention the clean-up afterward! It used to be that these were truly Christmas parties: people’s ordinary lives continued through Advent, and the celebrations happened between Dec 25 and Jan 6: the “12 days” from Christmas to Epiphany. There is a danger that we, as a society and even as a church, can lose sight of the true meaning of Advent: if by the time Christmas arrives, we are so exhausted and overextended, that there’s little energy left to celebrate the joy of Christ’s birth, than something very important is getting lost.

So, if Advent is about waiting for JESUS, which Jesus are we waiting for?  The One who came a long time ago, as a child born in a stable, in a past which is now long gone?  Is it the One who will return in a far distant future, “coming on a cloud” as judge of the living and the dead – someone I try not to think about too much?  Or does Advent call us to wait for Someone who is in fact already here?  The Church Fathers always used to speak not of two, but of three comings of Christ: The Incarnate Word of God, through whom all was created; the One who came into this world as a vulnerable child, sharing our humanity; the One who will come in glory and majesty at the end of time – is also the One who desires to meet us, to know us, to enter into relationship with us, to pour out his mercy and love upon us – each and every day of our lives.  In the in-between time, this is where we meet Christ: in the people, the places, the events, the joys and the struggles of my ordinary, everyday life.

Advent is about cultivating our ability to recognize Christ who comes.  Yes, we wait. But waiting is not a passive enterprise.  It invites commitment and vigilance on our part: paying attention to the signs, and acting on them.  Advent is not just remembering a long-past event, nor is it fear of a future we have no power to shape.  Advent is hope with its sleeves rolled up: active, dynamic, poised, ready to respond.  Advent hope is grounded in Jesus – the One I meet each day, who works in and through me so that His Kingdom may advance. Do you want everlasting life? Then choose life now, by protecting it wherever it is threatened, by upholding the dignity of those you encounter.  Do you want God’s mercy?  Then show it generously to others now, in acts of kindness and reconciliation. Do you desire peace? Then be a peacemaker now.  Let go of grudges.  Examine your own heart.  Build bridges with those who are different. 

Maybe – just maybe – we can resist the temptation to check our e-mail or Facebook or Twitter one last time for the day – and set aside 5 or 10 minutes “just for God”:  to pray, to reflect, to speak with God, to listen to his voice in Scripture, to examine our life in the light of His love, to deepen and grow in your own faith commitment. 

When we do this, then our waiting begins to bear fruit.  People will know that we are not waiting just for an event, for a “holiday” – however important. They will know we are waiting for Someone – for Christ – because in us, in our kindness and concern, in our love and compassion, they have met Him.  Then the words spoken by St. Paul in his first letter to the Thessalonians will become a reality for us:

“May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another, and for all; may he so strengthen your hearts in holiness, that you may live blameless before God our Father, at the coming of the Lord Jesus with all his saints.”  

One of the concrete signs of the hope in the world today is the life and ministry of Our Holy Father, Pope Francis, who this week has been visiting Kenya, Uganda, and the Central African Republic. He constantly reminds us, by word and, more powerfully, by example, that a stagnant, self-referential Church becomes dry and lifeless. He challenges us to follow him to the peripheries, to reach out to the poor, the marginalized, the stranger, and those whom the world treats as of little importance: not out of pity or condescension, but with openness to being transformed by a real encounter with these people, who have so much to teach us.  As Francis concludes his pastoral visit to Africa this week, as world leaders gather in Paris to address the environmental crisis, as our nation and our city opens its borders and its hearts to the Syrian refugees, let us be vigilant, awake, and alert.  May Christ’s Advent find us watchful and ready.