If you cannot recognize in another's face the face of your brother or sister, the darkness has not begun to lift and the light has not yet come.

So Advent begins! A new liturgical year begins! A new Lectionary year begins anchored in the Gospel according to Matthew.

The theme of today’s Gospel can be summed in two words:  STAY AWAKE.

Stay Awake – we preachers like to give this good advice to you who listen to us.

In some ways, this Advent theme to stay awake is counterintuitive.  It doesn’t mean “don’t get any sleep.”  Stay awake is certainly not the advice parents give to children when it is time to go to bed.  Staying awake doesn’t mean setting your alarm clock to anticipate this major religious event of the coming of the Day of the Lord.  It can’t have this meaning as the Gospel tells us we do not know the day nor the hour.

To stay awake is to stay awake to the spiritual center that is within each one of us.  To stay awake is to pay attention to that which matters in life, paying attention to the relationships of our lives, paying attention to our relationship with God.  Within us, there is a deeper longing that never goes away.  It is the longing for love.  It is the longing to experience the mystery of God’s love in our life.

In the Gospel, the evangelist Matthew sharpens our awareness that if we live our daily lives actively waiting for the Lord, we will not be caught off-guard when Jesus makes his appearance.  “For at the hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.”

We are getting better and better at protecting ourselves and our property from would-be intruders.  Does your home have a burglar alarm?  Do you leave lights on when you are away to give the impressions that someone is home?  Our schools are becoming more and more vigilant in protecting our students from those who would harm them.  Getting on an airplane is becoming more and more of a security event to provide for our safety.  We spend millions, perhaps billions of dollars, for the Department of Homeland Security for the safety we seek to protect ourselves against unwelcome intruders who could come like a thief in the night.

The Advent season is our spiritual Department of Homeland Security to help us recognize the Lord in our midst coming at a time we least expect.  In fact, Advent is more that a season of four weeks.  Advent is a spiritual way of life lived in watchfulness to the God who comes – not just on Christmas but everyday.  The best to get ready for the coming of the Lord is simply to be ready. 

We are to say awake – not just for the next crisis that may or may not appear in our lives.  We are to stay awake to the God who is relentlessly pursuing us in every situation and in every relationship of our lives.

We are not to bucket God’s presence to the heavens; rather, in the ups and downs of our daily life, may we experience the presence of God with us.  May we have an inner resource which speaks to us the mystery of God’s love that is within each one of us.

It goes without saying that the run-up to Christmas is a busy time.  We as a parish hesitate to schedule activities during the Advent season because everyone is too busy.  There are the Christmas cards, Christmas shopping, Christmas parties and decorating the Christmas tree.  There is nothing wrong with this Christmas run-up except that it is all consuming.  In fact, the demands of the Christmas season can be merciless.  There is always more to do and not enough time to do it.

Unfortunately this busyness can put us asleep spiritually.  The rush of the season works against the message of the season.  It is what T. S. Eliot calls living and partly living.

How do we as a parish stay awake during this Advent season?  In the midst of the schedule of all our activities and gatherings, may we be deeply conscious that we are an incarnational people.  In four words:  God is with us.  The light of Christ shatters the darkness of our world.

I have heard the story of a wise old Rabbi who instructed his students by asking questions.  He asked:  “How can a person tell when the darkness ends and the day begins?”  After thinking for a moment, one student replied, “It is when there is enough light to see an animal in the distance and to know if is a sheep or a goat.  Another student ventured, “It is when there is enough light to see a tree, and to tell whether it is a fig or an oak tree.

The old Rabbi gently said:  “No, it is when you can look into a man’s face and recognize him as your brother.  For if you cannot recognize in another’s face the face of your brother or sister, the darkness has not begun to lift and the light has not yet come.

As the old Rabbi suggests, we are to stay awake to the ways that indeed we are all brothers and sisters to each other.  In so doing, we are staying awake to the presence of the Lord in our midst.

The scripture readings for the first Sunday of Advent always look to history’s end.  We look forward to the second coming of Christ.  We are to direct our minds to the Day of Judgment.  Today’s readings invite to focus on the end, not to emphasize our vulnerability but to remember where we are going.

The invitation of Advent is to remember our future so that it will transform our present.  As we look forward to the Second Coming of Christ at history’s end and the end of our lives, we are to stay awake in the present moment for the ways we encounter the Lord.

Staying wake means recognizing that ordinary life is permeated with God’s loving presence.  In the words of the great poet Gerard Manley Hopkins:  “The world is charged with the grandeur of God!