Gospel Reading for the 1st Sunday of Advent: Year A
According to Douglas Hare writing for Interpretation; a Bible Commentary; on the Gospel of Matthew. “God is postponing the last judgment so that many more might have a chance to hear and accept the Gospel. This is a time for worldwide evangelism.”
To hear and accept the Gospel is reminiscent of the “come and believe” message that we have often heard. It is the bread of coming and the drink of believing. Very often in scripture the same coded message is reconfigured or repackaged with the same lesson. We get this message in Church, or, we should.
Perhaps the best message we can both receive and give to others is to, “Try Church again.” Bring a friend to Church. Be that friend who brings someone to Church and when you do, stay with them through the opening readings, prayers and hymns, that Liturgy of the Word. Stay with them through the liturgy of the Table (Communion). Stay with them at coffee hour. And then invite them back. This is the time for worldwide evangelism! We don’t know when the end is coming. We are not to “get ready,” we are to “be ready.”
But wait, there’s more! Now is the time to let people know that they should not be complacent in their good intentions. We need to recognize that our God reigns and that our God is good (All the time). God wants all humanity to be saved. God is not a scarce resource. Heaven has the capacity to house all the people of the world and then some. “Red, Yellow, Black or White, we are precious in His sight.” But people need to be told about it. And you need to tell them. Or, bring them to Church and we’ll tell them together.
If God is postponing the last judgment as Hare suggests, we have this narrow door to walk through. Each of us should play our part in leading others through the narrow door. We must stay vigilant however, to keep our eye on the door. Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day or hour our Lord is coming.
Now is our chance to challenge our Lord Jesus! Since we don’t know when our Lord Jesus is coming, we have to be ready all the time. That means living our lives in constant reverence. Our Lord Jesus says he is coming at an unexpected hour. The way to counter that is to make every hour “expected.” So we must expect him all the time, every hour. In this way we show him (our Lord Jesus) that we can be persistent. We can overcome His low expectation of us by expecting the unexpected. And then we can say, “Lord, I was expecting you Lord Jesus.”
As we listen to what the Spirit of God is saying to us, let us live to love and to serve, and to teach others to love and to serve, while pondering anew what the Almighty can do. John
Let us pray: Collect for the First Sunday of Advent (BCP p. 211)
Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
onewhoponders 