Today starts a new liturgical year with the first Sunday of Advent. We begin our journey toward the birth of Christ at Christmas. Mark’s Gospel calls us to be active participants, remaining alert for the coming of Jesus. We can “hear” the resounding urgency as Jesus speaks to His disciples, “Be watchful! Be alert! You will not know when the time will come.” And again, “What I say to you I say to all: “Watch!” But what are we to watch for? Certainly, we are watching and waiting to celebrate the joyous birth of Jesus on Christmas day. That is our first period of “watch and wait.”
Yet, we also await the second coming of Jesus. He will come to the whole world at the end of time when, as our Creed states, “He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead and his kingdom will have no end.” He will also come to each one of us individually at the hour of our death when we’ll be asked to make an accounting of our stewardship of God‘s kingdom here on earth. So, when Jesus says to stay alert and be watchful, He is not just speaking to a last generation that will see His second coming as this world ends. He is speaking about the ultimate mortality of our own lives. We don’t know “when the lord of the house is coming…” Jesus gives us full warning to be alert for that day because Jesus also comes to us in the present! He awaits us in each Mass in the Eucharist. He comes to us many times each day in the opportunity to choose Him, to follow Him and to serve Him by our service to others in need.
While His presence may not be obvious, we can recognize Him through “the eyes of faith” in all those we encounter. We are each called, but not forced, to respond with love to all, even the unlovable, for Jesus’ sake. To summarize this Gospel passage, another word stands out: Prepare! The beginning of Advent is a perfect time to step back and examine our own lives. Will the Lord find us “sleeping” through our life and “blind” to His presence? Or will we be prepared to welcome Him into our life?