Advent Sunday – morning
Sunday 3rd December 2017
Advent Sunday
Isa 64 1-9
Mark 13. 24-37
Revd Preb Maureen Hobbs
“Keep awake!”
I freely admit that I am someone who loves my bed and my sleep. On Sunday mornings I have to set my alarm early as I am always worried about the danger of oversleeping. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does I am out of sorts for the whole day!
One of the downsides of the operation I had this year and the growing problem with arthritis as I get older, is that my sleep has been disturbed. No longer can I guarantee that I will sleep the whole night through. Though I am luckier than many, because even when I wake, generally I can get back to sleep fairly quickly.
But this morning as we begin the season of Advent, Jesus bids us to Keep awake!
Advent is a season of joyful expectation and of waiting. A time of preparation for an important visitor. Not the family, descending at Christmas, but God himself, entering our human condition; asking for a place in our hearts and lives.
So what about it? Do you feel ready to receive him? Christians also traditionally consider Advent as a time to think about the second coming of Jesus. How about that arrival? Do we feel ready for that one?
But suppose Jesus was saying, in a poetic way, ‘Death comes to us all’. Then that would be relevant to each one of us. This has been a sad year in some ways, when we have lost a number of people from the church family – just this week one of our PCC members, Jonathan Derbyshire (RIP).
But all is not gloom and doom, because we Christians also believe that death is the gateway to a better life. We need to prepare for it, not with a fancy bucket list of experiences to enjoy before it arrives, but simply by loving God as our friend and loving our neighbours to the best of our ability, telling our family and friends that we love and appreciate them, being reconciled to anyone with whom we have quarrelled and making a will. That isn’t the whole of the Advent message of course, but perhaps enough to be going on with for the time being…
Amen and keep awake!