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Meditation for the 1st Sunday of Advent
It snowed for the first time this season in Minnesota Friday night and on into Saturday morning. It wasn’t very much. We received less than an inch here in the Metro area where I live. There isn’t much unusual about this. It is, after all, the last week of November. Thanksgiving Day is past, and the annual celebration of consumerism is well underway. Minnesota can be a cold and snowy place. So there wasn’t much unusual in the fact that it snowed here. Still this bit of snow, which is stubbornly refusing to disappear, as most first snowfalls quickly do, portends what lies ahead. Those of us who live in the snow belt can read signs such as these. It means that after a series of mild winters, we’re probably in for a real doozy; a long season of winter, with its accompaniment of heavy snowfalls, bitter cold, and wind chill factors that easily explain why states such as Florida, Texas and Arizona have rapidly growing populations. We see the signs and we know that if we haven’t done so yet, that we had best prepare for what is coming.
The First Sunday of Advent is much like this first snowfall of the season in Minnesota. It is a sign, a portent, that something far bigger than itself is most assuredly on the way. The arrival of the Advent Season serves as a sign that not only is Christmas imminent, but also that “the great and terrible day of the Lord” is ever closer at hand. It bids us to prepare our hearts, our minds, and our entire beings for the day “when He shall come in His glorious Majesty to judge both the quick and the dead”.
The Gospel for today is an excerpt from the “Little Apocalypse” found in the 24th Chapter of St Matthew. In the fuller context of this reading we are told that His disciples have questioned Jesus about when He will take up His throne and usher in the Messianic Age. Jesus tells them that, "…of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. “ Instead of a specific date and time He speaks of a number of signs to watch for and cautions them to “…be ready; for the Son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”
The world tells us that we must prepare by shopping at the right stores, where we may purchase the perfect gifts; the correct brand of jewelry, high tech gizmos of every shape, size and (non-)utility, perhaps even a new Lexus. It promises us the fulfillment of love, joy, peace, and hope are to be found in binge eating, excessive drink, and the latest in designer fashions. Advent, however, invites us to stop, look, watch and listen for the ever quickening approach of the Master, and calls out to us as “a voice crying in the wilderness; Prepare the way of the Lord…” , in our innermost beings. My prayer today is that each of us makes and takes the time to prepare and reprioritize our lives to be ready for His Coming, not just in the annual feast which is Christmas, but in His Second Advent, as the One “whose Kingdom will have no end.”
+Randolph Brown
Archbishop
Western Orthodox Church of America (WOCA)
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