To Worthily Welcome the Lord!

Sunday, December 3, 2023

First Sunday of Advent

Is 63:16-17,19,64:2-7; 1 Cor 1:3-9; Mk 13:33-37

Today, we celebrate the first Sunday of Advent. We are entering the season meant to prepare ourselves to welcome the Lord. 

The readings of the day orient us to keep up with our preparation so that we may worthily welcome the Lord. 

The first reading highlights the earnest plea of the Israelites, who long for God’s presence among them. In truthfulness and sincerity, they urge the Lord to come down. The verse “Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, with the mountains quaking before you” signifies the earnestness of their plea. In making their wish known to welcome God among them, the people of Israel reveal three important qualities that we must consider if we want to worthily welcome the Lord among us.

1.They await God’s coming. They realize that their ‘wandering’ in the foreign land as slaves happened because God was absent in their midst. If God returns, they will also return to their homeland. With God’s return, everything will be set right. Hence, they urge the Lord to return. 

2. They acknowledge their sinfulness. In the process of making their earnest appeal, asking God to return, they acknowledge their sinfulness. And the confession of sin is communal: “All of us have become like unclean people, all our good deeds are like polluted rags; we have all withered like leaves, and our guilt carries us away like the wind.” Beautiful words of confession come upon the lips of the remorseful! When we are honest, we can only see how unworthy we are in the face of God’s unconditional love and goodness. 

3. They surrender themselves to the Lord. Having lived in exile and gone through punishment for their disobedience, the contrite hearts realize that only by surrendering themselves to the Lord, they can regain all that they lost in their lives. Now they use the imagery of clay, ready to be molded by the Potter. By calling God Father, they turn themselves into children who will obey the loving Father. The Israelites come to the realization that if they kneel before the Lord, they can stand before anyone. 

In the second reading, St. Paul reminds the Corinthian community of the grace of God bestowed on them. When they ‘wait’ for the revelation of the Lord, this inner gift of grace will help them to keep themselves holy and blameless. It is enough for the Corinthians to realize how gifted they are with God’s grace, and they will be good. Paul emphasizes grace as offering help in preparing themselves to welcome the Lord. 

The Gospel insists that we stay alert and vigilant to welcome the Lord, whose return might happen at an hour we least expect. This sudden nature of God’s return should enable our vigilance to become habitual. Though the servants are unworthy, they are given charge of God’s house. The fact should animate our preparation and alertness. In other words, the privileges should make us more grateful so that we stay focused on the priority of being watchful.

Though the theme of the first Sunday of Advent is watchfulness, it does not refer to passive waiting. It should be an ‘active waiting’ with the characteristics of awaiting, acknowledging, and surrendering that we find in the Israelites. When we know that we have been filled with God’s grace, the knowledge will enhance our watchfulness and make it habitual. 

Fr. Dhinakaran Savariyar