The Lord Is Coming! Be Watchful, Be Alert!

Jesus could not have been any clearer when speaking to his disciples in today’s Gospel passage. He tells them the same thing in four different ways: “Be watchful! Be alert! Watch, therefore! I say to all, Watch!”

Sometimes we can get annoyed when people make a point over and over again and they cannot seem to move on to the next point. Yet teachers tell me, one of the keys for students to learn new material, is to repeat the material in different ways. Jesus, the master teacher, is repeating his point to ensure there is no doubt about his message. He wants his disciples (us included) to be watchful and alert.

So we begin the season of Advent with this command from Jesus himself. He wants us to be watchful and alert for His coming, for the day of the Lord. During Advent we wait for his coming into the cold cave of Bethlehem, but we also wait for his second coming, the moment we will meet Him face to face either at the end of our lives or at the end of the world.

Psalm 130 has a beautiful image that describes how we ought to wait for the Lord. “My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning.”

I remember when I was young in Peru, there was a watchman at my house throughout the night. He walked the property all night, making sure no one broke into the house. At daybreak he’d approach the window of my parent’s bedroom, report to my father and leave. I have oftentimes wondered how much this man longed for the morning. He spent all night vigilantly, but the one thing he probably waited for with greatest vigilance was the first rays of sunlight. Since that sunlight announced his freedom, he probably focused entirely on the arrival of the morning. Waiting and watching for the first signs of light. Imagine how anxiously and joyfully he would wait for daybreak.

The psalmist invites us to wait for the Lord with that same joyful expectation and vigilance. As a watchman waits for morning, so will my soul wait for the Lord.

As certain as daylight comes for watchmen, we too know for certain that the Lord will come. We do not wait with fear, but with great hope. We do not need to be afraid because we know the Lord is our Father, he is the potter, we are the clay, the work of His hands. Saint Paul teaches us that God himself will keep us firm to the end because He is faithful. He will help us be irreproachable on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. It would be absurd for the watchman to fear the arrival of daylight… it would be absurd for us to fear the arrival of Jesus Christ.

In the new translation of the Roman Missal, I will now pray after the Our Father, “Deliver us, Lord, we pray, from every evil, graciously grant peace in our days, that, by the help of your mercy, we may be always free from sin and safe from all distress, as we await the blessed hope and the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ.”

At every Mass we ask the Lord to grant us the grace to peacefully and joyfully wait for Jesus Christ, free from sin and all distress. How do we achieve this? How do we remain watchful and vigilant for the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ?

First of all by following His law of charity: To love God with all our hearts and to love our neighbor as ourselves. We must be witnesses of the love of Christ at all times in word and deed.

We remain watchful by seeking the Lord at all times with as much desire as the watchman waits for daybreak. We must seek Him in all we do; in the small things and the big things, at home and at work.

We remain vigilant by finding hope in all things and in all situations, even when things are difficult. We remain watchful by keeping a hopeful expectation of the future, trusting that the Lord is with us and that He will deliver us from all distress.

We remain vigilant by living every day as if it were our last, always ready to meet the Lord Jesus. By living at peace with all, most especially with God.

At every Mass, the Lord comes to us. We wait for His coming, yet He is already here! Do we come each Sunday eager to receive Him? Do we come to this encounter with Christ with as much joy and anticipation as the watchman waits for daybreak? Jesus gives Himself as food for the way as we journey towards Him. In the Eucharist he gives us a taste of things to come. Let us ask Him to guide us this Advent season, that our hearts may be ready to receive Him at His coming.

———-

Now, I’d like to share with you one of my two favorite Advent Hymns, Comfort, Comfort O My People. Unfortunately I couldn’t find a decent recording with a choir, so the clip below is only the organ playing the hymn. Farther below are the words.

Comfort, comfort O My people,
Speak ye peace, thus says our God;
Comfort those who sit in darkness,
Mourning ‘neath their sorrow’s load;
Speak ye to Jerusalem
Of the peace that waits for them;
Tell her that her sins I cover,
And her warfare now is over.

For the herald’s voice is crying
In the desert far and near,
Bidding all men to repentance,
Since the kingdom now is here.
O that warning cry obey!
Now prepare for God a way!
Let the valleys rise to meet Him,
And the hills bow down to greet Him.

Yes, her sins our God will pardon,
Blotting out each dark misdeed;
All that well deserved His anger
He will no more see nor heed.
She has suffered many a day,
Now her griefs have passed away,
God will change her pining sadness
Into ever springing gladness.

Make ye straight what long was crooked,
Make the rougher places plain:
Let your hearts be true and humble,
As befits His holy reign,
For the glory of the Lord
Now o’er the earth is shed abroad,
And all flesh shall see the token
That His Word is never broken.

The Lord is Coming! Be Watchful, be alert!