Scripture Reflection for the First Sunday of Advent:
Isaiah 2:1-5
Psalm 122: 1-2, 3-4, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9
Romans 13:11-14
Matthew 24:37-44
Since ancient times, Romans 13 has been read by Christians at Advent. To wake up spiritually to the reality of Christ’s presence is the message: “You know the time; it is the hour for you to awake from sleep.”
Such is the simple exhortation, given in the Church’s scriptural voice, heard at the beginning of Advent: Wake up!
Now Saint Paul here in Romans is talking about the Christian life as such. However, the metaphor, the call to “awake from sleep,” calls to mind at once both Easter and Advent, two of the three “comings of Christ,” to use Saint Bernard of Clairvaux’s famous way of putting it.
In the Letter to the Ephesians, for example, the writer quotes what is likely an ancient baptismal hymn: “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light” (Ephesians 5:14). To “wake up” in this verse is to wake up from death, spiritually, morally and ultimately bodily; it is to participate in the Easter event.
Which, of course, the meaning of this passage from Romans also includes. However, to read this passage as we do now before Christmas, to contemplate the “light” in this passage, as the days grow shorter and darker, is to begin to think of the light that is Jesus Christ, the light born in the darkness of Christmas night. Basically, the Church is saying to us that although the world is dark, look for the light of Jesus.
And then act like it. Saint Paul is talking about enlightenment, a spiritual illumination that changes people, changes the way they live their lives. “Let us then throw off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; let us conduct ourselves properly as in the day,” Saint Paul says (Romans 13:12-14).
Leaving behind the works and “desires of the flesh,” Christians should live as if Christ is fully present now, reigning now; because, of course, he is, although we see it by faith only in mystery and in the life of the Church, in our love for one another.
This, I think, is the spiritual key to help us understand the other two readings from Isaiah and Matthew. The invitation, for instance, to “climb the Lord’s mountain” and to “walk in his paths” in peace is spiritually and morally the same invitation Saint Paul offers in Romans (Isaiah 2:3). And Jesus’s warning in Matthew not to get distracted or tempted, as “in the days of Noah,” by the ordinary and sometimes seemingly benign lure of the world is spiritually and morally the same thing as Saint Paul’s exhortation to “put on the armor of light” (Matthew 24:37; Romans 13:12).
And so, for me, the call to “wake up” means at least two things. First, it means that we are called in Christ to action, to Christian acts of charity and hope. Here I always think of Saint Benedict who begins his Rule quoting Romans 13. He writes, “Let us open our eyes to the light that comes from God.”
“Run,” he says repeatedly in the Rule; when we see the light of God and hear the voice of the Father, we drop what we’re doing and run to him. That is, when we encounter Jesus, our lives should begin to change.
Which leads me to the second thing this call to wake up means to me; and that is, this call is a call to joy. Here I always think of the poem by George Herbert, “The Dawning.” A poem about Easter, we can read it as an Advent poem too:
“Awake sad heart, whom sorrow ever drowns;
“Take up thine eyes, which feed on earth;
“Unfold thy forehead gathered into frowns:
“Thy Saviour comes and with him mirth.”
“Awake, awake…Arise sad heart,” the poem goes on. It’s a beautiful poem; you should read the whole thing. And honestly, there’s nothing too profound about it. It’s just a poem, a good reminder that what we’re waking up to is joy, the joy God desires to give us.
That’s the simple message. Yes, the world is dark, but dawn has already begun. Thus, what we need is simply the courage to act like Christians and joy, that pure gift proclaimed by the angels to those who are still watching.
Father Joshua J. Whitfield is pastor of Saint Rita Catholic Community in Dallas and author of “The Crisis of Bad Preaching” (Ave Maria Press, $17.95) and other books.
