Stay Awake

[A]bout that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come.  Mark 24:36

Grace and peace to you on this New Year’s Eve.  

As I write these words I hear the protest: “New Year’s Eve,” you say?  “Don’t you know we have an entire month before New Year’s Eve?” Friends, tomorrow is the first Sunday of Advent and the beginning of the Church year. Tomorrow indeed begins a new year – a new liturgical year.

We mark time in many ways – the first day of the academic year in September, the first day of the Julian calendar on January 1st, the first day of summer on June 21st.  Yes, we follow these calendars.

As people of God we also observe a liturgical year that begins tomorrow. The liturgical year is anchored by two great events – the Incarnation (Christmas) when God came to dwell among us in the person of Jesus and the Resurrection (Easter) when Jesus rose from the dead. Through the liturgical year we move through the life of Jesus, not in a linear, beginning-to-end kind of way, but in a way that our life is shaped and deepened by the life of Christ.

How do we begin the year? With Advent. Remember the God-sized dreams for St. Peter’s we brought forward in worship a few weeks ago? One of those was the vision of a five-year-old in our midst, who wrote, “My dream is for Jesus to be alive again.” Wow. That’s how we begin the year – with the hope of the resurrected Jesus, the one who lived among us, who died and was risen, who will come again.

So, let’s begin: Slow down. Keep alert. We do do not know when the time will come. Jesus is already in our midst and is coming again in great glory. Prepare to receive Jesus to be alive again.