“Be Watchful! Be Alert!”

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the First Sunday of Advent, Year B

St. Alphonsus Catholic Church, Brooklyn Center, MN

Sunday, November 29, 2020

As we begin the holy season of Advent, one of the temptations we should strive to avoid is the tendency to reduce Advent to a cozy and sentimental season. In reality, Advent is preparation for revolution. It is a revolution proclaimed by Isaiah, announced by John the Baptist, which reached its momentum in Christ Jesus. About 500 years after the Israelites returned from exile, there appeared in Judean desert a strange figure who dressed in animal skins, and ate locust and honey— John the Baptist. When people who came to listen to him asked him, “Who are you? (Jn. 1:22) he replied in the words of prophet Isaiah, “I am the voice of one crying out in the desert, make straight the way of the Lord” (Jn. 1:23). Many centuries before him, Isaiah had said that a voice of one is calling in the wilderness and asking people to make straight in the desert a highway for our God (Is. 40:3). Now, John the Baptist is saying that he is that voice. Shortly after that, John said, “…there is one among you whom you do not recognize…” He called him “the Lamb of God.” The “one among you” is a young Galilean rabbi whose message in today’s Gospel is very simple and unambiguous: “Be watchful! Be alert! Be alert to the signs of the passing of all things. Be alert to the fact that all human acquisitions, achievements, accomplishments, successes, pleasure, the joys and goods of this world will one day be taken away from us. Be alert to the futility of what St. Thomas Aquinas called the four false substitutes for God, which are wealth, pleasure, power and honor. Be consciously aware that all these vanities, all culture, all of nature, and even the cosmos (universe) itself will come to a crashing end. Be watchful and alert to the fact that earthly life does not go on and on and on. Everything as we know it will definitely come to a halt. Life will end. The world will end. 

You know, when it comes to the end of all things, even scientists, especially physicists agree the entire universe will run out of fuel and energy to continue to exist. They tell us that one day, our earth will be enveloped by the sun. The sun will collapse and become a dark hole drawing matter and light into itself. They agree that the universe will fade out in a great freeze or burn out like a great fry. 

Now, with all these cataclysmic, disastrous and catastrophic tale, you might be tempted to despair, and to say, “Then what the heck?” “What’s the point?” “Why bother?” You might even be tempted to fall into the existentialist philosophy of Albert Camus and his colleagues who say that “life is absurd.” That there is no meaning in life, and we can’t make a meaning out of it. Rather than submit to the meaninglessness of life, we can look elsewhere, we can look to the steadfast love of God, which brought the entire universe into existence from nothing, which sustains it even now, and which will one day draw us to a life and joy that is beyond this world and that knows no bound. We can turn to the One whose love is eternal, whose patience does not run out or fade, whose mercy is boundless, and whose power to save is mighty and persistent. 

This is why Advent is a preparation for a revolution. A revolution that urges us to be alert in the spirit. To wake up from our spiritual slumber. To change and repent for the Kingdom of God is close at hand.”Yes, a kingdom is at hand and a new King has emerged. Change and live under his lordship. This is the permanent and revolutionary message of Advent.