Advent

"...make no mistake about the age we live in; already it is high time for us to awake out of our sleep; our salvation is closer to us now than when we first learned to believe. The night is far on its course; day draws near. Let us abandon the ways of darkness, and put on the armour of light. Let us pass our time honourably, as by the light of day, not in revelling and drunkenness, not in lust and wantonness, not in quarrels and rivalries. Rather, arm yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ; spend no more thought on nature and nature’s appetites." - Romans, 13: 11-14

Advent has the character of a liturgical vigil. We Christians inherit the idea of a vigil or a keeping-watch before a great feast from our Jewish forebears. Traditionally, a vigil is a time of preparation before a great celebration and, in the Latin tradition, it is accompanied by the colour purple. And by a spirit of deepening prayer and abstinence from common delights. Simultaneously, our liturgical readings and other texts place us in the shoes of the Jewish communities of the late period, when the Holy Land fell under the imperium of Rome. In that intense time of expectation, multiple messianic figures seemed to arise here and there (we see hints of that in the Gospels and contemporary histories, often because of the punishment that was delivered by the Romans to the ringleaders of the movements that grew up around them, because of the political mayhem that resulted). It almost seems as if people knew that something was up and they were looking about for messiahs who would, in the words of the Apostles, 'restore the dominion to Israel' (Acts, 1: 6). The key word is 'expectation,' and Advent causes us to climb into this pre-Christ period, standing with the shepherds on the hills outside Bethlehem, with the astronomer kings/magi of the East watching the stars and attempting to read the signs they found there.

The quote above from the letter of Saint Paul to the Romans is wonderfully appropriate. It tells us to come back to our senses, waking up from the stupor that this worldly existence tends to draw us into, for salvation is ever closer to us and we need to move along with that grace constantly, setting aside sin once and for all, and behaving well. We are to be spiritual soldiers, arming ourselves with Christ. We are to keep the solemn vigil of the feast day in a spirit of repentance and a renewed hope in God's deliverance.