Bible
Study: Isaiah 2, 1 to 5. Romans 13, 11 to 14 and Matthew 24, 37 to 44.
Dear friends,
do you know it is only three weeks left to Christmas? I mean, just twenty eight
days from now! This means, if you have not started making preparations and
plans, you are seriously missing out. Even market women nowadays will advise
you that it is better to buy the things you need now than wait till when they
create artificial scarcity thereby forcing you to buy them at more exorbitant
prices when the season of Christmas kicks in.
Year after
year, I am sure you must have noticed there is usually fuel scarcity and fewer
hours of electricity supply during this period. Now that filing stations are
still begging you to come and buy, don’t you think you should act fast?
Nonetheless,
my dear friends, there is no preparation for Christmas as important and as
beautiful as the SPIRITUAL PREPARATION. If you like, open a filling station
inside your bedroom, if you like travel to the four ends of the world, go get
cards and decorations from Dubai, bring Santa Claus from New York, get the
latest shoes from Tokyo, knock-outs and fireworks from Afganistan or the fattest
cow from Sokoto, if you so care, paint your house white and red and plant the
tallest Christmas trees with all the lights in the whole wide world, your
Christmas would still amount to nothing if the spiritual preparation of your heart
is missing.
If Christ
is not born anew in your life, then your Christmas is a mere dissipation; a
waste of time and money as well as opportunity for even greater crises. Without
a renewal of our Christian-ness, without a deeper resolve to walk away from the
darkness of sin, without allowing the baby Jesus affect our character and
conduct, then Christmas is just another calendar event that comes and goes. And
it is not surprising that even among Christians, Christmas season provides an
opportunity for further increase in sin all in the name of celebrating the
birth of Jesus; a time that many of us Christians engage in late night parties,
carousing, drinking competitions, over-feeding, indecency, fornication, adultery,
theft, lying to mention but a few.
How can I escape
the trap of Satan this Christmas? What do I need to do to make this year’s
Christmas the best I have ever had? The answer lies in our readings for this
first Sunday of Advent.
Isaiah in
our first reading today not only wets our minds about what sort of Messiah we
are expecting at Christmas, he concludes by telling us how we are position
ourselves to receive him graciously. He says: “O house of Jacob, come, Let us
Walk in the Light of the Lord.” St. Paul takes off from there in the second
reading when he says: “You know what hour it is, how it is full time now for
you to wake from sleep… the night is far gone, Let us case off the works of
darkness and put on the armour of light.” Meaning: No more drunkenness, no more
licentiousness (anything goes), no more quarrelling, no more jealousy, no more
provision for the flesh. Avoid these things and this would be the best
Christmas of your life.
The true
joy of Christmas is not the fun we catch in sinful acts, the real joy is that
which the baby Jesus brings into our hearts when we allow him to be born again
there. It is the joy and peace which the world cannot give but only Christ
himself can give. John
14, 27.
In our
Gospel passage, Jesus says: “WATCH, for you do not know on what day your Lord
is coming.” Being watchful is a figure of speech that means: to be alert in the
spirit; alert to temptations, alert to spiritual laziness such as forgetting to
pray, alert to knowing when and how one begins to move towards sin, alert to
knowing when the thief (Satan) is about to come into your heart and suggest
something evil.
The
Psalmist prays: “Set a guard over my mouth, O LORD; keep watch over the door of
my lips. Do not turn my heart to any evil.” Psalm 141, 3 to 4. The book of
Proverbs chapter 4, verse 23 hits the nail on the head when it says: “Guard
your heart with all vigilance, for out of it proceeds the wellsprings of life.”
Being
watchful is GUARDING your heart, keeping clean and sparkling at all times so
that Christ can find a place there in. It is like a cleaner who sits under the
staircase in the banking hall constantly looking at the floor to ensure there
is no sand or dirt. It is like a good security guard who only sees what looks
like a shadow of an intruder and fires immediately. He does not wait till when
the thief has captured him and bound him hand and foot. St. Peter puts it
beautifully when he wrote: “Discipline yourselves, keep alert. Like a roaring
lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour.
Resist him, steadfast in your faith.” 1st Peter 5, 8 to 9.
Mind you, being
watchful is not the same thing as doing nothing. Hence Jesus would further add
in this same passage: “Blessed is that servant whom his master when he comes
will find SO DOING.” The best form of preparation for Christmas is asking
myself this question: “If Christ were to come right now, will he like what I am
doing?” If I know he wouldn’t, then why should I still allow myself do it?
Let us
Pray: Lord Jesus, make my heart a ready temple for you this Christmas. Amen.
Be Happy. Live Positive. Have Faith.
It is well with you. God bless you. Happy Sunday.
Fr. Abu.
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