The First Sunday of Advent -- November 27, 2011

Mark 13:33 - 37

Be on guard! Be alert! You do not know when that time will come. It’s like a man going away: He leaves his house and puts his servants in charge, each with an assigned task, and tells the one at the door to keep watch.

“Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back—whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn. If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping. What I say to you, I say to everyone: ‘Watch!’”


You cannot read this passage for the First Sunday of Advent and not be jolted by Jesus' calls to alertness, watchfulness and wakefulness. "Take heed!" he says.

"Stay alert!"

"Don't go to sleep!"

The repetition itself catches my attention. Jesus obviously was well aware of the human tendency to drift mindlessly, without aim and intention. How easy it is to fall into the rut of tearing pages off the calendar, watching the days slide by without an awareness of God, ourselves, or others. I sleepwalk.

In my prayer, the passage invites me to consider where I am sleeping. In what ways am I merely passing time, trying to get through one thing in order to give attention to the next?

I realize, for instance, that I can look forward to a certain event on my calendar so much that I miss the days leading up to the event. Sometimes it's a vacation or a particularly significant retreat or an opportunity to hear a certain speaker . . . I get so focused on the thing I'm looking forward to, that other days become pages on a calendar that are ripped aside in order to speed along the days. And those are days that will never be returned to me. It's one significant way I sleepwalk.

My work can be that way, also. I can invest most of my attention in teaching a class or leading a retreat or being with a small group . . . and miss other things that are going on around me. And sometimes the work events are not even that exciting and energizing, but I find myself lunging from one to the next, laying aside what I've just completed in order to race toward the next thing. To me it feels like survival, not alertness.

In this text for the first day of Advent, I hear an invitation to wake up, to be alert. I hear God inviting me, at least for this Advent season, to stay awake.

And I'm asking God to show me what spiritual practices or disciplines I can carry through this season that will serve to help me stay alert.