Halleluyah, Advent is here again. I welcome you to this daily seasonal reflection. God bless you as we journey together as witnesses for Jesus, the True Light, in preparation for His Second Coming (Matt 24:36-46). Advent comes from the Latin adventus, meaning “coming.” The challenge and question for this season of Advent is, are you ready for the Lord Jesus’ coming?

The season of Advent invites us to an annual spiritual check-up, a spiritual retreat, and a wake-up call. The six months of the liturgical “ordinary time” are not without ‘spiritual sleep by the ordinariness of Christian life.’ The season of Advent, which points to the coming of the Lord, offers and begins the journey of personal and corporate renewal and revival. In an essay entitled, “The Coming of Jesus in our Midst”, Dietrich Bonhoeffer warns us that “we have become so accustomed to the idea of divine love and of God’s coming at Christmas that we no longer feel the shiver of fear that God’s coming should arouse in us. We are indifferent to the message, taking only the pleasant and agreeable out of it and forgetting the serious aspect, that the God of the world draws near to the people of our little earth and lays claim to us. The coming of God is truly not only glad tidings, but first of all frightening news for everyone who has a conscience.” 

Some of our Christmas carols sometimes miss the reality of what a witness for the Light, Mary, experienced 2000 years ago. It was not silent, calm or bright around Mary, contrary to Fr Joseph Mohr’s revelling majestic silence of the wintry night in the little village of Oberndorf, Austria, in 1816. Mohr’s famous carol ‘Silent Night, Holy Night’ was first sung on Christmas Eve 1818 in Austria as part of a church performance, with the help of Franz Gruber. Advent play, or the singing of carols, is more witnessing and prophetic than performance. Advent is about witnessing and opening people’s eyes to what God is coming truly means in our lives, homes, churches, communities, and nations. The time is now for us to do all we can to be prepared for the Lord Jesus’ “Coming” for us. 

Lord, have mercy and deliver your church from making Advent just a lovely tale without a call to repentance in preparation for His Second Coming.