Brothers and Sisters, we await the celebration of the birth of our Lord, the coming into the world of light and hope. Humanity had lived in darkness for a long time, but not without the hope of God restoring us to Him, and the entry into the world of His Son as foretold by the prophets. Our Lord had a plan to restore us to Him from the very day when our first parents fell because of the love that He has for us. A healing of the brokenhearted, a liberation and release for all who were held captive, and a day of vindication by our God. A day when a virgin would give birth to a son in the humblest of circumstances and change our world forever. The day when our Lord would come to live among us as a man and share his wisdom with us and relate to us in a whole new way. This is truly cause for rejoicing.
Yet we need to be ready to celebrate this, we need to prepare our spirit, soul, and body to be found awake and vigilante so that we can properly celebrate the entry into this world of the Son of God. We need to have been using the time of this season of Advent to prepare, and the good news is, it’s still not too late to work on this. We have a bit of time left. We can examine and reflect and prayerfully ask for help to change what needs to be changed, and to prepare ourselves as a dwelling swept clean of much of our faults and made ready for the Lord’s entry. You see, what we desire most, whether we realize it initially or not, is not all the temporal presents that we seem to obsess over in this season, but rather the gift of peace and inner fulfillment that can only come from our Lord dwelling within us. Sure, there is a temptation for focusing on the other stuff. Those other gifts have become a tradition over the years, but we cannot allow that to eclipse or detract from the real gift we all naturally seek – the gift that only comes from God.
We are living in a time now of great unrest and angst because of all the uncertainty of this pandemic, and to my mind, I don’t think we have had a Christmas in a very long time when so many are so fervently seeking peace of mind and spirit. Yet we have good reason to be hopeful this season because we know with unwavering certainty that we are approaching a time to recognize and celebrate the reason for all of humanity to have such great hope, and even joy in such uncertain times – Jesus. He has been heralded and born, and come into our world, and saved us from certain destruction. He has given us through His death and resurrection the gift of eternal life that we can take great comfort in, and confidence to face anything else that comes our way, whether it be a microbe or mountain. Through our faith in Him who gave all for us after having been born a man, we can be at peace. This is my Advent wish for each of you – to know the peace that comes with the acknowledgement of our faults, and the resolution to change, so that we can truly welcome our Lord with joy on the day when we celebrate His birth. May all of you know that peace as you prepare for that great day.
Podcast Link
The Deacons Bench 