Read­ing Time: 2 minutes

Introduction

Ety­mo­lo­gic­ally, the term advent derives from the Lat­in advĕntum, arrival and advenīre to arrive. Hence, it is a peri­od or moment of expect­a­tion for some­thing moment­ous. In our con­text, that is, in the reli­gious or Chris­ti­an con­text, Advent is a pre-Christ­mas peri­od. It is the peri­od includ­ing the four Sundays before the feast of Christ­mas. In its ori­gin­al mean­ing, the word advent means arrival, com­ing of a thing, an event or of an import­ant per­son­al­ity. Major­ity of Chris­ti­an denom­in­a­tions observe these weeks as time of pray­er, abstin­ence and renew­al in pre­par­a­tion for the feast of Christ­mas, the arrival of Anoin­ted One of God – Jesus, the Christ (the Mes­si­ah, the Anointed).

The Call to Watchfulness

In this Sunday Gos­pel, Jesus exhorts the dis­ciples and the entire Chris­ti­an faith­ful to be watch­ful. This invit­a­tion is expressed in and with the for­mula: stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord/Master will come. Lit­er­ally, the Greek grēgoreō means be or keep awake. But in the fig­ur­at­ive sense, it means be on the alert, be watch­ful. It is an imper­at­ive. In order to be watch­ful, one must be awake. While to be asleep is to be in the pass­ive state, on the oth­er hand, to be awake is to be in the act­ive state. Pass­ive­ness and act­ive­ness are two con­trast­ing atti­tudes. The rela­tion­ship between the two is like the rela­tion­ship between light and dark­ness. That is, they are incom­pat­ible and can­not exist con­tem­por­ar­ily. When one takes place, the oth­er must give way.

Conclusion             

The Chris­ti­an advent is a peri­od of great expect­a­tion. Accord­ing to the Isai­an text cited above, it is a peri­od of divine con­sol­a­tion and encour­age­ment. Today, we have many reas­ons to thank God. How­ever, we also have many reas­ons to be con­soled and encour­aged, espe­cially in this coun­try called Niger­ia. The expect­a­tion to be com­for­ted is there­fore, part of Chris­ti­an true hope. At the begin­ning of this joy­ous and grace­ful and grace-filled time, we should listen attent­ively to the voice of God, which speaks to us in and from our hearts. Isai­ah pro­claimed the mes­sage of God to his fel­low county men and women who were in exile, and were about to come back to their pat­ria. Today in our world, and par­tic­u­larly here in Niger­ia, what or which is our own exile? What is the exile of our vari­ous soci­et­ies, the vari­ous nations, and the entire world? What kind of sal­va­tion are we expect­ing? What do we wish our fam­il­ies, our nations and the entire human­ity? In this peri­od of advent (and Christ­mas), we must find out our own iniquity and the iniquity of the world to which God prom­ises to bring to an end. We must dic­tate them and send them on per­petu­al exile. The divine inter­ven­tion in our lives demon­strates God’s effort to dia­logue with us and with every creature. We should also know ourselves bet­ter through dia­logue and right­eous liv­ing. Let us aban­don ourselves to God that He may teaches us (cf. First Reading).

FOR DETAILS, GET YOUR OWN COPIES OF THE BOOK “THE WORD OF LIFE:
SUNDAY REFLECTIONS” (vols. I‑II-III)!! The reflec­tion for the 1^st Sunday of Advent is found in The Word of Life, vol. I, pages 1–10. Happy reading!

For details on how to get it, con­tact the author on this link: https://m.me/uchennabiblia?fbclid=IwAR2yeg4a6sDGBp9QGkIvKj6FSADumMokN6lshdE0zuo-JHs6qOmlhA7jyHo
or email me at: postmaster@uchennabiblia.com
or simply send an SMS on 08116100926, and I will get back to you.

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