Read­ing Time: 4 minutes

Introduction

Dear cher­ished read­er! Wel­come to the new litur­gic­al year! This is the first Sunday in the church’s new litur­gic­al year. Accord­ing to the Cath­ol­ic Church’s sys­tem of com­put­ing, this is Year II or Year B. This is also the first Sunday of Advent and the first Sunday in the month of Decem­ber. We thank God for guid­ing and bless­ing us dur­ing the last month. Always be grate­ful to God and to those who wish you well. This is the month of spe­cial joy because it marks the birth of Jesus, the Christ, the saviour of man­kind. It is a month char­ac­ter­ized by series of joy­ful activ­it­ies to cel­eb­rate the nativ­ity of Jesus. The Lord is really good! Once more, wel­come to the new litur­gic­al year and to the month of Decem­ber! Jesus dis­closes everything about the end times so that the dis­ciples will be on their guard and not allow any­one to deceive them (cf. Mark 13:5.9.23). The story of a man going on a jour­ney (Mark 13:34–37) has same sim­il­ar­it­ies with the story of the unfaith­ful and wicked ten­ants (Mark 12:1–12). Their cent­ral mes­sage is per­petu­al read­i­ness while bear­ing our vari­ous and God-giv­en respons­ib­il­it­ies. Be watchful!

Be watchful!

Gen­er­ally, and as stated above, the 13^th chapter of the Gos­pel accord­ing to Mark is tagged “eschat­o­lo­gic­al chapter” because its con­tent reflects last time events. After announ­cing the destruc­tion of the beau­ti­ful and orna­men­ted Temple of Jer­u­s­alem by Jesus (Mark 13:1–2), his dis­ciples wanted to find out from him when this destruc­tion will take place (Mark 13:3–4). Jesus sternly warned them to be care­ful so as not to be deceived by any­one, for many will come pre­tend­ing to be oper­at­ing in his name. Ter­rible things will hap­pen, yet the end is not near (Mark 13:5–8). The founder of the Con­greg­a­tion of the Jehovah Wit­ness, Charles Taze Rus­sell once pro­pounded that the end of the world, which accord­ing to him ini­ti­ated in 1799 AD, will come to an end on the 1^st Octo­ber, 1914. After so many years, the world is still in exist­ence while Rus­sell him­self died in 1916, two years after his false prophesy/prediction. Even his suc­cessors who fol­lowed his foot­step have all died. Yet, the world con­tin­ues. Unfor­tu­nately, those false proph­ets are still roar­ing like lion devour­ing so many people with their false and organ­ized mir­acles, heal­ing, vis­ions and pur­por­ted spir­itu­al endow­ments. Usu­ally, they intensi­fy their false­hood dur­ing this peri­od and at the begin­ning of the year. You must watch out! You must be watch­ful! You must stay awake!

Jesus did not want his dis­ciples to be vic­tims of such selfish and god­less people. Hence, he warned and advised them to be care­ful and watch­ful. After oth­er things, in Mark 13:32, he spe­cified “but about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heav­en, nor the Son, but only the Fath­er.” Then, in verse 33, he con­tin­ues “Beware, keep alert, for you do not know when the time will come.” The year is gradu­ally end­ing and many lions in sheep cloth­ing will soon (if they have not star­ted already) begin to look for those to defraud with their frus­trated incant­a­tions in the name of proph­esy. Des­pite Jesus’ warn­ing, many still allow them­selves to be duped by these crim­in­als. You should not allow your­self to be manip­u­lated and used by these evil and god­less people.

Conclusion             

The Chris­ti­an advent is a peri­od of great expect­a­tion. Accord­ing to Isai­ah, 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. But in order to be con­soled and com­for­ted, we must in the words of Isai­ah, cease from rebelling against God and return to God (cf. First Read­ing). 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 going astray, and implored them to return to their cre­at­or with all their hearts. Today, and par­tic­u­larly here in Niger­ia, we have strayed from the Lord. We have rebelled and con­tin­ue to rebel against God. we have com­prom­ised and con­tin­ue to com­prom­ise our pos­i­tion as chil­dren of God. We have chal­lenged and con­tin­ue to chal­lenge God. 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 renew our com­mit­ment to our God. advent means God is about to inter­vene in our down­trod­den and sin­ful world. The divine inter­ven­tion in our lives demon­strates God’s effort to dia­logue with us and with every creature. We should also pre­pare ourselves through dia­logue and right­eous liv­ing. Let us aban­don ourselves to God that he may take us back and teaches us. God of hosts, bring us back; let your face shine on us and we shall be saved (cf. Ps 79).

FOR DETAILS, GET YOUR OWN COPIES OF THE BOOK “THE WORD OF LIFE: SUNDAY REFLECTIONS” (vols. I and II)!! The reflec­tion for the 1^st Sunday of Advent, Year B is found on vols I and II pages 1–10 (vol. I) and 1–6 (vol. II). 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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