1st Sunday of Advent 2018 – Lord, Teach Me Your Paths

Readings:  Jeremiah 33:14-16; Psalm 25; 1 Thessalonians 3:12-4:2; Luke 21:25-28, 34-36

As we enter Advent we seek ways to prepare ourselves for Christmas in a way that brings us peace amid the many distractions of our consumer culture.  Advent, at its best, is a time of waiting and expectation.  Waiting for the celebration of the birth of the Child Jesus, the expectation for the time of Christ’s second coming.  The waiting in Advent should not be mere idle or impatient waiting.  The expectation should not be a source of fear.  Our scripture selections from Jeremiah and Luke address these two aspects of the season.  The birth of Jesus is the fulfillment of the long-awaited promise for David’s descendant ‘who does what is right and just.’  The return of Christ at the end of time will be the consummation of this promise with the birth of a “new heaven and a new earth.”  (Revelation 21:1)

The first birth was the source of fear as we hear in Matthew’s Gospel.  “When King Herod heard this, he was greatly troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.”  (Matthew 2:3)  Today’s Gospel points out how the expectation for the second coming can also be a time of perplexed dismay for those who are not prepared.  Whenever there is a theophany in the scriptures it is always accompanied by the words, “do not fear.”  It seems that we need to be reassured that God is benevolent, always has our best interests at heart, and supplies what we need.  This is the message of the 25th Psalm, the Psalm for the First Week of Advent.

Thus he shows sinners the way.
He guides the humble to justice,
and teaches the humble his way.

If we wait on the Lord, as the Psalm instructs, then we will be shown the way and taught the paths that will lead to justice and truth.  The path will be the way of grace so we can more closely keep His covenant and decrees.  We know when we have departed from the Lord’s path, because it is then that we become dismayed and peace eludes us.  The warning in today’s Gospel addresses how we can lose our way…  “Beware that your hearts do not become drowsy from carousing and drunkenness and the anxieties of daily life, and that day catches you by surprise like a trap.”  (Luke 21:34)  Use this time of waiting, in prayer that you have the strength and humility to act in justice to please God.  As Jesus instructs, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.  You have faith in God; have faith also in me.”  (John 14:1)

Good and upright is the LORD;