Today’s readings: Isaiah 2, 1-5; Romans 13, 11-14; Matthew 24, 37-44.
The mountain symbolism so central in the first reading from the prophet Isaiah provides a very appropriate setting for the opening of the Advent season. In Isaiah’s vision, the mountain of the Lord represents stability in a universal pilgrimage with all the nations streaming to it. For us living today, the mountain has connotations of an uphill struggle, a road map in the midst of the fluidity that characterises our life.
Speaking of uphill struggle seems most appropriate today because from the carefree consumers we used to be, we are now being coerced to come to terms with measures of austerity, to undertake a so-called reality check. Advent is an appropriate time for a reality check so that we may reclaim the vision that is ours and that should inspire the way forward.
Isaiah’s vision of this pilgrimage to the mountain of the Lord is a bold and daring act of imagination, given that he envisages through it universality of salvation.
For him, the energy that attracts all nations and peoples to convergence towards Zion is the Torah, the Law which here is not just the legislative framework, but the will of God as regards history and society.
Here Isaiah envisages the new order of harmony and peace. It is his vision of a pilgrimage to Jerusalem that will, in turn, lead to disarmament.
The Gospel reading dramatises further the advent of the Son of Man, seeing it not as the romantic birth of a cuddly baby Jesus: “It will be like a flood which came and swept all away.”
This introduces the basic theme of Advent in the context of our daily living as constant vigilance in view of the uncertainty that encircles our existence. It reminds us of Cardinal John Henry Newman’s “Lead kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom”. We know the gloom. It is the light we need to recover.
What is the vision we need to stick to in the situations of upheaval that mark our times? Watchfulness has been the buzzword in world politics since 9/11. Since the recent market crash leading to the present day economic slump, watchfulness is making us mark our lifestyles.
The evangelist Matthew’s call for constant watchfulness in the face of uncertainty regarding the time of the Son of Man’s coming remains relevant to us but shifts to another type of uncertainty that marks our times.
The Gospel hammers in this theme by providing a series of parables in brief: that of the day when Noah entered the Ark, the one about the two men in the field and the two women at the mill, and the parable about the householder and the thief. Jesus refers to the time of Noah’s flood when people “suspected nothing” till the flood came and swept all away.
In spite of the fact that from different quarters today and on the different levels of politics and culture there is cause for concern, yet we seem to be in a collective siesta. Many of us seem to suspect nothing, as on the day when Noah entered the Ark.
In this sense, St Paul’s exhortation to the Romans in the second reading is a wake-up call even for our times: “Let us live decently as people do in the daytime”. We are invited to watch out not just in view of the future, but first and foremost in view of the time we have now.
As Jesus says: “Of two men in the fields one is taken, one left; of two women at the millstone grinding, one is taken, one left”. People in the same life situations can react differently, depending on how resourceful they happen to be when they mostly need to be. This is very true.
This Advent we have good reason to reclaim the vision that sets the right tone for the way we are living so that Jesus Christ may not take us by surprise.