“FIRST IMPRESSIONS”
FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT (B) November 29, 2026
Isaiah 63: 16b-17, 19b; 64: 2b-7; 1Corinthians 1: 3-9; Mark 13: 33-37
By: Jude Siciliano, OP
Dear Preachers:
Is this season of Advent a time of pretend? Let's pretend that Christ has not yet come and that we are living in the time of Isaiah, awaiting the Messiah. Let's pretend that we are longing for the birth of the Messiah, singing songs about beating swords into plowshares and waiting for the day when the lion will lie down with the lamb.
Even if we could enter a kind of "religious amnesia," the commercial world won't let us forget that Christmas is approaching. It's impossible to pretend that Christ has not come. We have been seeing signs of Christmas for weeks in store windows and advertisements. I heard my first Christmas commercial two days after Halloween! Christmas is already becoming the focus of our days, just a couple of days after we finished the last of the Thanksgiving turkey.
Our exclamations have already begun I need to make out my Christmas list! What shall I buy Mom? Whom shall we invite for Christmas Eve? Where shall we celebrate Christmas Day? Do I have enough money for Christmas gifts? I need to get busy with Christmas cards. And so on. We have begun to brace ourselves for the rush.
Was it only when we were children that Christmas and the weeks leading up to it had real significance for us? We may have tried to be good so that we wouldn't find coal in our stockings, but at least we were conscious of getting ready. We looked ahead with excitement, and Christ's coming filled us with a sense of awe as we gazed upon the Christ Child in the crib.
But we are adults now, and the sellers of merchandise want us to get ready for "the Big Day." They have already begun the countdown. Before we check our gift lists, rush off to the stores and malls, plan the meals, and organize the little parties preceding the Big Day, let's stop and think about what the Scriptures are saying today. They are calling us to be aware of another Big Day: the return of Christ.
We hear the longing of the people in Isaiah's day as they cry out to God. The prophet speaks for them: "Return for the sake of your servants." "Rend the heavens and come down." They were a people in trouble, alienated from God and suffering the consequences of their unfaithfulness. They had turned their backs on the loving God who had chosen them and formed them into a people. Now they recognize their desperate situation, and Isaiah gives voice to their longing for help. God will hear their cries and come to save them.
We are more like the biblical people of Israel than we may realize. We, too, are waiting for the coming of the Messiah. But this week our focus is on his Second Coming. Have we forgotten this important part of our faith, the belief that helped the early Church endure difficult times and kept believers vigilant and strong in a hostile and unbelieving world?
Have we been waiting so long that we have lost our sense of expectation and drifted into a kind of spiritual sleep? Two thousand years have passed. Who knows how many more years will pass before his return? Will he come in the next millennium, or the one after that? Will he come at all? And what difference will it make, anyhow?
Perhaps we would rather focus on Christmas, which is just a few weeks away. It is closer to our everyday experience and seems more certain. It feels more real and tangible.
Not so fast! The Gospel won't let us shift our attention so easily. Its tone is foreboding, and the picture it paints is unsettling. "Stay awake! You do not know the appointed time." "Do not let him catch you suddenly asleep." "Be on guard."
Jesus is speaking about a real moment in history when he will return and gather his faithful ones to himself. It will be the fulfillment of God's promise: an end to death and suffering, divisions, prejudice, and misunderstandings. It will be a time when God's hopes for us and for our world will finally be accomplished. What we long for will finally come to pass.
Perhaps we need to get in touch again with these deep longings of our spirit, as well as the longings of the Christian community to which we belong. We may have a long wait before Christ returns, perhaps longer than our own lifetimes. But prompted by the honesty and urgency of Isaiah's lament, let's sharpen our awareness of what is still missing from our world. Let’s voice our dissatisfaction with the way things are, lest we grow dull in our vision and become complacent about the status quo.
The preacher can take on the voice of the people’s complaint today. Like Isaiah, we can name the problems we face, and the struggles involved in bringing about goodness in a world that has turned its back on God. But we must not point only to the world. We must also look at ourselves.
Why have we strayed so far from being the people God calls us to be? Why do we sometimes fail to pass on our faith to our own children? Why isn't the faith we practice attractive to them? Is it because of how we live—or perhaps fail to live—our faith? Are we clinging to religious externals while failing to live the words and example of Jesus?
If we lose our perspective and simply resign ourselves to the way things are, we will stop working to change them. We may even stop believing in the Lord's return and neglect the work he has entrusted to us until that day comes.
If we live the life Jesus calls us to live, his return will not catch us unprepared. Whether we meet him when he comes again to gather his people or at the end of our own mortal lives, we can face that encounter with confidence. In fact, if we are prepared, we will greet his coming with enthusiasm and a sigh of relief.
Life has its ways of catching us off guard. We or our loved one’s experience moments that throw us off balance: a sudden deterioration in health, the death of someone we love, the collapse of a marriage, or the loss of a job.
To help us face such events, Jesus describes the kind of life we need to live now: a life shaped by vigilance and attentiveness. We must stand guard at the doorways of our lives, welcoming what is good and resisting what is evil, destructive, and harmful to our faith. A faith nurtured by daily care and attentiveness will sustain us when life's unexpected difficulties come our way.
Many of us will complain during this Christmas season that we cannot get into the Christmas spirit. It's no wonder! We will be surrounded by other spirits: the spirit of hurry, the spirit of fatigue, the spirit of tinsel and illusion, the spirit of false expectations, and the spirit of greed.
Whether we experience the true Christmas spirit will depend, in part, on how we live Advent, these weeks of preparation. The season has just begun. We still have time to gain some control over it and direct its course before it controls us and runs away with us.
Today's message reminds us to remain alert as we wait for Christ. We cannot pretend that he has not come, but we can prepare for his next coming through prayer, reflection, and longing.
We can reflect on a world scared by war, starvation, oppression, and the neglect of millions. We can refuse to become comfortable with such suffering. And we can long for the Savior's coming, bringing light and direction to our lives and to our world.
We sit in a world still shadowed by darkness, longing to see the face of Christ at our door, longing for him to show us the way and renew our desire to follow him faithfully.
Click here for a link to this Sunday’s readings: