As we embark upon this season of Advent,
St. Paul exhorts us: “You know the time;
it is the hour now for you to awake from sleep.”
Paul's words suggest that our lives
are a kind of fantasy, a waking dream,
anesthetized by sensual pleasures
and worldly ambitions:
orgies and drunkenness,
promiscuity and lust,
rivalry and jealousy.
Even if we refrain
from orgies and drunkenness,
can we really pretend we are free
from rivalry and jealousy?
But now it is time to wake up
and to clothe ourselves in Christ.
St. Paul exhorts us: “You know the time;
it is the hour now for you to awake from sleep.”
Paul's words suggest that our lives
are a kind of fantasy, a waking dream,
anesthetized by sensual pleasures
and worldly ambitions:
orgies and drunkenness,
promiscuity and lust,
rivalry and jealousy.
Even if we refrain
from orgies and drunkenness,
can we really pretend we are free
from rivalry and jealousy?
But now it is time to wake up
and to clothe ourselves in Christ.
This passage from Paul
played a key role in the conversion
of the great theologian Augustine of Hippo.
Augustine had been a smart
and ambitious young man
from North Africa,
the hinterlands of the Roman empire,
who had made his way to Italy
and found his footing in the center of power.
But his restless heart kept telling him
that there must be more to life,
even as his lusts and ambitions
pushed him up the ladder of success.
He had become convinced
of the truth of Christianity,
but found himself unable to break free
from those lusts and ambitions;
he knew what he should do,
but was unable to will himself to do it.
He describes his situation as being
“like the efforts of those
who would like to get up
but are overcome by deep sleep
and sink back again.”
We say, “Just a little longer please,”
but, Augustine notes,
“‘Just a little longer, please’ went on and on
for a long while” (Conf. 8.5.12).
One day, praying in anguish in a garden,
he hears the distant voice of a child,
saying in a sing-song chant,
tolle lege, “take up and read.”
He goes and gets a copy of Paul’s letters
and, opening them at random,
reads the passage that we have just heard:
“put on the Lord Jesus Christ,
and make no provision
for the desires of the flesh.”
Augustine tells us,
“I neither wished nor needed to read further.
At once, with the last words of this sentence,
it was as if a light of relief from all anxiety
flooded into my heart.
All the shadows of doubt
were dispelled” (Conf. 8.12.29).
I tell the story of St. Augustine in some detail
not to suggest that reading a magic Bible passage
can make all our doubts and hesitations vanish,
can rouse us from our spiritual dream state,
but because the message that woke Augustine up
is a message that we need to hear today:
“put on the Lord Jesus Christ,
and make no provision for the desires of the flesh.”
We, no less than Augustine
and the Roman Christians to whom Paul wrote,
seek to indulge our desires—
to satisfy not only our bodily appetites,
but also our appetites
for power and control and security.
We, no less than they,
drowsily respond to the call of God’s Spirit,
“Just a little longer please.”
Please let me linger just a little longer
in this waking dream that I call my life,
in which I believe myself
to stand stable and secure.
Leave me to my lust and my rivalries,
my self-indulgence and my petty ambitions.
Leave me in my old way of life.
We, no less than they,
have let “Just a little longer please”
go on and on for a long time.
But today Christ calls to us
to wake up and to stay awake,
for the day of the Son of Man
will come like a thief in the night—
the day of judgment,
when the desires of this world
on which we have spent our lives
will fade away like a dream,
a dream that seemed
so real as we slumbered
but which we
cannot quite remember
in the bright light of day.
Those things that loom
so large as we dream—
plans and programs,
ambitions and awards,
grudges and gambits—
all will fade away
with the dawning of that day.
he hears the distant voice of a child,
saying in a sing-song chant,
tolle lege, “take up and read.”
He goes and gets a copy of Paul’s letters
and, opening them at random,
reads the passage that we have just heard:
“put on the Lord Jesus Christ,
and make no provision
for the desires of the flesh.”
Augustine tells us,
“I neither wished nor needed to read further.
At once, with the last words of this sentence,
it was as if a light of relief from all anxiety
flooded into my heart.
All the shadows of doubt
were dispelled” (Conf. 8.12.29).
I tell the story of St. Augustine in some detail
not to suggest that reading a magic Bible passage
can make all our doubts and hesitations vanish,
can rouse us from our spiritual dream state,
but because the message that woke Augustine up
is a message that we need to hear today:
“put on the Lord Jesus Christ,
and make no provision for the desires of the flesh.”
We, no less than Augustine
and the Roman Christians to whom Paul wrote,
seek to indulge our desires—
to satisfy not only our bodily appetites,
but also our appetites
for power and control and security.
We, no less than they,
drowsily respond to the call of God’s Spirit,
“Just a little longer please.”
Please let me linger just a little longer
in this waking dream that I call my life,
in which I believe myself
to stand stable and secure.
Leave me to my lust and my rivalries,
my self-indulgence and my petty ambitions.
Leave me in my old way of life.
We, no less than they,
have let “Just a little longer please”
go on and on for a long time.
But today Christ calls to us
to wake up and to stay awake,
for the day of the Son of Man
will come like a thief in the night—
the day of judgment,
when the desires of this world
on which we have spent our lives
will fade away like a dream,
a dream that seemed
so real as we slumbered
but which we
cannot quite remember
in the bright light of day.
Those things that loom
so large as we dream—
plans and programs,
ambitions and awards,
grudges and gambits—
all will fade away
with the dawning of that day.
And what will remain?
What of this life can endure
the bright light of day?
Jesus Christ,
in whom we have been clothed
through the saving waters of Baptism,
on whom we have fed
in the sacrificial banquet of the Eucharist,
through whom we have become
friends of the living God.
He alone will remain,
who came among us in great humility
so many centuries ago,
who comes to us still
in the guise of the needy stranger,
who will come in power and glory
to judge the living and the dead,
who reigns for all eternity
as the victorious lamb
giving light to the city of God.
What of this life can endure
the bright light of day?
Jesus Christ,
in whom we have been clothed
through the saving waters of Baptism,
on whom we have fed
in the sacrificial banquet of the Eucharist,
through whom we have become
friends of the living God.
He alone will remain,
who came among us in great humility
so many centuries ago,
who comes to us still
in the guise of the needy stranger,
who will come in power and glory
to judge the living and the dead,
who reigns for all eternity
as the victorious lamb
giving light to the city of God.
The Church gives to us
these precious weeks of Advent
to let God’s Spirit wake us up,
so that we might not live a waking dream
but see the light of Jesus Christ,
the light that endures in God’s eternal kingdom.
Let us not spend these days drowsily murmuring
“Just a little longer please.”
For the time is now.
“Come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!”
these precious weeks of Advent
to let God’s Spirit wake us up,
so that we might not live a waking dream
but see the light of Jesus Christ,
the light that endures in God’s eternal kingdom.
Let us not spend these days drowsily murmuring
“Just a little longer please.”
For the time is now.
“Come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!”
