Wake Up. The Time is Near: The First Sunday in Advent 2025

             Wake Up. The Time is Near: The First Sunday in Advent 2025 

Our readings exhort us to wake up and recognize the deeper, almost hidden signs of the times, often those events that we overlook or take for granted. We are called to be wise and patient while turbulent events swirl around us. We are also finishing Thanksgiving weekend in which we call to mind all those reasons to be grateful. Thanksgiving gives us a chance to catch our breath so we can gently enter Advent.

I suggest that we make sure to fully enter the sights, sounds, and smells of the season. Advent is a time of preparation and waiting as we walk vicariously with Mary and Joseph towards Bethlehem. Just as they took in the cool night sky, felt the pulse of the sandy winds, and met many interesting pilgrims on their journey, we likewise are called to feed and to heighten our senses.

Advent gives us an abundance of ways to engage – dances and performances, concerts and lessons and carols, festive parties and seasonal dinners, awe-inspiring night lights and long drives in the country to see tasteful decorations. The aromas, sounds, and silences of Advent lead to our solemn celebration of the Nativity. Take advantage of museum offerings, holiday markets, and creative ventures. All this is there for your enjoyment. And, if your family and friends do not want to go, take yourself out on a date with yourself. In fact, make sure that you do some cultural event on your own.

You need time to feed your soul. Advent is about connections. Joseph connects with his tribe in Bethlehem, Elizabeth meets Mary, the wise sages travel to see this soon-to-be born king, the Baptist leaps for joy. My prayer for you is that your heart will leap for joy. This is the season of the Ebenezer Scrooge really seeing Tiny Tim Cratchit as a person of dignity for the first time, and the green Grinch learning from the poor, but wise Cindy-Lou Who. The poor always teach us something fundamental. We know people who need their hearts softened and enlarged. We know people who cannot even see the poor and the suffering. We know people who are not happy in their lives and cannot see a path forward. We know people who are miserable and need hope, redemption, and reformed worldviews. This is the season of heart-softening tenderness as we get ready to hold the newborn in our arms anew. It is a time for solemn joy.

Write a poem, light a candle, add marshmallows to your hot chocolate, give yourself the gift of time. Do whatever you need to feed your soul, and do not let yourself feel guilty about taking care of your needs. Give yourself permission to feel joy. Celebrate what is right with the world and find something each day for which you are grateful. Soak it in. Let a word of kindness or affirmation really touch your soul. Ask a friend to really listen to you so you can share a happy moment.

Advent opens for us a night of promise, a night of journey, a night with open arms, gathering us into a circle of love, a love in which we will welcome an infant, through a mother’s caress, a father’s protection. This boy gives us a gift, ourselves. He gives us ourselves to enjoy, with great pride and honor, and we are to generously share who we are with others. He gives us a community so we can experience softened hearts, weak enough to grasp onto joy, a heart that leaps for joy.