Wake up! It’s a new day. It’s a new year. We begin again with the first Sunday of Advent in Year A. Morning has broken for millions of Christians this lovely Sunday morning. And we here are awake for it, worshipping the God of our ancestors, who has been revealing Himself to those who see and hear every single day for thousands of earthly years.
Paul writes to the Roman church, “You know what time it is, it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep”. Paul earnestly believed that Jesus would be back soon, that the wait would be short. So, he advised the churches to stay awake, to pay attention, and to live in a manner that will be pleasing to Christ upon His return. I don’t think Paul believed that the church would still be waiting in 2025. And he might very well be disappointed if he saw our world today. He warned his churches of many problematic behaviors that ultimately dim our alertness of God. He warned fellow Christians about the ills of drunkenness, fighting, and jealousy, not so much because these are wicked in themselves, but because such behaviors put us to sleep.
Today, human beings have a multitude of artificial substitutes for God, often literally at their fingertips. Instead of God’s call to awaken to him and his plan for us, our modern world provides quick fixes that jolt our brains into a fake awakening, using our own natural processes as a weapon against us. Dopamine, serotonin, endorphins and oxytocin, not to mention adrenaline, are all being manipulated in a variety of ways, making us feel alive while in fact they lead us into a kind of spiritual sleepwalk.
Here are just a few of the ways modern tools can fool our brains into artificial aliveness but leave us asleep at the wheel. You know, spiritually.
Watching porn triggers dopamine and oxytocin, which imitate intimacy through pixels on a screen.
Alcohol and opioids induce endorphins that imitate fun while reducing social inhibitions, thus encouraging you to do things you would never do if truly aware.
Shopping sprees release serotonin, which substitutes for satisfaction and personal fulfillment.
Overeating floods our brains with dopamine, creating an artificial sense of being loved without the pain and fear of a first date.
Lying and stealing generate high levels of adrenaline, which substitutes for bravery or risking vulnerability.
Whatever your vice may be, it serves to keep you snoozing no matter how loud God calls. When we rely on substitutes, we are not awake to the hope that takes over our lives when we wait honorably for Christ and live in Christ at the same time. Because when we wait for God in a state of awareness we can’t help but bring true light into the world.
Moreover, there are powers in the world that try to shame our true wokeness. These powers want us to believe that being awake is annoying and socially unacceptable. These powers overstimulate us with obnoxious and endless propaganda, of monetizing the 7 deadly sins, putting our hearts to sleep. Year after year this con is making it harder for us to stay awake. And yet, by grace we find ourselves even more awake in the Spirit than we did last first Sunday of Advent.
No one is perfect, and the wait is long. But we are the ones who are ‘woke’. We are the armor of light in this twenty-first century world; a world that Paul would hate. And we are the ones who don’t let the works of darkness tell us to go back to sleep because we live on God’s time and it is always morning in His Kingdom. We are awake in the light, and this is how we will stay until the day of His return.
For the last few Advents, I find myself exploring the serendipitous reality that we, the church, live in a state of waiting year after year for something that has already happened. And yet during Advent we wait with the prophets Daniel and Isaiah for the messiah even though, for us, He already came. So, what is it that we are waiting for? Well, I suppose it is personal for each of us. The baby we wait for will save the world. The baby will save us and has saved us. We will experience it every year until the cycle is complete. For me now, and maybe always, it is hope. I wait in hope for clear knowing and clarity to share my faith in a meaningful way that will be a service to others. On Christmas morning this feeling of hope is deep and omnipresent.
What are you waiting for this Advent?
Our church year begins with waiting. We are waiting with Abraham, Isaic and Sarah, we are waiting with the Israelites ‘who wandered in the desert for forty years, and the prophets who tried to tell the people about the hope that will come next. After the wait, Christians will experience the birth of our savior, and hope and truth will come alive. Then our calendar will lead us to experience the revelation of God through a period of spiritual epiphany, then we will fast and reflect on the teachings and sacrifice of our Lord, then He will die, resurrect and ascend into Heaven, leaving with us His Spirit until we see Him again. And after all this, we will continue our annual journey through the history of God and His people to the day of Pentecost, followed by six months of study and learning scripture, allowing the Word to enlighten us to the truth so that we can grow stronger in Christ. And so that year will end and another begins. We will open our eyes and ears to that new day. We will be awake and alert. We will understand more about our own purpose, the light of our faith will shine brighter, our commitment to each other richer and more interdependent. This year my prayer is that we learn to be brighter, saltier, more honorable in the eyes of God, and more awake to the needs of others.
Bishop LaBelle shares his reflection as we begin this year. Wake up! That’s one of those calls that we hear during Advent, right? Wake up from all that is going on around us, wake up from the droning of our culture that says it’s all about things and not about relationships. This season of Advent gives us an opportunity to wake up and realize that Jesus is coming once again to help us prepare room in our hearts for the Ch