Advent preparation is deeper than shopping.
The shift from the end of Year C to Year A is not jarring when we’ve had apocalyptic thinking on our minds for a couple of weeks already. So I guess, what’s one more?
We enter into Year A and the Gospel of Matthew with a familiar message of preparation. It is, perhaps, a theme that makes Advent really accessible. Because we all know what it means to prepare.
And preparing (as for guests to arrive or for the holidays to come) is something we know a lot about.
There are two conflicting streams for how we approach that sense of preparation, however. And neither are all that consonant with “Black Friday” shopping and making lists of all the junk we have to do.
One is the sense of preparation that we see in the Advent season: preparing, not for Christ to be born (that happened mover two thousand years ago). But for Christ’s return. We read about the first coming to anticipate the second.
The second sense of preparation is in the gospel itself. This is about preparing yourself for the adversity to come. And I don’t think standing in long lines or not hearing Merry Christmas at the checkout counts.
The sense of preparation, as depicted in this week’s gospel (as well as the parables in Matthew 25) culminate with the familiar teaching:
When you did things for the least of these, you did them for me.
Preparation isn’t just a future time, it is also now. Present. Being of service to each other. Loving.
Here are some ways I approach this text:
- Reflection
- Reflection on Advent
- No In-Between
- Video