You never know the day or the hour, do you?  December 29^th, 1996 - the day had been full of the wonderful and the perfectly average.  It was my 46^th birthday, we had gone to church in the morning, had brunch with my parents, and then just frittered away the afternoon, recovering from all the commotion of Christmas and enjoying the quieter level of activity in the house after two sons had gone off to their own events out of state.

          We were sitting in our family room, watching a movie about Alaska until it was time to go to friends for my birthday dinner.  My husband Don was in his recliner, I was on the couch, and our daughter and her boyfriend, now husband, were sitting in the big chair.  Don said he only needed to change his shoes and he would be ready to go.  An instant later, I was dialing 911 as he took the two final breaths of his life.  One minute we were engaged in the most normal of evenings, the next minute, my husband was dead of a massive heart attack.  Sometimes it comes without warning, without announcement, it comes when you least expect it, with no time to prepare.  Life, death, it's what happens when you are busy making other plans.

Later of course I said if I had known it was the last day, I would have paid more attention.  I would have sat right by him every minute of the day.  If I had known it was all coming to an end I wouldn't have yelled about stupid things like feeding the dog salami after we had just had the carpet cleaned, I wouldn't have left the wedding reception we had attended the night before without dancing, but that isn't real life is it?  Real life means that you go about your life, you don't just stop in your tracks and hold your breath wondering if each moment is the last.  You live, not often thinking about the end.  But sometimes, you get that wake up call, that sudden reminder that the end comes, for all of us, sometimes sooner than later.

          We can think about the end coming in some great cataclysmic moment when the trumpets sound and God has full reign over this world.  We can think about the end that comes to each one of us, at an unexpected hour.  Which ever way we think about it, the point here is, we don't know, and it is not for us to know.  What is for us to know is that God wants us to live in expectation.

          Advent is a time of expectation, of looking forward and contemplating the many ways that God comes into our lives.  We await the nativity, but we also think about the Christ coming today and everyday.  And, we anticipate the day when Christ will restore all things, when he will return.  Advent is a time of quiet, peaceful reflection, but at the same time, the Advent readings will remind us to wake up, to repent, to stay awake and pay attention. The readings bring very little peace, unless we remember that what we wait for is not so different from what we already have, the presence of Christ.  Maybe we are being invited to pay attention; to wake up not only to what is to come, to what is already ours, what is right in front of us.  We talk about the coming of Christ as a Now, Not yet event.  The kingdom of God breaks into our lives in all sorts of ways with power and forgiveness, with hope and redemption, but it is not yet all that it will be.  And so, we wait.

          But it is a waiting that is ripe with knowledge - not an empty waiting, but one born of hope and expectation, of promise and need.  We wait with a longing that is rooted in love, for the joy of return.  If we are waiting with fear, that might be our wake up call - our reminder that we need to turn again to the One who has the power to transform our lives, the One who loves us with a steadfast love.  Waiting in hope and expectation is not a meaningless activity.  Jesus goes on in the gospel of Matthew to talk about what that waiting will be like, what should they do in the meantime?  Jesus tells some stories of people who weren't prepared, who missed out on the opportunity when it came, and then he says it will be a wonderful day for the people who had given him food and drink.  In that story, the listeners wanted to know when they had seen him and given him something to eat or something to drink, when had they visited him in prison or given him clothing, when was he a stranger and they welcomed him. And Jesus said, whenever you did it to one of the least, you did it to me.  That gives us some clues about how we prepare, how we stay awake and alert.  How do we keep ready for the return of the Son of Man.  We are the signs of Christ's presence here and now, and it is through us that people will see him.  And it is in the faces of those in need that he stands before us.

          In her essay Room for Christ, Dorothy Day, who was a journalist and co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement in 1933 writes, "It is no use saying that we are born two thousand years too late to give room to Christ.  Nor will those who live at the end of the world have been born too late.  Christ is always with us, always asking for room in our hearts.  Now it is with the voice of our contemporaries that he speaks, with the eyes of store clerks, factory workers, and children that he gazes; with the hands of office workers, slum dwellers, and suburban housewives that he gives.  It is with the feet of soldiers and tramps that he walks, and with the heart of anyone in need that he longs for shelter.  And giving shelter or food to anyone who asks for it, or needs it, is giving it to Christ.  It is not a duty to help Christ, it is a privilege.  The hospitality given to Christ is not for the sake of humanity.  Not because it might be Christ who stays with us, comes to see us, take up our time.  Not because these people remind us of Christ, but because they are Christ, asking us to find room for him, exactly as he did at the first Christmas."

          Our wake- up calls are all around us.  Sometimes they come with the calamity of a collapsed bridge or a broken levy or the sudden death of a spouse.  Sometimes they come in the quiet voice of a child like Nakeesha who used to knock on our door in St. Paul because her mother sent her over to see if we could give them some money.  However the calls come, they come to remind us that Christ is here and Christ will come again.  It is so easy to think that later I will pay attention to my loved ones, later I will think about how to serve others and show hospitality, later I will be generous with what I have been given, later I will think about my relationship with God, later I will make up for the wrong I have done, later.  We are God's beloved ones NOW, wake up, stay alert, wait in hope and expectation!

AMEN