1st Sunday of Advent, C        December 3, 2006

Advent is full of references to time.  Today we’re cautioned to be ready for the end time, the end of the world, or more to the point, the end of our own personal world at our death.  Next week the preaching of John the Baptist is pegged to a very specific year, the 15^th year of the reign of the Roman emperor Tiberius.  And we end the season celebrating the center point of all time, the entrance into time of God as a human being. Secular culture, too, is preoccupied with time these days:  only 21 shopping days till Christmas!

Time is a very interesting phenomenon, and not just to physicists.  Until the 14th century people had to rely on sundials and water clocks that kept time by aligning with the rhythms of the natural world, the cycles of day and night and the seasons of the year.  Then came the mechanical clock and the separation of time from natural cycles.  It was a big shift once time could be measured in its own independent units, for now people began to think they had time “under control.”  With time “under control,” it didn’t take long to realize that time could be saved!  In the Middle Ages when it took 400 years to build a cathedral, I don’t think there was a human being alive who could grasp the concept of saving time.  Yet, isn’t this the ruling concept of our age?  Think of the gadgets and services invented to help us all save time:  washers and dryers, microwaves, cars and interstate highways, air travel, shopping on the WEB, cell phones, computers, fast food.  Imagine you’re on a hands free cell phone call eating a big Mac while tooling down the highway.  And you think with great self-satisfaction, “Boy, look at the time I’m saving!”

Think for a moment of all that time you have saved up in your time bank.  Now, when was the last time you actually used some time you had previously saved?  When do you consciously make a withdrawal of your saved up time and use it, spend it?  Dear friends, Advent is for using time, spending time to bring the realities of God closer, to make them brighter, more visible, to enjoy them more. 

I remember an old TV commercial trying to sell me a Jeep.  It ended with, “Do something for your #1 priority this holiday season, yourself!”  At Christmas we sing, “On the twelve days of Christmas my true love gave to me.” Listen to the words?  “Gave to me!”  Why not, “I gave to my true love?”  Well, it may be tough swimming upstream, but that the direction the Scriptures call us to travel.  Do something for your #1 priority this season, other people.  Perhaps an extra effort for the poor, the needy, or something for the people you are close to, your family and friends.  Maybe the best gift for others is not another material possession to clutter up the closet, but a gift of your time.  Take some of that huge amount of time you have saved up in your time bank and spend it on others.  Listen to Jesus words, “Beware that your hearts do not become burdened from carousing and drunkenness and the anxieties of daily life.”  Are you anxious right now, burdened right now about one or another of your material possessions?  If so, put that anxiety aside and make room to spend quality time, joyful time, renewing time with others and for others.