“What we call the beginning is often the end/And to make an end is to make a beginning./The end is where we start from.”(T.S. Eliot, “Little Gidding, V, Four Quartets)  As T.S. Eliot explored in his classic poetic work, Four Quartets, what seems like a beginning is often an ending and our endings are often new beginnings, and what happens in between our beginnings and endings is caught up in this paradox of life and death and is often understood only in the mystery of the present moment which is both still, silent and experienced in solitude and also full of movement, change and fire.  This First Sunday of Advent we begin a new liturgical year and we start paradoxically at the end which is also our beginning.  The Church is reminding us that as Christians, when we begin our journey in Christ, we must set our minds and hearts on our ending, on the final judgment, when all things are summed up in Christ Jesus who comes in glory to judge our lives.  Without this perspective of the final judgment we cannot properly understand Christian hope for without a vision of the coming of Christ in glory in mind our hope runs the risk of being a hope for the wrong thing.  As we begin the season of Advent we remember that Advent is a season of hope.  Advent is a time of waiting, vigilance, preparation and anticipation.

    As a Christian community we “await the blessed hope and the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ.”  This blessed hope that is filled with joy comes only to those who have properly prepared for the end, who are waiting for the final fire to purify their desire and to perfect their love.  Jesus warns us that, “Some people will die of fright.”   If we have hoped in our own righteousness, in our own justice, in our own works and human projects we will see them all consumed in the final fire of judgment and we will be left with nothing.  Those who have properly placed their hope in, “The Lord our justice,” will “stand erect and raise your heads because your redemption is at hand.”  For this reason we can await the blessed hope for we know as St. John of the Cross instructed us, “In the evening of life we will be judged in love.”  The final judgment is – for those who hope in Christ Jesus – the final encounter with Love and it is the time in which all promises are fulfilled in his coming.

    “Then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.”  The coming of the Son of Man often brings to mind the final consummation and the end of the world when all will be judged in justice and mercy.  Luke however gives us another perspective on this moment when he describes the death of St. Stephen who, in the moment of his death, has a vision of “the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”  Here the final encounter with the Son of Man, the moment of judgment, occurs not at the end of the world but at the end of one’s earthly life.  Of course, St. Stephen experiences this moment with great joy and anticipation.  It gives us a personal perspective on the final judgment of our lives for those who have been justified in Christ our Lord.  This moment is near to all of us and we never know the time or place that this encounter will take place.  We don’t have to see the final judgment as something that is far in the future but we know that we must always stand ready for the final encounter with Christ Jesus, the bridegroom, when he comes to each of us to call us to the final marriage banquet.

    “Beware that your hearts do not become drowsy from carousing and drunkenness and the anxieties of daily life, and that day catch you by surprise like a trap. For that day will assault everyone who lives on the face of the earth. Be vigilant at all times and pray that you have the strength to escape the tribulations that are imminent and to stand before the Son of Man.”  Advent presents us with another opportunity in time, another new year of promise, to prepare for that final encounter with the Son of Man.  Advent is a time to “gather our strength” the strength that comes from virtue and from the gospel.  Every new year we are a little bit closer to that final encounter and so we take up the task of preparation once again.

    For us the end is not really the end but the beginning of our new life in Christ.  God’s promise is a promise of redemption and restoration that we will know fully when we stand before him.  And so we make a new beginning by focusing on the end and remembering that our lives have a purpose and we must each day take up that purpose by applying the works of Jesus Christ to our own lives.  As the word of God is fulfilled in our hearing once again we know that we are a little bit closer to the time of fulfillment and we breathe our prayer of hope, “Come, Lord Jesus.”