December 3rd, 2023
1st Sunday of Advent, year B
Mc 13,33-37
We begin the Advent journey with a Gospel passage from Mark (13:33-37), which highlights the concept of a home.
To speak of watchfulness, in fact, Jesus tells a short parable in which we see a man go off on a journey and leave his house in the hands of his servants, entrusting each with a different task.
To the doorkeeper of the house, he entrusts the command to be vigilant, because, sooner or later, the master will return home, and he will want to find his servants awake to welcome him.
So the first thing this Gospel passage highlights is this: the Lord Jesus is like someone who has left home and wants to return, he is on his way back to his home. But what is this home, where is it?
It may be helpful for us to begin the journey of Advent by remembering that God's home is us: all of Mankind, the Church, each one of us.
We are his house because Jesus came to dwell among us. The journey of following him can be summarized as a journey of becoming more and more a dwelling place for the Lord, to become his house.
Therefore, Jesus entrusts each person with his home, which is humanity, and asks us to take care of it: This is our task as we await his return.
Watching, then, does not so much mean waiting passively: We have seen this concept repeatedly in the parables heard in the last few Sundays.
Waiting means tending to life, with passion, and love. As one does for one's home.
So Advent begins with an invitation to be watchful, which, in the 5 verses of today's short Gospel passage returns no less than 4 times, and which, in the original language, is expressed with two different verbs.
The first way to describe the attitude of watchfulness, emphasizes the nuance of being awake, without sleep, that is, of not living asleep.
The second, speaks of remaining alert, watchful, standing, and has the same root as a verb that also returns in the Easter narratives precisely to indicate "rising from the dead" (Mk. 14:28; 16:6, 14).
Then we could say this: the Lord calls us to live a life as an awake, watchful person, and even more: as a risen person. He is watchful, and living in expectation of who will mature into embodying the true life, and who becomes more and more a living stone in the house of God.
However, the central question that arises from listening to this passage could be this: But why shall we be watchful?
What is there to pay attention to?
One watches because there is something to look forward to. Because one knows that something ought to happen.
And what is to happen we find at the beginning of today's passage, in v. 33: "You do not know when the time will come."
This term, moment, in Greek, is kairós, a well-known word that expresses the favorable moment, the time of grace.
Mark's gospel begins with the same expression as today's gospel, with the announcement that the favorable time, the kairós has come to fullness (Mk. 1:15); but in today's passage, which is now at the end of the gospel, we are told that no one knows when this time of grace is. Is the favorable time, then, fulfilled, or is it yet to come?
In today's Gospel, we are told that indeed with Jesus a time of grace has opened up for everyone, a chance to partake in a new and full life.
But only those who are vigilant, those who wait, are able to realize that the Kingdom of God is present.
Only the one who is inside the house can welcome the Lord who will come, and awaits to return to his home.
+Pierbattista
