Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we are presented with the clear messages from the Sacred Scriptures, which told us the essences of Advent, what it means to have this Advent season before the coming of the Christmas season, and what we should do in this Advent time in order to make it meaningful and good, useful and relevant for our salvation.

As we have discussed on the previous Sunday, the season of Advent came from its name Adventus, which means the coming, the heralded arrival of the Messiah, and the waiting that happened before it truly came to fruition, the expectation and the hope of mankind throughout the ages, awaiting for the salvation that had been promised to them by the Lord Himself, that He would succour them from all the evils and the darkness that had enslaved them for so long.

And in this time of Advent, we remember the moment of waiting, of expectation of the Lord’s coming by those who lived before His time, when they have yet to know of the Good News and the Saviour, hoping that one day God would reveal to them the truth about their salvation, after their disobedience had sundered them all apart from the Lord’s grace, and cast them out from the worthiness of being received in the holy presence of God.

And although now we have known the Saviour, Who have been revealed to us through Jesus, the Saviour Himself, it does not mean that we can rest easy and ignore everything else. Indeed, God had saved us all through His Saviour, by His sacrifice on the cross, but just as His salvation is offered freely to us, we have to make sure that we ourselves are worthy of the salvation which He had offered us.

If we continue to dwell in the darkness and live in the state of sin, disobeying the laws and the commandments of God, then when the time comes, as Jesus had said to His disciples, He will not recognise us and He will reject us, condemning us into the eternal suffering in hell for our disobedience. This will come on the day of Judgment, when He will come again to separate His faithful flock from all those who have refused to listen to Him.

This is an important message that all of us have to take heed, the meaning and the purpose of the Advent season, the time when we ought to reflect on the way we have lived our lives, as a moment when we really should find a moment to step back from our busy life schedules and think about our actions and our devotion to the Lord, on whether our faith in Him had been really genuine, or if it is merely superficial and without real love for the Lord.

What does Advent mean for us? It is a time for reminding us of the waiting before the coming of the Messiah, and indeed, we know that He will come again a second time, just as He had promised, and therefore, all of us are not preparing just for all the festivities and the celebrations of Christmas, or all the revelry, the gift exchanges and the merrymaking, the food and the drinks that are associated with Christmas, but we are preparing for the true joy that will be ours if we ready ourselves to welcome our Lord when He comes again in His glory.

Advent therefore is a time not just for preparation to buy all the gifts that we are to exchange and to give others during Christmas, and it is certainly not a time for us to go to the shopping centres and look out for the best dresses to wear on our Christmas celebrations, to look good on others when we visit the houses on the Christmas Day. Rather, it must be a time when we truly look deep into ourselves, reflect and pray for discernment, that we will be able to celebrate this Christmas with Christ at the very heart of our celebrations.

The season of Advent is a time for us to change ourselves for the better, if we have not already done so. It is a time for us to repent and to turn away from our sins. In the Gospel reading today, St. John the Baptist, who heralded the coming of the Lord and Saviour, preached about the need for repentance, for mankind to turn their back against the wickedness and the evils that they had committed.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, we should heed St. John’s warning, as many of us even now are still unaware or are unable to appreciate the importance of Christmas to us. We are often so preoccupied with ourselves, with all the glories, wonders and pleasures of this world that we ended up being distracted and tempted by all those things. We become selfish and self-indulgent, seeking to satisfy ourselves and our own needs first before that of others.

In this, let us learn from the examples of St. Nicholas of Myra, a saint and holy bishop whose feast we also celebrate on this very day. He was in fact what was behind the inspiration for the commercial Christmas figure of Santa Claus, the elderly figure in red and white who gives presents to children and to all the families on the Christmas night, which inspired countless commercial products related to the celebrations of Christmas.

This is where we must be careful too, lest we are brought to the materialistic and commercialistic culture of how the world wants to celebrate Christmas according to them. Indeed, the real St. Nicholas of Myra liked to give gifts to children and this is likely where the myth of Santa Claus began. But the world had overlooked all that St. Nicholas of Myra had done for the Church and the faithful and focused instead on the wrong things to suit their own selfish purposes.

St. Nicholas of Myra was known to be present at the very first Ecumenical Council of the Church held at the city of Nicaea in the year of our Lord 325. St. Nicholas was known to be a very devout man, who was committed to serving his flock in the region of Myra, and he was also concerned about the faith of many of the faithful throughout the entire Universal Church.

When at that Ecumenical Council, the heresiarch Arius, who proposed the teachings of Arianism, contrary to the truth of God, by denying the divinity of Christ, and when he spoke to the Council trying to explain his ideas and teachings, those nonsense heresy so enraged St. Nicholas of Myra that he literally went up from his seat and punched Arius the heresiarch in the face.

We see how Arius, who had been corrupted by his own human desires, and by his own selfishness, had misled countless souls into damnation, as many other heresiarchs had done before and after his time, both outside and even inside the Church. And unchecked, these heresies and aberrations bring great harm to mankind and to all the people of God. In this, we have to heed the example of St. Nicholas of Myra, courageous in loving one another, courageous in giving, and courageous in defending his faith against the heresies of men.

Let us all therefore make this Advent season a truly meaningful one, by committing ourselves anew to our God and to His ways. Let us all be loving and be charitable, sharing our blessings with those who have less or none, so that the joy of Christmas will not be ours alone, but be shared with the whole world, so that the world that sees the Light of Christ, will be called to repentance and redemption in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ. May God be with us all. Amen.