Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we listened to the words of the Lord in the Sacred Scriptures, we are all reminded of God and His enduring love for us, the salvation that He has presented to us and the generosity by which He has always cared for us and provided for our needs. He has always watched over us and has done everything for us, for our salvation and eternal and true happiness, together with Him in eternal life.

In our first reading today, taken from the Book of the prophet Isaiah, we heard of Lord reminding His people that He is the One and only God and Creator of all the whole Universe. He is their God and they are His people. All of us are also reminded of this same truth, and are reminded how God alone is worthy of our worship and our adoration. He has created us out of love, which endured all these time despite of our lack of faith and our constant disobedience and waywardness. He has always looked after us and sought for us to return to His loving embrace.

In our Gospel passage today, we heard of the encounter between the Lord Jesus and two of the disciples and followers of St. John the Baptist. Those disciples asked the Lord with the question from the St. John the Baptist, inquiring whether He was indeed the One that had been predicted to come, the Messiah or Saviour of the world, or whether the Messiah was still yet to come. St. John the Baptist had been sent into this world ahead of the Lord to proclaim His coming and to prepare His way, but even he did not know fully who the Messiah would be.

This is the case even though St. John the Baptist himself had baptised the Lord at the Jordan, and recognising Him as the One Whose coming he was proclaiming before the people. St. John the Baptist was in fact just making sure that the One Whose coming he had been preparing for, had indeed come, and therefore the time of mankind’s salvation was already at hand. The Lord told them that everything had happened as God Himself had said would happen, all the miracles and wonderful works that had taken place, and they were evidences enough to prove the truth about His coming.

Now, having heard all of these words from the Scriptures, all of us are reminded of what we are all supposed to do this season of Advent, to prepare ourselves for the coming of Christmas. We are just another ten days away from Christmas, and yet, if we ask ourselves, are we ready for Christmas?, can we surely give a definitive yes as an answer? We may think that we are ready for Christmas and all are set and prepared, but in truth, Christmas is not as much about the celebrations and feasts, but rather, most importantly, it is about the state of our hearts, minds, our whole body and soul.

We may have prepared everything needed for our Christmas festivities and celebrations, all the things that we planned to do for our Christmas parties and merrymaking. Yet, are we ready to welcome Christ, Our Lord Himself this Christmas? Are we ready to welcome Him into our hearts, into our families and houses, into our presence and life? That is what Christmas is all about, brothers and sisters in Christ. Christmas is more than all the lights and glamours, all the celebrations and feasts. Those things are superficial, as Christmas is truly about Christ, Our Lord and Saviour.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, we must always remember that Christmas is the time to celebrate and rejoice because Christ, Our Lord has willingly come down upon us because of His great and enduring love. He Himself had taken the rein of everything that He had planned for our salvation and came to us to bring forth His love and generous mercy, to show us His compassion and desire to be reunited and reconciled with us. But we are often still distracted and easily swayed by the many temptations in this world that we forget about Him and we ignore Him, and sadly, the same can be said about Christmas as well.

We have to remind ourselves just how fortunate we are to have been beloved by God. Yet, by our own stubborn attitude and ignorance, we end up shutting Him out from our lives. And there is nowhere else that this is more evident than in our celebration of Christmas. Too often we celebrate Christmas with a lot of glamour and merrymaking, and yet, we forget the One Whom we ought to be focusing our celebrations on, the One Whose birth and coming into this world. This is not what we should be doing, brothers and sisters in Christ.

Therefore, let us all seek the Lord with a new heart full of faith and love for Him. Let us all prepare ourselves to be worthy to receive Him and to welcome Him into our hearts this Christmas, remembering how two thousand years ago, He has come to us in Bethlehem in Judea, revealing once and for all, God’s eternal love for us, and His plan to save us and lead us into everlasting life with Him. May our Christmas joy be complete and may the rest of our Advent season be meaningful, by our proper preparation from now on. Amen.