"You must be ready, for the Son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect" Advent is above all as season of preparation and expectation. Advent's clarion call each year is: Expect that Christ is coming, but don't fantasize for a minute that you know when or where or how. So prepare for it all. Be prepared because what you are expecting is going to happen ... in an unexpected way at an unexpected time. Each year the season of Advent asks us to consider, in some fashion, what it will be like when Christ comes in glory at the end of history and time. The Church believes that will happen, but obsessive preparation for that can be overdone. Far better I think to focus on Advent's other message the twin to the first: prepare for Christ to come into your life each day, not just on your last day or the world's last day, but day in, day out. We do proclaim that there will be a Second and final Coming and the universe will be concluded. But I worry about people and groups that spend a lot of time worrying about that, and making specific preparations based on precise predictions made by self-appointed preachers. Our Lord himself warned us never to make such predictions, he went so far as to say that even the angels do not have a clue about when the Second Coming is scheduled. Nevertheless the date has been predicted and published by various doomsayers throughout history. Most recently in South Korea where so many lost everything preparing for the one final great event, the so-called Rapture, and had to come to terms with no Rapture and thoroughly disrupted, devastated lives. My advice to you is, by and large, leave the Rapture alone, leave that to God. It probably will not happen in your lifetime. DO prepare for Christ coming into your life when you least expect it, it will happen many times in your lifetime. We are better off giving the bulk of our attention to expecting Christ and preparing for him to appear in unexpected ways at unexpected times in our own actual lives. Times when we really were not expecting Christ and he came in into our lives, and were not prepared. That is what Advent is warning us about, that is the advice of Advent: Expect him, and be prepared, because you cannot know quite how to expect him or when to expect him or where. He has and does and will come into our lives in a variety of unexpected ways. In challenge, in opportunity, in disaster, in quietness, in boredom, working in the field, grinding at the mill, what could be more commonplace, ordinary, boring. I don't know what was involved in grinding at the mill, but it sounds pretty mundane and unsatisfying. This is all rather more serious than simply searching for significance in the commonplace, or looking for the silver lining in sadness. It is discerning the purposes of God in the accidents of your life. Advent is a time to reflect deeply on how prepared you are, why you are unprepared, what you can do about that. Advent asks us also, in a sweet and kind way, not simply to prepare for doing a better job at getting things right, but to prepare to realize again just how much around us is, in fact, right, always has been, always will be - there is so much that is good and right and joyful and faith-filled about our lives. And sometime we lose sight of that, miss it altogether, because we just aren't prepared for it - not prepared to look for it, or even notice it. Have you ever done something very simple, but very nice, for a stranger, and seen the look of utter surprise, shock, that a simple kindness would ever happen? People are not prepared for it, are not expecting it. The season of Advent directly addresses our dear Church's perpetual concern that we, perhaps are not unaware of our sins at all, but too often unaware of our goodness and happiness. And not prepared for the glory of Christmas, the glory of Christ in our daily lives. And not prepared for love, not prepared for kindness and compassion, not prepared for acceptance or affirmation, not prepared for health and salvation. Because we are not really expecting any of it. Advent, like the Christian faith, continually asks us to be expectant, to anticipate, to look forward to, to ... expect. We remind ourselves, sensibly: "Don't let your expectations get too high, don't expect too much." In human affairs that is probably wise, within bounds - we usually expect too much of each other. We need to be realistic. But I think that is unnecessary, and unhelpful, in our Christian lives. Our preparation for gift of Christ to us that Christmas celebrates should not be a preparation that mirrors our nervous timid tentative sensible approach to human relationships. Human preparation is so often just protection, insurance, a watching for and guarding against some bad event. Emergency preparedness of which we hear so much these days, is all about imagining disaster, and preparing to minimize its impact, preparing to protect our selves, our family, our loved ones. And that protection is wise and good and god-fearing. But preparation for Christ asks a different approach - preparation to fully receive him and his blessings demands that we drop our protectiveness, rather than increase or fine-tune it, preparation for his presence in our lives asks us to take risks, to allow ourselves to be vulnerable, open, accepting, defenseless before Christ. We need to realize that all the disappointments we expect, anticipate, project, while maybe called for in human life, are not an appropriate or necessary or prudent response to God. We are to not going to be let down, it is not going to end badly, it is not going to fail. It may not fulfil our fantasies and our assumptions, because our assumptions can be illegitimate and our fantasies off the scale. But God is faithful, he will deliver. We don't need to hedge our bets with him. Be prepared, expect whatever it is that God is going to do in your life, with a kind of joyful, eager expectancy. But what do we do to get prepared, what sorts of preparations is Advent suggesting we make. As Advent begins, as the new Church Year begins, all that the Church is asking is that we remain alert, watchful, expectant, but not for unimaginable disaster, or some new worry, but remain watching, alert, prepared, to be aware of the possibilities Christ offers. We are to see if we can become better prepared to expect and accept the fulfillment of God's purpose for you. Advent is not a season like Lent, a time for repentance, reflection remorse, although those are always aspects of a responsible Christian life, but Advent does not focus on them, the main image of Advent is hope, anticipation, expectation, preparation to be delighted. Alert, watching, ready for the Gift. The gift of God.