We must be sober, alert, spiritually sound, awake, ready for the coming of our Lord. And so, you see, Advent is more than rehearsing what happened in the past. In Advent we see how God encounters us. But what the church needs to see is that what happened then continues to happen now . Those moments of kairos continue today - those moments when Christ is born again in our hearts and becomes real, those moments when God breaks into our lives and changes us for the good, those moments when we decide to serve Christ and do not count the cost, those moments when we realize what Christmas is all about and we are moved to tears, those moments when in complete and utter darkness God appears with dazzling light and casts away our shadows, those moments when we are given hope.
Advent is the time to figure out what time it is.
I know it is.