Dear friends,

With the First Sunday of Advent, we have started reading the Gospel of Matthew. We shall ready from his Gospel for a whole year.

Gospel of Matthew (Levi) means: “the Good News of Jesus as Savior in the experience of Matthew and his community.

Matthew wrote for a community where the majority of Christians were of Jewish traditions. They had been brought up by the Law of Moses and looked at him as the law-giver and their primary teacher.

Matthew shows that Jesus is the new Teacher greater than Moses. 

He quotes the Hebrew Scriptures sixty-one times to prove that Jesus is both the authoritative teacher of Scripture as well as the fulfillment of the Scriptures.

Today’s Gospel reading is from Matthew and we meet John, whom people called the “Baptist”. His preaching was very strict. Despite this, the people flocked to him from far away.

John was one who did not tell the people what they wanted to hear and perhaps this was exactly what attracted n so many to him. People learned that things were serious, that it was time for rethinking things and repenting, and that it was high time to change their lives. In order to make the cleansing of the heart visible as well, John immersed them in the waters of the Jordan.
He was calling people to “repent” which means “to change direction”. He is saying to the people: “you are going in the wrong way. Turn direction.”
This Advent season resembles, in many ways Lent: same purple color, no Gloria etc. in reality the two season are different.

Advent is the time when we feel more than ever the desire to go back home, wherever this “home” might be. Is the time when we feel the nostalgia of a better world which we call “paradise” which is a Persian word for garden. Which garden? The garden where God was walking with humans, where animals were not afraid of human beings.

During the Advent time we feel that we are shut off from our homeland. As we had locked ourselves outside the car and the engine were running. We can not open the door and outside is freezing cold.

1) Repent means go back home, go back to your heart where God hides himself  You have taken the wrong way.

During Advent we decorate homes with fresh cut branches. It is a pagan tradition that the church has made it own. We bring home Christmas tree and decorate them to remember the tree of the Cross which was adorned with the precious blood of Christ and has bloomed. From here all the decorations and the light. The tree is now the bridge uniting earth and heaven.

We came to this from the legend of Adam’ lament: the whole desert rang with his lamentations. His soul was racked as he thought: ‘I have grieved my beloved Lord.’ He sorrowed less after paradise and the beauty thereof. His heart was breaking at the thought that  he was bereft of the love of God. He was heartsick for God and tears streamed down his face onto his beard. “O why did I grieve my beloved God?”‘

Adam knew great grief when he was banished from paradise, but when he saw his son Abel slain by Cain his brother, Adam’s grief was even heavier because Peoples and nations will descend from him, and suffering will be their lot. Before dying he sent his son Seth back to Paradise. The doors of the garden were shut and the seraphim were guarding it. Behind the gate there was the tree of life and in his branches there was a little babe boy. The Angel took a seed from that tree and gave it to Seth with the command of putting it in the mouth of Adam when he died. From the tomb of Adam a strong tree grew from it the rod of Moses and the arc of the Covenant, were made. Eventually it was the wood of the Cross on which Christ was crucified.

2. Stay Awake! The invitation to be alert runs through all the Advent Season.

We have “to stay awake” because we do not know on which day your Lord will come. The uncertainty of the hour should not cause us to be careless but to be vigilant. Advent is the time when we trim our lamps to be ready to meet Christ. We were given a candle the day of our baptism, with the word:” Receive the light of Christ and keep it burning for the return of the Lord”

Life journey is perilous and many strong winds try to put off our flickering lamp. We have to shelter it with the reality that this world, so attractive is short lived.  St. Teresa of Avila wrote: "Let nothing disturb you, nothing frighten you. All things are passing. God alone remains.

This is exactly what we want to do during this period of Advent: we want to turn to the Lord with all our heart. We want to be alert. Awake for his return.