Be Awake!

An incident at the World Cup showed the perils of not being awake whilst also shedding new light on a gospel imperative.

A key theme in the Church readings for Advent is being awake, being ready, being prepared; and this message occurs frequently in the gospels. We have, for example, the story in Matthew 25 of the wise virgins and the foolish virgins who await the coming of the bridegroom. The wise ones have spare oil with them for their lamps but the foolish ones haven't and they wake up to realise they haven't enough oil. The wise ones refuse to share their oil with them and when the foolish go off to buy extra supplies they miss the arrival of the bridegroom! Like many of the stories of Jesus this can seem a little harsh, but sometimes we need a bit of a jolt to rouse us from our sleep! And it illustrates perhaps that when we're not fully prepared and aware of what's going on around us we can miss something really important…

…Like in one of the matches at the Qatar World Cup that produced a shock result. Japan beat Germany 2-1 and the winning goal came about initially because a German defender Schlotterbeck was not aware of the position of his opponent Asano. As a boy I played in defence and the cardinal rule was 'get goal side'. This meant making sure at all times that you knew where your opponent, the attacker, was and that you were between him and your goal; and not the other way round! I took the instruction very seriously and would stick like a limpet to the person I was designated to mark, sometimes to their great annoyance, and ensuring that they never ever got between me and the goal. Schlotterbeck broke the cardinal rule. He must have been momentarily unaware because Asano had got behind him by a couple of yards, so that when a ball from was floated over Schlotterbeck's head into Asano's path the Japanese striker was able to run down the pitch virtually unopposed and score. Maybe Schlotterbeck had assumed, before the pass was played, that his opponent was offside, but either way he had lacked awareness at a crucial moment and could do nothing but chase after Asano in vain. Just like those foolish virgins, the German left-back had missed the boat and paid the price!

I suppose that when Jesus was speaking about being awake he wasn't referring to the importance of knowing where your opponent is on the football pitch! What was he talking about? The Church teaches us that this, and indeed the whole of the Advent season, points us not just to the coming of God as flesh at Christmas but also to the second coming of Christ at the end of time, of which occasion we do not know the day or the hour. Neither do we know who will be taken, who will be left. That's all well and good but truly we don't know when that will be and we could be waiting a long time yet. And many people throughout the ages have predicted the end of the world and even on a precise date, only for that day to come and go.

As I see it, there is an invitation for us to be awake and prepared and ready to receive the life that is given to us right here, right now; to be aware of what might be right in front of our noses but we often miss it because we're so caught up in our own worries and preoccupations. Or we're simply fast asleep. So let us this Advent make a particular effort to be awake and aware. That might be an awareness of the beauty in the world around us, and there is great beauty even in the midst of winter: whether that's the stark, skeletal trees against a cool, broody sky, or the blood-red berries on the bushes, or the intricate patterns that the frost makes on the car roofs, or the hooting of an owl at night. Or it might be an awareness of a person in need, to whom we might be able to give some practical assistance, or simply a kind word or a smile.

Dr Chetna Kang, psychiatrist and Hindu priest in the Bhakti yoga tradition, spoke in her Thought for the Day on December 3rd of about how Lord Krishna invites us to look at time from different perspectives. She went on to say, "The most spiritual moment is…now: this moment, right now."

In this season of Advent then, let us be awake and ready and prepared. It might prevent our opponent on the football pitch from scoring the winning goal. So too may it lead us to life in all its fullness…right here, right now.