I don’t want to get up!
St. Paul says, “It is time to wake up.” It is time to wake up. He is using waking up as a time to turn away from sin in our lives. He is using sleep as an analogy for sin and sin is an analogy for death. He is saying it is time to wake up. The night is far spent, and the day is at hand.
I don’t like getting up in the morning. The alarm clock goes off, it’s cold outside, it’s dark now, I just want to go back to sleep. So, I just simply say, “Alexa, snooze,” but it has become so habitual that I fall back asleep without even knowing I talked to her. So, I must set a second alarm.
It is time to wake up, the night is far spent. I love Saint Paul because his words are all action oriented. After he says it’s time to wake up, he says, “Take off and throw off the deeds of sleep. Throw off the deeds of sleep.” Whatever our sleepiness is, that deed that we need to throw off, he’s encouraging us during Advent to throw it off. Not just to say, I don’t know if I’m going to do that, but get rid of it. Throw it away.
He is using all these examples of licentiousness and drunkenness and orgies and all these crazy things, all these indulgences the flesh. He’s saying throw them off. What that means practically for us is if there’s anything that we are doing in the darkness that we would prefer people not to see, it’s probably sinful. If we’re hiding something from other people and we’re delighting in it or taking it into our flesh, it’s probably sinful. He says, “Throw off deeds of darkness.”
If you’re drinking too much, get rid of it in the fridge. Put it somewhere else; put it in the basement. If you’re looking on your phone or iPad with something that you shouldn’t be looking at, do not take it into any place where you will be alone. If there’s anything that you are doing in darkness and you would be ashamed if it were brought to light, throw off that deed of darkness. Let this season of Advent be a time to do it.
I love that he has another analogy that he gives us. The other one is “put on the armor of light.” This garment of Christ, the armor of light that he’s talking about as priests and deacons and servers putting on an Alb before Mass, Alb is Latin for white, we’re putting on white before Mass. We’re “putting on the armor of light.” In Baptism, either you gave it, if you were old enough you received it, but most of you probably as a child, it was given to you by the priest and these words were said to your parents, “Clothe this child in dignity and keep that dignity unstained into eternal life.” This is the white garment we’re supposed to be wearing from the time that we’re baptized and keep it unstained into everlasting life.
What does it mean to clothe ourselves in the light? How can we actually do that? I’ve been praying with it and doing some just Ignatian meditation and imagining myself wrapped in light and feeling light all throughout me like the Holy Spirit is within me. Then I’ve been thinking, what is that sin that is distracting me or keeping me away from God? What if I can just take a moment before I indulge and allow myself to be filled with the light of the Holy Spirit and then that sin kind of fades away.
First, it could just be you imagining or remembering that you are filled with the light of the Holy Spirit. Just feeling what that’s like in your body.
Secondly, we are a church where we believe in sacramentals so it could be wearing something. Many of you wear a miraculous medal, some of you may wear a scapular; it could be a rosary that you wear around your wrist or on yourself. We gave out Saint Benedict medals during one of our Tuesday night teachings. Put on something, some kind of sacramental to remind you that you are a child of the light and to put on Christ.
Some of you remembered putting on purple, very proud of you, for Advent. You intentionally put that on as preparation for Advent. You can think every morning as you get dressed putting on the armor of light. When we realize that we are given that light, it helps us overcome the darkness in our lives.
There are two other practical ways to put on the armor of light and to cast off the armor of sin. I’ve mentioned Eucharistic Adoration many times. When we sit before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, when He’s exposed to us in the Eucharist, we are just allowing ourselves to be bathed in his light. Just like when we are bathed in the light of the sun it changes us and we walk out into the world and we’re going to be glowing after that.
The second way to throw off deeds of sin is Confession. Advent is a wonderful time of Confession. When we come to Confession, we are throwing off those deeds of darkness, and we walk out of Confession filled with the light of Christ.
It’s time to wake up this Advent season. It’s time to throw off whatever those deeds of darkness are and to “put on the armor of light.” If we do this during this Advent season, it will become like no other time in our lives. It will become a time of such light and grace that when Christmas comes and we’ve thrown off those deeds of darkness, we’ve “put on the armor of light,” we will be able to receive our savior deeper in our hearts than we ever have before.
This season of Advent, it’s time to wake up. Cast off your deeds of darkness, and put on the armor of light.
