It’s important to read today’s Gospel very carefully. Tomorrow is the beginning of the new liturgical year, and the first day of the season of Advent. Before Jesus comes, unexpectedly, like a thief in the night, we are called to prepare. But what does that entail? Today’s Gospel tells us.

Notice Jesus does not say “…take care not to be weighed down with anxieties and to fall into drunkenness,” but rather, he admonishes us to simply TAKE CARE, or the result would be anxieties and falling into drunkenness!

Drunkenness represents a state of consciousness we choose because we are unwilling to face the awareness of things that we know are true, but painful to consider.

The target of our attention must therefore be something other than what we seek to avoid, ie., whatever keeps us from experiencing those anxieties and compulsion to escape awareness of painful truths!

To be sober is to be alert and focused on truth, with a purpose and resolve to persevere. What we need to be focused on, what we are to “watch” for, is Jesus.

We will be sober if we do that on a more or less continuous basis because Jesus is our life, safety, salvation, and peace.

Jesus is the strength we need to testify to the truth in these dark and evil end times, as the world becomes increasingly crafted on malicious lies that we’ll all soon be compelled to publicly confess as truths.

A time is coming soon when we will each face a moment of true decision with fearful consequence…a moment that will test all claims made of “loving God” and “being moral and good,” and reveal the truth about who we really are to ourselves and others.

To stand before the Son of Man will require understanding the difference between the false freedom of the “woke” that comes from suppressing shame for sin, in an arrogant ambush of the garden from which we were justly expelled for our pride and disobedience, and those awakened to the truth of God!

To be “awake” and “watching” is to know that we are unable to return to the garden by our own efforts: we can not pass the guards with flaming swords. We need a savior, pure and without sin to bring us across that threshold: Jesus.

To stand before the Son of Man is to understand that we are indeed bent and broken, fundamentally flawed and corrupted by inordinate desires, confused and deceived by falsehoods, and that we desperately need the Lord who is order, light, love, mercy, purity, and holiness beyond all human comprehension.

Now is the time to repent of all of our wasted efforts to avoid the pain of clear and sober awareness of our true state, which is one in which we are in need of rescue and restoration, which Jesus offers with his entire heart, soul, mind, humanity and divinity.

Christmas isn’t about stocking up at the LCC to ensure sufficient sauce supply to carry the holi-days… Christmas is about presenting ourselves before the altar of Our Lord in humble expectation of God’s coming, in humility, and to pray, pray, pray our holi-days will truly be holy-days .