Dear brothers and sisters, as you may have noticed, today something has changed in our liturgy: we have not sung the Gloria (we will sing it on Christmas Eve). Furthermore, the color of the vestments is purple, a noble color, the color of hope, of trust, of the certainty of the light at the end of the darkest gallery. Purple is also the color of penance because it reminds us that we must cleanse our hearth and prepare it well to worthily welcome the Lord who comes.

The invocation we hear echoing in the liturgy of this blessed season is Maranatha, an Aramaic word that means: Come, o Lord! Come and save us! Come and set us free!

The prophet Jeremiah, in the first reading, gave his people a message of hope. He was called by God to denounce idolatry. His book is a long series of corrections, reproaches, and harsh threats but now he sees the future coming of the Messiah as an act of God’s fidelity to his promises. The Messiah is called “just shoot that spring up”, he is coming to renew Israel and Jerusalem. The situation is not good: people have abandoned the ancient faith and lost hope for a better future after the exile.

Let us look at our situation: dear brother, perhaps you too have lost hope; perhaps you too, dear sister, have moved away from the faith and lived as if God did not exist. This word is for you and me: miracle could happen in the desert of our life could: the desert could blossom rather it is already blossoming because Jesus is coming! Maranatha!

Participating in the Eucharistic celebration at this time of Advent means welcoming and recognizing the Lord Jesus Christ who continually comes among us and following Jesus in the way that leads to the Father. If we follow him, trust in him, he will introduce us all together into the kingdom of God. With his glorious coming at the end of the times he will make us have a part in eternal life with the blessed and saints of heaven.

Advent is not the expectation of the birth of Jesus, because Jesus is already born and is already here with us “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Mt 18:20), but it is the desire to experience his presence now, the desire to rejoice of his presence, the desire to change our lives according to his teaching. It is also the desire to live the fullness of his presence, at his definitive coming, at the end of the present time.

In his teaching, as we heard in the second reading, St. Paul, insisted, first of all, on the joyful certainty that Jesus, who died and rose again, will return to establish his glorious kingdom. All those who will be faithful to him will participate in the kingdom. The Thessalonians now live in this expectation of faith. They have discovered brotherly love and St. Paul encourages them to further progress in holiness of life. In this way, they prepare for their future. St. Paul, therefore, exhorts us to know how to wait by growing and abounding in love and by remaining firm and vigilant in holiness.

We might ask: what will the day of the Lord’s return be like? The Gospel speaks about signs in the sun, in the moon, in the stars, about people frightened of what is coming upon the world. These are the sign of the definitive coming of the Son of the Man.

The apocalyptic speeches collected in the Gospels, as today’s Gospel, reflect the fears, anxieties, uncértainties of those first Christian communities, fragile and vulnerable, who lived amid the vast Roman empire between conflicts and persecutions, in the uncertainty of the future, without knowing when Jesus, their beloved Lord, would return.

In today’s Gospel, the ruin of the world is condensed into two great signs: the destruction of Jerusalem (70 AD) and the instability of the universe. In everyone’s mind, the destruction of Jerusalem was such a catastrophic event that it warned that the time of the earth was about to end. On those ruins the end of the universe was appearing imminent: the ordering of the stars is upset and the threatening nightmare of death wanders all over the world; men, world, peoples, nations, everything is walking towards ruin. For the Church, however, a word of life comes out, a saving presence calls us. It is the judgment of the truth of the Son of man who approaches the moment in which the stars and men die. It is essential not to allow oneself to be affected by indifference and superficiality, not to “become drowsy” in order not to have one’s feet entangled in a “trap” and thus not be able to walk with Christ in a new path of justice and truth.

After twenty centuries, the current Church walks like an old lady, bent under the weight of the centuries, of the struggles and distress of the past, aware of her mistakes and her sins. The current Church is not able to show the glory and power of other times. It is therefore time to hear again the Master’s call: “Stand erect”, encourage one another. “Raise your head” with confidence, avoiding looking to the future based only on your calculations and forecasts. “Your redemption is at hand”: rediscover the strength of your liberator, the Lord Jesus.

It is an invitation to put the Word of God at the center, that is, the way of seeing things of the one who has traveled the paths of our history over time, sowing seeds of hope, of liberation in it: the seeds of the Kingdom.

Sisters, brothers, hope is not a pill that numbs our conscience. Religion is not the “opium of the people”, as Karl Marx said. Hope is not a passive attitude, but a provocation that pushes action. Whoever is animated by hope, which has its roots in the continuous presence of Jesus, takes on the problems and difficulties of daily history, creatively, acting, seeking solutions, and instilling trust.

Our history today really needs women and men who dare to hope, tireless seekers of the kingdom of God and his justice.

“Carousing”, “drunkenness”, are the search for happiness in futile things, and the “anxiety of daily life” is the anxiety that comes from the fear of losing one’s possessions, one’s wealth, and one’s power. These are the temptations that we experience every day. Jesus asks us to be careful. Jesus does not invite us to escape from our history to seek serenity in a paradise to come! He calls to action today, to collaborate with the Father who is continuing the work of creation and is bringing it to completion. God needs intelligent men and women, who know how to overcome the temptations and anxieties that come from the distorted readings of life and history that generate fear, sometimes terror.

Don’t worry, brothers and sisters! Our Lord Jesus Christ has come in the world, he comes in our life, he is still coming in our history, and he will come on the last day. We are the Church, we are children of God. “Merciful and gracious is the Lord, slow to anger, abounding in mercy!” (Ps 103:8) Jesus Christ comes to save us, not to condemn or punish us. God is not the great cop or the sniper ready to shoot us if we commit sins. He comes to give us a great gift: a life full of love and happiness.

So, Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus! We are waiting for you!