Romans 13:11-14 NRSV
You know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; let us live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.
Living in the Shadow of the Second Front
Since 1940 citizens in France lived under the rule of their Nazi occupiers and the quisling government of Vichy France.
The occupation took their freedom, their economy, their food, their lives and their dignity.
During the last two years or so of that occupation, both the occupiers and the occupied lived in the shadow of the Second Front, the planned Allied invasion of northern France.
For the oppressed, the Second Front meant freedom.
For the Nazis and their collaborators, it meant defeat and judgment.
And no one knew exactly when or how or where it would happen or even if it would be successful.
It’s the story I remembered when I read the lectionary readings for today, the First Sunday in Advent.
Instead of the happy, happy, joy, joy of the secular Christmas season which has been ramping up since Labor Day, the texts speak of reflection, preparation and a hope for a new reality.
Advent, for Christians, is living in both anxiety and hope as we await God’s Second Front in our own lives and families and communities as well as in ancient Israel.
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