This morning we hear the prophet Isaiah complaining to God, on behalf of the Jewish nation, that when the Israelites were ignorant of God’s power . . . the Lord God Almighty did astonishing things:  He passed over Egypt and liberated the tribes of Israel; . . . He parted the Red Sea so that the tribes of Israel could escape the irate Egyptians; . . . He appeared to them on Mount Sinai with terrible glory to give them the Ten Commandments to live by, . . .

Thou didst terrible things, which we looked not for [says the prophet Isaiah]; thou camest down [and] the mountains quaked at thy presence.

“But now,” grumbles the prophet Isaiah; “but now, when we beg for your assistance, . . . you do nothing, . . . so that foreigners, who regard your Commandments with contempt; . . . so that foreigners believe that our God is no god.

O that thou wouldst rend the heavens and come down [shouts Isaiah], as when fire kindles brushwood and the [subsequent] fire causes water to boil [so that thy adversaries might know thy Name and tremble at thy presence].

“Of course, there might be a good reason that this does not happen,” says Isaiah; “Thou treatest a righteous nation as a friend,” Isaiah says to the Lord God Almighty, “but we have been a long time in our sins . . . there is no one that calls upon thy name, that bestirs himself to take hold of thee; for thou hast hid thy face from us, and hast delivered us into the hand of our iniquities.”

    . . . The remedy for this dilemma, Saint Paul says; . . . the remedy for not being able to see God on account of the darkness of our iniquities (on account of the darkness of our sins); . . . the remedy is that the Lord God Almighty has revealed His face to us in the face of His Son, Jesus Christ.  . . . With the Advent of Jesus the Lord God Almighty established a perpetually holy nation (an holy Church).  By renunciation of the powers of world, flesh, and the devil, and by Baptism into the sacred Death and Resurrection of Jesus, and by participation in His sacred Life conveyed in His imperishable words and in the touch and taste of His sacramental Body and Blood, . . .

[we are] sanctified in Christ Jesus, [Saint Paul writes to the Church at Corinth]; . . . [we are] sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints [called to be holy persons; called to be holy men and holy women] together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours . . . who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.  God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

    And so, Jesus Himself, using apocalyptic language and images from the Book of the Prophet Daniel; . . . Jesus Himself tells us, today, that within a month of His Crucifixion (when, after that tribulation, the moon fades away so as not to give its light); . . . within a month of His Crucifixion and Resurrection (when the powers in the heavens; . . . when the powers within the spiritual realms of life and of death are shaken), . . . the risen Son of man will Ascend to the Father; . . . will come to the Lord God Almighty in the clouds with great power and glory.  . . . “And then,” Jesus says, when the Father gives the word, the Son will “send out angels, and gather his elect [His Church] from the four winds, from the ends of the earth [from among the living] and to the ends of heaven [from among the dead].”  . . . When that day shall come, Jesus says, “no one knows, not even the angels . . . nor the Son, but only the Father.”  . . . And so, . . . Christ’s word to His Church before His Crucifixion . . . and today, after His Ascension; . . . Christ’s word to His Church is, “Watch!”

    And how shall we obey Christ’s charge to us in this matter of His Ascension and His coming again at the End of Time to gather His Church to Himself and present Her to the Father?  . . . How shall we obey Christ’s charge to watch for Him?  . . . Well, we must be watchful people in three ways.  We must be watchful people by being mindful of our history; . . . we must be watchful people by being vigorous in the present; . . . and we must be watchful people by being expectant of the glory that shall be.

    . . . We are mindful of our history by remembering the cause of Christ’s first Advent, when humanity was like Isaiah describes it and as we ourselves have been or presently are.  The history of humanity has been a woeful one in which individuals and entire nations have been careless of God’s Commandments and strangled by the hand of our iniquities.  But for us and for our salvation Christ came to us to make us saints (to make us holy) by His grace!  And so, the Church keeps a season of Advent so as to remember God’s Commandments, to wriggle free from the grip our sins have on us by repenting our present misusings of God’s grace, and to permit the Ascended Jesus to make us guiltless by making ourselves and our living more simple, more chaste, and more focused upon the Father’s Will and Love.  . . . At the same time we live in these present days as vigorous messengers and instruments of Christ’s grace.  . . . We live in these present days preparing for the Advent of Christ and His angels by enlarging the boundaries of His Church!  We do this by enriching the lives of many by means of “all speech and all knowledge,” as Saint Paul puts it.  We prepare for the Advent of Christ in these present days by being watchful for opportunities to enrich the lives of many by speaking a timely Truth in Christ Jesus which we receive from the insight He gives us in His encounters with us in prayer, in worship, and in His Body and Blood, . . . so that Jesus might make them Christians by revealing the Face of God and, so, defeat iniquity by His grace conveyed through His Church.  . . . And finally, this season of Advent reminds us to be expectant.  This season of Advent reminds us that there shall be an end to human history and a reckoning between the Lord God Almighty . . . and foreigners who regard His Commandments with contempt and believe that our God is no god.  This season of Advent reminds us not to lose patience or to lose heart, but, instead, to speak the Truth in love without apology . . . and to hold fast to faith in Jesus, Who sustains us and keeps us guiltless by His grace . . . if we are watchful in this present time . . . until the End.