Mark Twain wrote a story called “The Terrible Catastrophe”. It is about a group of people who get trapped in a tragic situation. They are doomed to die. They have no way of escape. Mark Twain didn’t want the story to end unhappily and so he concluded his story with these two sentences. ‘I have these characters in such a fix that I cannot get them out of it. Anyone who thinks he can is welcome to try. It’s a good ending because it makes you think, it makes you get involved. Thousands of years ago the human race found itself in a similar situation, sin had entered the world and it was spreading like wildfire. The human race was trapped. If Mark twain had been alive then, he would have summed up the situation the same way he summed up his story. God the Father saw the tragic situation. He didn’t want the story to end sadly. God the Father sent his only Son into the world to become a member of the human race. Jesus laid the foundation for the kingdom of God. Jesus did not bring God’s kingdom to completion he gave the job of completion it to us. An example may give us a better idea. There was a thought provoking peanuts cartoon. Charlie Brown staring at a toolbox saying to himself: ‘I can’t do it, I can’t do it’. The second picture shows Lucy saying to Charlie: What’s wrong Charlie you seem unhappy”. The last picture has Charlie answering Lucy: ‘I am unhappy, I want to build a workbench, but I don’t have a workbench to build it on. Jesus made us a workbench upon which we can complete to work he began. Advent is the season when we call to mind the sad situation that the world was in before Jesus came. But Advent is more than that. It is also the season when we call to mind that Jesus will come again. We are living in the interval of the first coming of Jesus and the second coming of Jesus. We do not know when the Jesus will come. Someone said that the most dangerous day of our lives comes when we learn the word tomorrow. From that day we begin to put things off. On that day we begin to act as if we have plenty of time to do whatever we wish. There is the story of three devils who were preparing to depart for earth for their apprenticeship of deceiving people. Before departing they each had an interview with Satan, the chief of devils. Satan asked the first devil. ‘How do you plan to deceive people? I plan to convince them that there is no God’. Satan asked the second devil. ‘I plan to convince them that there is no hell’. Then Satan asked the third devil. ‘My approach is going to be less intellectual. I simply plan to convince people that they have plenty of time to prepare for death and for the second coming of Jesus. Satan smiled and said to the third devil: ‘Do that and you will deceive many’. The point is that there are certain things in life that we should never put off until tomorrow because we don’t know for sure whether tomorrow will come for us. The big question the Church sets before us on this first Sunday of Advent: How prepared would we be to meet Jesus if he were to come at this very moment? If we had five minutes to prepare for death, how would we use those five minutes? Let us conclude with a brief prayer: Lord Jesus, you have not revealed to us when you will come. We only know that you will come. When you do come, may you find our houses swept and clean, and ready for your arrival. May you find us watching and praying ready to receive you.