As I was reflecting on today’s Gospel reading I was reminded of a story about the Second Coming of Christ, not exactly one you’d see in the Bible, of course.  In this story Jesus comes to earth again, full of power and might and glory.
 
                  When He arrives He talks to the people, and He says He has good news and bad news.  “The good news,” Jesus says, is that He has come to make life on earth what it should have been before sin entered the world.  “My kingdom will last forever,” Jesus says, “and the deserts will bloom, there will be no floods or earthquakes or famine or disease. People will all live together in peace.  Earth will be like the Garden of Eden.”
                  The people thought that sounded wonderful, but finally someone asked Jesus what the bad news was.
         “The bad news,” Jesus said, “is that first you have to get all the environmental permits that will be necessary.”
                  I know it won’t be like that, but today’s reading from the Gospel of Luke does emphasize how shocking and surprising it will be when Jesus comes to earth again, preceded by events that are so terrifying that some people literally die of fright.  
                  Of course, we don’t know when this will happen—could be tomorrow or a thousand years from tomorrow. No one knows.
           We are called to be vigilant, not to be taken by surprise when the day comes. But what does that look like?
                  I think there is one piece of advice that Jesus gives us in today’s reading that is especially appropriate for our reflection in that context.  Jesus says: “When these signs begin to happen, stand erect and raise your heads, for your redemption is at hand.”
         “Stand erect and raise your heads…”
         So simple to say, and so necessary.  The posture we adopt towards the world is so critical in our ability to do what God wants us to do, and to be prepared when we meet Jesus.
Why?
         Let me borrow an insight from Jordan Peterson’s recent book called “12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos.” For those who don’t know him, Jordan Peterson is a professor at the University of Toronto and a clinical psychotherapist.  He’s also a bit of an internet sensation, and quite countercultural.  
         His book is filled with Biblical, particularly Christian, references, although it isn’t clear that he is a practicing Christian.
         But his first rule is repeats almost exactly what Jesus tells us today.  Peterson’s first rule for life is: “Stand up straight with your shoulders back.”
         He goes through a lot of psychological and physiological reasons why how we stand towards the world is so important—having to do with how we are perceived, how serotonin is produced in the brain and such. 
I won’t try to repeat it here.  But let me quote his part of his summary:          “To stand up straight with your shoulders back is to accept the terrible responsibility of life, with eyes wide open. It means deciding to voluntarily transform the chaos of potential into the realities of habitable order…. It means willingly undertaking the sacrifices necessary to generate a productive and meaningful reality (it means acting to please
God, in the ancient language).”
         “To stand up straight with your shoulders back means building the ark that protects the world from the flood, guiding your people through the desert after they have escaped tyranny, making your way away from comfortable home and country, and speaking the prophetic word to those who ignore the widows and children.”
         And these days it is so easy for us to forget that business of standing erect with your head up. As Catholics we’ve been through a lot in the last few years—all the sex abuse scandals, and now all the fingerpointing over who knew what when and who should have done what and who covered up what.  
         Blows seem to come at us from all sorts of directions.  It is easy for us to find ourselves in a kind of defensive crouch—head down, shoulders rounded, always looking back to see who is coming after us.
Taking no risks because we’re pretty sure things will go badly if we do.
         That posture has consequences.  If we adopt a defeatist posture, we are defeated. If we look like we don’t believe what we’re saying or doing, no one else will believe us either.  We can’t spread the good news of the Gospel from a defensive crouch.  
         And particularly this time of the year we have such good news to spread.  We are getting ready to celebrate the birth of the one who came to save the world, to put right all the is wrong.  That is news to be proclaimed with a straight back, head high, shoulders back.
         Sometimes people call Advent a mini-Lent because it is a time of preparation when people can resolve to do or not do things that would help them prepare more fully for the great feast that is coming.  Perhaps as we start Advent this year we might resolve that for the month of
December we’ll check our posture to make sure that we’re doing what Jesus says—back straight, head held high—because Christ is coming, a birth we’ll celebrate on December 25 and who knows, He might come again before that.