Divine Timing and Human Watchfulness: A Reflection on 1 Timothy 5:22-6:11 and Luke 21:5-7, 10-11, 20-24 in light of John 1:1-10 for the Fourth Sunday of Advent
The Fourth Sunday of Advent brings us to the threshold. John’s prologue stands before us: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. This is the Logos—the divine principle ordering all creation, the life that lights every human being—about to enter time as flesh. Advent calls us to watch for this arrival, not as distant historical memory but as present reality breaking into our lives now.
Paul’s warnings to Timothy and the Lord’s apocalyptic words in Luke seem strange companions for Advent joy. Wars and tumults, nations rising against nations, Jerusalem surrounded by armies—and Paul’s sharp admonitions about hasty ordinations, love of money, eager pursuit of riches. Yet these passages speak directly to what Advent demands: vigilant attention in the midst of collapse, inner watchfulness when external structures fail, the discipline to recognize what’s being born when everything appears to be dying.
The Temple’s destruction that Christ prophesies is both historical event and perpetual spiritual reality. As for these things which you see, the days will come when there shall not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down. The disciples ask: Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign when this is about to take place? They want the timeline, the checklist, the clear demarcation between before and after. The Lord refuses. Instead He describes labor pains—wars, earthquakes, famines, pestilences—and commands: But before all this they will lay their hands on you and persecute you.
What the Lord describes is not a sequence of external events to observe from safety but an inner crucible you will enter. The structures you’ve relied on—religious institutions, social stability, material security—will collapse. Jerusalem surrounded by armies is the image of every false refuge being stripped away. This is what Advent has always meant: the structures that mediate between you and God must fail so that direct encounter can happen. The Temple must fall so that Christ Himself becomes the meeting place between heaven and earth.
Paul’s instructions to Timothy operate in this same register. Do not be hasty in the laying on of hands, nor participate in another man’s sins; keep yourself pure. This isn’t procedural advice about church administration. It’s a warning about the terror of recognizing who bears the divine image and who is performing the role. When structures collapse, when institutions fail, you must discern—by vigilant inner attention—what is genuinely participating in divine life and what is parasitic imitation. The false shepherd who imagines that godliness is a means of gain becomes visible when external authority no longer masks inner emptiness.
Here is where John’s prologue illuminates everything. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. The Word entering creation as flesh isn’t addition—as if God were absent and now arrives. The Logos has been sustaining all things from the beginning. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. Creation exists only by participating in divine life. What the Incarnation does is make explicit what was always implicit: the Logos dwelling with us, the light revealing what darkness has obscured.
Advent, then, is the discipline of recognizing what’s already present but hidden. The Lord says: Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and pestilences. This is not prediction but description—the birth pangs that accompany every genuine encounter with the divine. When the Logos enters your life consciously, the structures you built to avoid that encounter begin collapsing. The false self that imagined godliness was achievement, the ego that pursued wealth as refuge, the persona that performed virtue without transformation—all these must be surrounded by armies, besieged, and destroyed.
Paul names the enemies precisely: the love of money, which is the root of all evils; it is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced their hearts with many pangs. Notice what he’s describing—not external temptation but internal wound. The love of money isn’t about greed alone. It’s about building security in what can be controlled, quantified, possessed. It’s the refusal to trust divine providence, the terror of depending on grace. When you crave wealth, you’re trying to construct a fortress against the very vulnerability that divine encounter requires.
The pangs that pierce the heart are birth pangs. What Paul describes and the Lord prophesies is the same reality: the painful labor of bringing forth your true self, the self that can receive the Word made flesh. The false structures—material security, institutional authority, performed righteousness—must contract and fail so that what’s genuinely alive can be born. This is why the Lord says: When you hear of wars and tumults, do not be terrified; for this must first take place, but the end will not be at once. Don’t be terrified—these labor pains are necessary. The end isn’t destruction but birth.
John makes the tragedy explicit: He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world knew him not. He came to his own home, and his own people received him not. The Logos sustaining creation enters as flesh, and creation doesn’t recognize Him. Why? Because we’ve built elaborate structures to mediate the encounter—Temple worship, institutional religion, moral performance, accumulated wealth—and these structures now obscure the direct presence they were meant to reveal. The Temple must fall so that Christ’s body becomes the Temple. The religious authorities must fail so that the Spirit guides directly. Material security must collapse so that dependence on God becomes lived reality, not theoretical belief.
Paul’s command to Timothy is the Advent discipline: But as for you, man of God, shun all this; aim at righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called. Notice the sequence. First: shun what blocks encounter (love of money, false security, performed virtue). Second: aim at what participates in divine life (righteousness that’s genuine alignment, faith that’s lived trust, love that’s self-emptying). Third: fight—spiritual combat, the vigilant attention that recognizes enemies (internal patterns, denied wounds, autonomous complexes) and calls on divine presence into that battlefield. Fourth: take hold of eternal life. Not later, after death, but now. The eternal life you were called to is participation in the Logos who sustains all things, communion with the Word made flesh.
This is what Advent prepares: the inner space for the Word to enter. The labor pains aren’t punishment. They’re the necessary contraction of false structures so that genuine life can be born. When Paul warns about hasty ordinations and participation in others’ sins, he’s describing the discernment required: can you recognize, through inner vigilance, who genuinely bears the divine image and who is performing the role? When the Lord prophesies Jerusalem’s destruction, He’s describing what must happen personally before the Word can be received: the false refuges must be surrounded by armies and razed.
John’s declaration becomes the Advent proclamation: But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God; who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. The birth isn’t biological. It’s theurgic—divine action meeting human receptivity. The wars and tumults, the collapse of structures, the piercing pangs—these create the receptivity. You cannot receive the Word while clinging to false security. You cannot become a child of God while imagining that godliness is achievement or wealth or institutional authority.
The Fourth Sunday of Advent brings us to the final threshold. The labor pains intensify. Everything you’ve relied on as mediator between you and God is contracting, failing, being surrounded by armies. This is grace, not punishment. The Logos who has been sustaining your life from the beginning is making Himself explicit. What’s required is vigilant attention—the inner watchfulness that recognizes the birth happening in the collapse, the light shining in the darkness, the Word entering flesh.
Paul’s final exhortation becomes the Advent discipline: I charge you to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ. The appearing isn’t only historical Nativity or future Parousia. It’s perpetual—the Logos making Himself known in your life now, the light revealing what darkness has obscured, the Word entering the flesh of your ordinary existence. Keep yourself unstained means: maintain the inner vigilance that recognizes this appearing. Keep yourself free from reproach means: don’t let love of money, false security, or performed virtue block the encounter.
The Nativity is cosmic reality breaking into time: the Logos who orders all creation entering as infant, divine life made vulnerable and particular. What Advent reveals is that this birth requires your participation. The Word made flesh happens personally when you create—through collapse of false structures, through vigilant attention, through receptive trust—the inner space for divine presence to dwell. The labor pains you’re experiencing, the structures failing, the securities collapsing—these are the birth pangs. Don’t be terrified. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. What’s being born is your true self, the self capable of receiving the Word, the child of God participating fully in divine life.
The Greater Horizon 