Psalm 146,147; Isaiah 1:1-9; Matthew 25: 1-13
Listen to the author read their meditation and prayer:
The Rev. Hope Benko Advent Meditation
Advent holds a contradiction, and today’s gospel reading highlights it. Jesus says: “Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.” Still, we 
spend this season counting down to a certain day and hour when we will enter into the mystery of the Word made flesh. It’s marked with candles on a wreath or chocolates hidden behind little cardboard doors. Even small children with little grasp of a calendar can tell you how many days until Christmas.
And still, Jesus tells we don’t know the day or hour. That is the tension of Advent, to live into the uncertainty of Christ’s remaking the world, while embracing the certain passage of time, the hours and days of preparation. And that’s what the wise bridesmaids teach us. They are ready. They marked the days leading to the groom’s arrival, but the extra oil they’ve brought gives them room for uncertainty. That oil gives them freedom to meet the groom even at the unexpected hour of midnight.
In this season of Advent, marked by both the certainty of the days ticking down and the surprise of God’s kingdom breaking in, we are called to hold on to a little extra oil, to guard against spending all we have in the busy preparations of the secular season and to hold on to enough fuel to burn brightly and wait quietly for our Lord.
Lord, make us ready to greet you at any hour. Give us fuel to burn with your love even at the unexpected hour. Amen.
The Rev. Hope T. Benko
Director of Enrollment Management and Admissions
SEMINARY OF THE SOUTHWEST
A priest since 2010, Hope joined the Seminary of the Southwest staff in June 2016 and has found God in many unexpected hours around Austin. She is married to another priest and they have two elementary school children.
