With a new liturgical year we enter Advent, a time defined by active waiting -- both for the nativity of Jesus and for the second coming of the Christ. This week’s Jeremiah passage offers a thumbnail summation of the season: “The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah.” But as Jesus reminds us in our gospel text, these days of waiting can often be troubling: “There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves.
