Homily: 1st Sunday of Advent - Year C

Readings: Jer 33:14-16; 1Th 3:12-4:2; Lk 21:25-28,34-36

Some years ago – actually 14 years ago, in December 2001 – two men I knew well died very suddenly within a few days of each other. Both of these men were in what we would call the "prime of life." One was 40, the other 56. Both were family men, husbands and fathers of three children. Both were seemingly fit and healthy. Both were, by every measure, very successful businessmen. And both probably thought they had 20 or 30 years of productive life ahead of them.

And yet in a flash, or perhaps more accurately, in the single beat of a human heart, both of these men were gone from us. For their families and friends, coping with such sudden loss, dealing with the grief and emptiness, was extremely difficult. Just as difficult were the questions they asked then, and have continued to ask since – questions to which there are no easy answers.

But against this uncertainty as to how and when we will die, is the absolute certainty that all of us will die. We humans are a strange lot. We accept the fact of death in general terms, because the evidence is irrefutable. But when it comes down to specifics, to ourselves or to someone close to us, we act as if God has somehow double-crossed us.

We tend to have a similar attitude about the end of the world. And yet, for my two friends, the end of their world arrived when they experienced their own personal second coming of Jesus. Oh, yes, as Catholic Christians we believe that Jesus will come again at the end of time. We just don't want it to happen on our watch. And maybe, if we don't think or talk about it, it won't. But that's exactly what we're asked to do during this season of Advent: to think and talk about it.

Today too many of us view Advent in one-dimensional terms. We see Advent simply as a prelude to Christmas, a sort of ecclesiastical version of the Christmas shopping season. Advent then becomes a warm and fuzzy time to turn our thoughts back to that first Christmas in Bethlehem, to the manger, to the bright star in the night sky, to Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus, to shepherds and angels and wise men, to the ox, the donkey and the lamb, to the little drummer boy.

Now I suppose that’s all a part of Advent, but quite frankly, it’s really only a small part. Lost amidst all this Christmas nostalgia, is the very fact of what we are called to celebrate. For Christmas isn't just the celebration of Jesus' birth. Rather, it's our commemoration of a defining moment in history: the manifestation of the incarnate Son of God to the world. Christmas is the celebration of an almost inconceivable act of love by the Father. It’s our loving God injecting Himself into human history in the most personal and direct way possible.

I will save you from yourselves by sending you my own Son, who will take on your nature, your flesh. He will live among you, teaching you about Me and how I expect you to live, to love, and to worship. And He will sacrifice Himself for you and for your sins.

Advent, then, is a time to ask ourselves whether we are prepared for the Son of God’s arrival into our lives. This is the Advent preached by John the Baptist: “…one mightier than I is coming. I am not worthy to loosen the thongs of his sandals” [Lk 3:16].

As Jeremiah prophesied in today's first reading:

"In those days, in that time, I will raise up for David a just shoot; he shall do what is right and just in the land" [Jer 33:15].

This is what we celebrate during Advent as we look forward to Christmas: the beginning of the divine drama of the Incarnation, this wondrous manifestation of God's love through the gift of our Lord Jesus Christ.

But that's not all we celebrate. We also look to the end of the drama. For the Church calls us not only to turn to the past, to Jesus' first coming, but also to the future, to the end of human history, to the second coming of Jesus. Unlike His first coming, which came quietly, almost secretly, His second coming will be quite an event.

In today's Gospel reading from Luke, Jesus gives us a pretty good idea of what to expect.

"…signs in the sun, the moon and the stars."
"…nations in disarray."
"…roaring of the seas and waves."
"…the powers in the heavens will be shaken." [Lk 21:25}

Yes, God will manifest His power as creator of the universe, and humanity will come to understand what the word "almighty" really means. So much so that Jesus tells us "people will die of fright in anticipation of what is coming upon the world" [Lk 21:26].

Now on the face of it, this doesn't sound like something to look forward to. But Jesus tells us, wait a minute…as Christians you have nothing to fear.

"…when these signs begin to happen, stand erect and raise your heads because your redemption is at hand" [Lk 21:28].

And it won't be easy, for "that day will assault everyone who lives on the face of the earth" [Lk 21:35].

When will it happen? Today? Tomorrow? Next year? 100 or 1,000 years from now? We don't know; and those who throughout history, and even today, claim they do are false prophets. And because we don't know, Jesus instructs us:

"Be vigilant at all times and pray that you have the strength to escape the tribulations that are imminent and to stand before the Son of Man" [Lk 21:36].

And so, during this season of Advent we are called to prepare ourselves, to act as if the end is near…for it might well be. And for some of us, like my two friends, it is.

"Be vigilant," Jesus says. Be watchful. That's what Advent is all about.

St. Bernard speaks of three comings of Jesus: One in flesh and weakness; one in glory and majesty; but another, a hidden coming, in which Christ comes into our lives through the working of the Holy Spirit and manifests His love through us. How better to prepare for His second coming than to be alert with God's love, to be alive with Christ's light.

What else can we do?

We can recognize Jesus when He comes to us through the others who touch our lives. We can see Jesus Christ in all others, so they will see Jesus in us. Like Mary, we can be “God-bearers” who take Jesus Christ, God’s Eternal Word, into the world. What a wonderful way to celebrate this coming of God's love into our hearts.

Listen again to the words of St. Paul in today's second reading:

"May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all…so as to strengthen your hearts, to be blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His holy ones" [1 Th 3:12-13]

How do we celebrate God's love? By loving. That's the point of Paul's prayer.

And what a prayer!

And what a world Christ would return to if everybody loved with His love. If Christ's light, emanating from the love of the Father, was truly the light of our lives.


 

Homily: Christmas Vigil

For the second time in a week, the readings for a Mass at which I was asked to preach included the genealogy the begins Matthew's Gospel. And so here's my second homily on this wonderful passage that spans the history of salvation from Abraham to the birth of Jesus.

Readings: Is 62:1-5; Ps 89; Acts 13:16-17, 22-25; Mt 1:1-25

A lot of folks, when they first turn to the New Testament, get discouraged because right there on the first page of the first book of the New Testament they encounter Matthew’s genealogy. And so they skip it and jump ahead to the Nativity story.

That’s really unfortunate because, this rhythmic poetic passage is included by Matthew to tell us some very important things. For through this genealogy and the Nativity story that follows, Matthew presents the Gospel as the New Genesis. Indeed, in both sections of our passage, he uses the same opening words we find at the beginning of the Book of Genesis. And just as Genesis offers us two sides of the Creation story, so too does Matthew. He relates the New Genesis story in two very different ways.

Matthew’s genealogy summarizes the entire history of Israel, almost 2,000 years, from Abraham all the way to Jesus Christ. Then, in the first line of the Nativity story, he proclaims that we are reading about “the beginning” – yes, the beginning, the Genesis of Jesus Christ. Here Matthew presents us with a major Gospel theme: the New Testament doesn’t replace the Old; it fulfills it. And at the very core of this understanding is the “Good News” for it permeates both Old and New Testaments.

Matthew first aims this Good News directly at you and me: at sinners. He does so by drawing our attention to Judah, Tamar, Rahab, and David. He reminds us that the sinful relationship between Judah and Tamar led eventually to King David and ultimately to Jesus Himself. He reminds us that Rahab, Boaz’s mother, was a prostitute, and that Solomon’s mother was Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite. And we recall how David seduced her and had her husband killed so he could marry her.

Yes, Jesus’s family tree is littered with sinners, just like mine and just like yours. But through this revelation we come to realize the depth of God’s mercy. Despite our sinfulness, we’re all called into God’s family. What a gift!

Through Matthew God pleads with us to extend mercy to others. For in that genealogy we encounter those who went far beyond the demands of the law:  Judah, Boaz, Uriah, and especially Joseph…It’s a plea expressed explicitly a few chapters later in the Beatitudes: “Blessed are the merciful for they shall be shown mercy.” Christmas, then, is the perfect time to repair shattered relationships, the perfect time to extend mercy to others and to yourself.

But Matthew’s not finished. He also reminds us that God’s ways are not man’s ways. Throughout the genealogy we find God rejecting our human laws, tossing aside the patterns of inheritance and choosing whom He will choose. Jacob is “the father of Judah and his brothers” –Yes, here and elsewhere Matthew reminds us that God often bypasses first sons and chooses younger brothers like Judah to lead His People. This, too, is Good News, for unlike man, God is not only merciful, but His ways are just.

God continues to pile Good News on top of Good News…for the family of Jesus, the family of the Kings of Israel, is not a family of ethnic purity. It’s filled with Gentiles. With the sole exception of Mary, the women mentioned are all Gentiles: Tamar and Rahab are Canaanites, Ruth a Moabite, Bathsheba a Hittite. God’s plan of salvation, then, is universal. Humanity, and that includes every one of us, is called into God’s family.

This is the message of Christmas, brothers and sisters, the message of the angel: "You shall name him Jesus and he shall be called Emmanuel," which means, "God is with us."  God is with us – not some nameless, faceless them, but us…and not some of us, but all of us. This is the message of a passionate God. It’s the message of a God whose love is overpowering.

This is what we celebrate: God’s fierce zeal for us, His commitment not to leave us abandoned. It comes down to this: God is unwilling to leave us in the darkness of our own sinfulness. What we have in Christmas is a terrible desire on God's part to "be with us," to be part of the human condition: God with us in our entirety. Quite simply, God just won’t let us alone. He wants to be Emmanuel.

And it’s this remarkable action on God’s part, this divine decision to become one of us, that so many have trouble accepting. Inundated by materialism, by the spiritual sickness of the world, so many forget why the Magi carried those first gifts to a newborn baby in a manger. The true Christmas message isn’t amazon dot com. It’s Emmanuel, God with skin on and a human face. God became one of us to turn His face to us, to speak words of comfort, reconciliation, and redemption, words we can understand. It’s this gentle birth we celebrate tonight; it’s this gentle birth that heralds our salvation.

Not long ago at the soup kitchen, while schmoozing with our guests, I spotted a mother and her little baby girl. As I approached, little Alisha saw my smile and reached out her arms to me. I couldn’t resist. I picked up this beautiful child and she just snuggled right up against me and buried her little head into my chest with her tiny hands gripping my shoulders.

My first thought? “Here’s a little baby that needed some hugging.” Then I realized how wrong I was. Alisha had been perfectly happy being held by her mom, with whom I could never hope to compete. No, Alisha didn’t need my hugs; but she knew that I sure needed hers. You see, brothers and sisters, in a very real way, this little baby is the meaning of Christmas. God with us. God with Alisha. For that brief moment Alisha is God’s love. Alisha is Christmas. She’s God's arms; she’s God’s zeal; she’s God’s passion for each of us.

For God loves us despite our foolishness. He loves us with our broken lives, our selfishness, our tattered relationships, our foolish sins. God is two tiny arms determined to break into our lives. He’s a fierce little baby who makes no distinctions but embraces the least likely along with most likely.

This is what the feast of Christmas is about -- an enormously unrelenting love feast. And not a sappy sentimental love, but a love as searing as any passionate romance. Christmas is God's fulfilled desire to be with us. This is what and why we celebrate. This is His gift.

If God isn’t Emmanuel, if He’s not with us, if He hasn’t embraced our tattered lives, then woe unto us. If God isn’t with us, there’s no hope, no light, only darkness and despair. If God isn’t with us, we’re here tonight out of fruitless hope, or pressured routine, or empty sentimentality.

But if we’re here out of love, if we’re here like ragtag shepherds to kneel and rejoice and let God take us in His arms, then we’ve caught the meaning of Christmas: Emmanuel, the passionate God, has had his way and has hugged us fiercely. When sin, suffering and death scatter our souls far and wide that’s when we need God the most. And that’s when Jesus comes to us to guide us to His Father’s loving arms.

It’s all grace, brothers and sisters. It’s all gift. What more is there to say on this Christmas Eve? And so tonight, as we sit quietly and let God’s love comfort us, as we gaze upon the scene of that first Christmas Eve so long ago, we invite the words of the carol into our hearts…

Silent night, Holy Night!
Shepherds quake at the sight.
Glories stream from heaven afar
Heavenly hosts sing “Alleluia”
Christ the Savior is born!
Christ the Savior is born.

A blessed, peaceful and holy Christmas to each and every one of you, and to all your loved ones, near and far.