Homilía predicada el domingo, 4 de diciembre de 2005
Today is the 2nd Sunday in Advent. In a few short weeks from today, it’ll be Christmas. People will strip their Christmas trees, or what’s left of them, pull them out to the sidewalk and take down the lights and decorations from around the house. These will be put in boxes and will go to storage until it is Friday after Thanksgiving Day next year when once again, the trees will be put up, the lights will be lit and decorations will abound everywhere. Of course, all of this is preceded by Halloween, preparations for which start say around mid-September! When October 31st dies, the ghosts and ghouls will be immediately left behind and we will shift gears towards “turkey season”. Once the turkey is stripped of its belongings, it’s time to go full throttle to the next stop before the end of the year, Christmas.
The last quarter of our calendar year is a very much commercialized span of time, where our culture has made it its agenda to teach us and, moreover, our children that he who gets the most candy wins; he who eats the most turkey wins; he who receives the most toys is the conqueror. If you really want to see right through this all you can honestly say is that he who gets the most candy will visit the dentist the soonest; he who eats the most turkey will probably have indigestion not to mention some extra pounds; and he who receives the most toys will give mom and dad a nagging headache because a week or two after Christmas there are no more cool toys around to play with.
In a nutshell, this is what I call the commercial cycle we are all used to and in which we willingly participate year after year. And while there is much to criticize about it, especially its artificiality, we have it because it follows in principle with life.
Our lives and everything around us are cyclical. A day is nothing but a 24 hour cycle. We see the sunrise and then the sunset everyday in that span of time. A week is 7 day cycle. A year is a 12 month cycle. In it, the four cyclical seasons of Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter occur faithfully one after the other. Our own lives are each one of them a cycle that, in figuratively language, can take after the seasons of the year. We all have our Spring in birth and youth, we all have our Summer in adulthood, we all have our Fall in old age and then, using the words of Saint Paul, we sleep in Winter. Our lives on earth are a one time cycle and I want to make a point of that. The Letter to the Hebrews tells us that “it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment (Heb 9:27).” When we get to Winter, when we die, there is not another Spring, not until Christ raises us up from the dead before the last judgment. The life cycle we Christians believe in is not reincarnation where you get a few chances to live here on earth before you are sucked up into Brahma and are no more having reached your highest goal of non-existence. That is what Hinduism teaches and it is a false teaching.
In like manner, the life of the Universal church is modeled after a cyclical pattern. For us, the church year has just begun. The season of Advent marks that beginning. Last Sunday we lit the candle of hope marking the beginning of the new Christian year. Today, we have just lit the candle of peace for the second Sunday in Advent. The church year is a progressive cycle.
Just as there are cycles of a natural or commercial nature, there is also a cycle of a spiritual nature. This cycle moves heavenward, towards God, and one of its interesting features is that, in many respects, it is contrary to the daily cycles we live in and take for granted. Out there, popular culture tells us that Christmas ends right after December 25th, but we know enough about Christmas to know that December 25th is only the beginning of Christmas.
But there is something about cycles I also want to share with you. Cycles are repetitive motions. They are repetitive in two ways. A cycle can be involuntary like each year that passes by without you or I being able to do anything about it. And cycles can be voluntary actions as well. Every birthday and anniversary we celebrate, we do them because we want to. We do not need to celebrate them, but we do because they mark meaningful moments in our lives. With every year that goes by our intention to celebrate them increases because their meaning for us increases also. Voluntary cycles are therefore the most meaningful. The Christian Church has demonstrated it for over 2,000 years, but we will do well to recognize that we haven’t done this by our own strength but by the very and unmerited grace of God.
Cycles are repetitive in essence. There are many good things about repetition. It is both good for our minds as when we read something twice to understand it better, and for our bodies as when we exercise, but repetition is by far most profitable for our soul. The spiritual disciplines of prayer, fasting and meditation on the Word of God plus participation in the sacraments have no parallel for the nourishment of the soul of the Christian. The danger lies when repetition has made us lose sight of the reason why we do things over and over again here at church Sunday after Sunday, season after season or at home day in and day out. Repetition for the sake of repetition will easily lead us to dullness and boredom, and will drive us in search for some other thing that will keep our short attention spans hooked until we lose sight of that one thing also and move on to another one repeating a meaningless cycle, but a cycle nonetheless.
So here we find ourselves in another season of Advent knowing what we knew last year; that we must prepare ourselves for the Advent of our Lord on Christmas Day. But how do you go about this issue called preparation, getting ready, having a spirit of expectation to receive Christ the Lord? It is one thing to know we must get ready and it is another altogether to be ready. What makes us ready to receive the Christ on Christmas? What is it that will take us to the manger along with the shepherds and the angels, the bull, the goat and the sheep to witness the most penetrating act of God into the messy affairs of humankind? More importantly, do we want to go there? Are we eager to go there?
To prepare is an action verb. At least, that is what John the Baptizer shows us in the gospel for this morning. In the fourth verse of chapter 1 of the Gospel according to Saint Mark we read that “John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” John the baptizer had been given a task no different than any other prophet before him, to proclaim the coming of the Christ. In order for the hearers to be ready for this coming, they had to repent of their sins through the waters of baptism. In the biblical language used by Isaiah the prophet, to prepare the way of the Lord is to proclaim the way of the Lord, his forgiveness and salvation, and to proclaim his salvation is in turn to prepare ourselves for his coming.
Preparation means receiving the message, making it your own and being obedient to the call to share that message so that others in turn can get ready to receive the Savior, who would be called Immanuel, God with us.
John the baptizer proclaimed, "The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit." John is saying, “I am just a messenger. Don’t look at me for there is no salvation in me; rather look to him about whom I am speaking for he is at hand.”
If we picture the scene of John’s proclamation in the wilderness we would not see a tele-evangelist in his Dolce & Gabana suit, he wouldn’t be all trimmed down with the latest haircut and Tommy Hilfiger shoes. In the wilderness there is little use for Hugo Boss or Calvin Klein. What we would see out there in the wilderness is nothing but a freak show. There we have a man clothed in camel skin with a belt around his waist. We are told he ate grasshoppers and wild honey. I wonder why we are told these seemingly unnecessary details. Who after all wants to know that someone else’s diet is grasshoppers? I can only guess that it is fitting to dress like that and have that diet if you live in the desert. In other words, John the baptizer was a crazy-looking man, at least by our standards. Maybe we could handle a diet of grasshoppers and wild honey alright, especially if there is nothing else out there in the wilderness, but don’t clothe me in “no” camel suit. Or maybe we can handle the camel outfit just fine, but grasshoppers, “No thanks!” Perhaps in the desert there might not be a better outfit than being clothed in camel skin.
Yet, there is something more about this picture of a man who thinks little of his looks. Do you remember when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. shared with his audience at the Lincoln Memorial about dreaming of a day when his children would be judge not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character? Do you remember having heard that memorable speech? Well, John the baptizer brings us a similar situation where he is actually telling us judge not the messenger but the content of his message. It is, as it has always been, very easy to shoot the messenger. We do not see a John being shy about the job he was given to do. We do not see him concerned about his not being a la mode. He was not shy either about the gospel just as none of the prophets before him were shy about the words they were given to proclaim to Israel; words that to some gained them their death.
John the baptizer is both an indictment and an invitation. An indictment against a plastic and superficial approach to the Gospel, against a watering down of the Cross of Christ and a compromising of the truth that is found only in Him. But also an invitation to engage the world with the most potent message it has ever heard, the same Good News of Jesus Christ and him crucified. A message that will get hold of the worst of sinners, shake him up and transform him to the glory of God.
Here is revealed the cyclical nature of the Gospel of Christ—the Faith once delivered to the Saints continues to be the Faith delivered by Saints. It is an ongoing, cyclical activity where Christian generation after Christian generation proclaims the message of the Gospel of Christ and in doing so gets ready to meet its Savior who has promised He will come again for us to dwell with him. The proclamation of the coming of Christ in Advent is our getting ready to receive our Lord at Christmas. We, each and every one of us, are a John the baptizer, a proclaimer of the coming of the Lord. You and I are the present Christian generation of voices crying in the wilderness, and make no mistake it is a wilderness out there, “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight!”
We are in the midst of that wilderness in the same way John the baptizer was in the midst of it. We have no greater or lesser position than he had. We have no greater or lesser message than he had, “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” We have the only message that will make us all in here and out there fit for the kingdom of God, fit to meet the Savior Jesus Christ and we find ourselves today in that season of our liturgical year where we meditate, we ponder about the significance of the birth of Christ, we have a sense of great expectation, but we are not passive. We cannot be passive while we have an awareness of where Advent is leading us. We cannot be passive with a world that got it all wrong; a world that says Christmas ends on the 25th when actually the contrary happens. Preparation is an action word.
Advent signals the movement of the throne of God towards the perishable throne of man in order that man does not perish. To quote the words of Father Christmas when he was able to come back into Narnia in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, “I’ve come at last,” said he. “She has kept me out for a long time, but I have got in at last. ASLAN IS ON THE MOVE. The Witch’s magic is weakening.” “ASLAN IS ON THE MOVE.” Don’t these words ring any bells? “After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.” There is no difference between Father Christmas’ proclamation and John the baptizer’s proclamation. The substance of their message does not revolve around them but about the One who is mightier, more important than they are; the One who is actually the reason for the proclamation they give.
“ASLAN IS ON THE MOVE” is perhaps the most significant phrase you will come to hear during this holiday season and fittingly so. In a few days, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe will premier in theaters everywhere. The advertising for the movie has been incredible. My own children have a poster of the movie in their bedroom! But Aslan is on the move for a more important reason than the movie. Today it seems as if our world is caught up in an eternal winter of catastrophes, wars, diseases and injustices. When will it be Spring again just like in Narnia? When will the demonic spell over our world come to an end? My brothers and sisters, it is Advent and “ASLAN IS ON THE MOVE!” On the move to save a world that in the words of the prophet Jonah, “[does] not know [its] right hand from [its] left.” If he is on the move, what else is expected of us but to be also on the move? Passivity is not an action word.
God in his mercy is giving us another Advent, another chance to meet our Savior and as well proclaim to the world that God’s kingdom is at hand. “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.”
In the short term, Advent points us to the first coming of our Lord. At the same time, it makes us set our eyes on our Lord’s second coming in glory. The Christian Church has been setting its eyes on the coming of our Lord for a long time. The Christian Church has been preaching the Second Advent for quite a long time. Who is to say that 2,000 years of preaching that Christ is coming is not a long time? By any stretch of the imagination, here on the realm of time and space no one can say that Christians have been preaching this same message just a little while. But that is really a non issue with God. What is a short time or a long time for God?
The apostle Peter in his letter to the Christian Church tells us that for God temporal considerations regarding the plan of salvation are not the main concern. In the epistle reading, Saint Peter advises us as follows, “Do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day.” This time reference is not to be taken literally as if one calendar day equals one thousand calendar days for God. That is not what Saint Peter wants us to understand here. He is just telling us that God resides in eternity, outside time. Time has never and will never affect its creator. God is the eternal I Am. He is I Am in the past; he is I Am in the present and will be I Am in the future. Only he will determine when long enough is long enough. If we understand that God’s residence is in eternity, then a couple millennia cannot be all that long.
For us mortals, on the other hand, time really does take a toll on us. It is merciless. On a day to day basis, time’s effect on us is barely noticeable. Put a span of ten, twenty or thirty years in the mix and time will put wrinkles in our faces and white hair on our heads or no hair at all. When we couple that with the fact that we are not patient by nature it’s understandable we want our Lord to come already and put an end to all the madness of the world; to take us home with him. Sounds like a great formula for escapism, doesn’t it?
We need things done and done quickly. There’s too much to do and no time to lose. But we falter, we become impatient. We ask, “Lord, when is this all going to end? When will you finally come? Lord, we’re waiting! We’ve been waiting for a long time; your Church has been waiting for a long time. So will you please come!”
If there was an apostle that would have all the characteristics of impatience, Saint Peter was it. Remember when the mob and the soldiers came to arrest Jesus at the Garden of Gethsemane? Peter was ready with a sword to free the Lord from his oppressors. Today, I can see Saint Peter at the moment when he writes his epistle looking back and understanding that God’s ways are not our ways and his timetable supersedes ours. He writes to us, “The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.”
Is there any difference between John the baptizer’s preaching in the wilderness and Saint Peter’s exhortation here? The answer is no, there isn’t. Both John and Peter are calling us to repentance, another action word, calling us to prepare the way of the Lord and make his paths straight. It is repentance and only repentance that has the power to bring us closer to God and him to us. That is why Advent is an invitation to proclaim the Gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ, because time does not bring people to God; repentance and forgiveness do. There is exactly where we meet our God.
Here’s a question: Do you know what a manger is? A manger is an open box where hay is put for livestock to feed. Here’s another question: Do you see that altar up there? It might not resemble a manger, but that table is the place where true spiritual food and true spiritual drink is place for us to feed. Do you see where Advent is leading us? It is certainly leading us to the memory of the first manger in Bethlehem, but there is more than a memory here. Here at this table—a type of manger—in the bread and the wine is the reality of God’s grace for you and me. I invite you to come closer to God for he is already closer to us.
I will leave you with these words from Saint Peter. I think it is important that I leave you with them, “Therefore, beloved, while you are waiting for these things, strive to be found by him at peace, without spot or blemish; and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation.” The patience of our Lord as salvation… what a beautiful thing to hear.
Let us pray,
Merciful God, who sent your messengers the prophets to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation: Give us grace to heed their warnings and forsake our sins, that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
