Recently, the Archbishop of Washington DC, Cardinal Donald Wuerl, made some funny comments about how people are starting to celebrate the holidays earlier and earlier. He was only slightly exaggerating when he said that “one knows it’s time for Halloween when the Christmas decorations come out”. I have to agree with him from my own experience of seeing so many people celebrating Christmas even before we enter the month of December. This premature celebration shows the power of merchandising over the proper and meaningful celebration of the seasons of life and the mysteries of our Faith. We are reminded of this every year as we notice the clash of colors between Advent violet in our churches and Christmas red splashed everywhere beyond the doors of our places of worship. However, I want you to relax. If you have taken advantage of some of the warm and pleasant weather in the last two weeks to put up your Christmas lights or other decorations, I’m not going to condemn you or ask you to rip them down. But I want each of us to enter fully into this beautiful season of waiting and preparing over the next four Sundays.
So what’s going on in the readings today? And why do they seem so similar to the end of the world readings that we have been hearing over the past couple of weeks?
The background of the the first reading is important: the prophet Jeremiah is imprisoned by the Jewish leaders. He has been prophesying about disasters about to take place in Judah and Israel. In the midst of this darkness, today’s First Reading provides a more hopeful promise God has made to Israel. Even though Jerusalem will be an abandoned wasteland for awhile, it will not remain that way forever. There will eventually be joy, singing, and thanksgiving sacrifices in the temple and new life in the days to come.
An image of new life springing from the old is used by Jeremiah to predict the renewal of God’s people and His eternal fidelity. A “shoot” or “branch” will bud from the old stalk of David lineage. The new will complete the old. The future will be even more safe and righteous than in former times. This “branch” will be a man whose ways will be even more wonderful than those of King David. He will bring about peace with justice. Those who longed for past times of prosperity and integrity, who now sit in exile and darkness, hear this with increased longing and hope. Something and someone is worth living toward, and living for. Someone is coming who will bring a complete renewal of God’s holy people.
The Gospel tempers this joyful prediction with some disturbing predictions of its own. If we listen carefully to what Christ is saying, his words are tough to hear and accept. He is speaking about the city of Jerusalem which is central to the religious sense of the people. Jesus is speaking to His disciples about the total collapse of the city which has been the symbol of God’s eternal fidelity. For the God’s holy city to fall is to disturb the whole natural order. For the people of Jesus’ time, the stability of the temple and the city itself was similar to the order of the sun and moon, the seas and the seasons. As with the prophesy we hear in the First Reading, the foreigners will disturb this order by destroying the city and violating the holy temple. Amid all this turbulence, Jesus encourages His disciples to stand firm, because He is the “shoot of David” who will conquer these distressing things and reestablish order and peace.
Jesus offers us encouragement to stand firm against the disorders, sufferings, and temptations which lead to conflict, both within ourselves and in our world. The Man of Justice and Integrity is always willing to enter into the disorderliness of our personal lives and world at large, if we let him. Some people waste a great deal of time trying to interpret the natural and astronomical signs laid out in today’s gospel. They look outward to see when Christ will come to restore the world and judge the nations. But this is not ours to know! Jesus says this very clearly when the apostles asked him about his return! Instead, Christ is inviting us to be attentive to our own unhealthy attractions, attachments, and disorders. He wants us to look inwards first in order that we might be alert and watchful for the ways the Son of Man comes to restore us to spiritual health and hope in him.
The next two Sundays of Advent will bring John the Baptist onto the stage of Advent. But for today, we are invited to begin preparing for the coming of a Savior into our lives. To do this we are called to investigate the disorders within our lives and relationships. But be careful! Confronting these attachments and disorders is not always easy or pleasant! It is much easier to distract ourselves with other things, sometimes superficial preparations for the holidays that are Not as important as we make them. Oftentimes, we do not really want a Savior! We want an approver. We do not want a negative judge whom we fear, but an approving and benevolent assessor. Most Christians want to sweep away their past or present. We hope God doesn’t see the carpet under which we have swept the disorders. Others want to pretend that their disorders or need for integrity do not exist and they stick with denials. Still others spend their lives obsessed with their doing nothing but the right and correct things by their own power so that they don’t feel they need a savior. But all of these fall short of the mark, all of them fail to enter correctly into this beautiful season of Advent.
If you are looking for an Advent program, you might consider the following. These admonitions were written by an unknown author and they certainly are enough to fill the next four weeks. I invite you to adopt at least some of them for your journey this year to Bethlehem to greet the Christ-child: "Smile often. Pray more. Listen better. Tell those that you love that you do. Rediscover old friends. Make new ones. Hope. Grow. Give freely. Give in. Buy some flowers. Share them. Keep a promise. Laugh often. Reach out. Hug a loved one. Slow down. See a sunrise. Trust life. Have faith. Enjoy. Don’t be afraid of mistakes. Learn from them. Explore the unknown. Celebrate the gift of life. Give so much time to the improvement of yourself that you have no time to criticize others."
I hope your Advent is a blessed time of preparation and anticipation of the coming of the Christ-child. Take your time getting to Christmas and enjoy the surprising ways our God in heaven may be inviting you to draw closer to him in the next four weeks.
