For high school, I went to a college-prep boarding school that was also a seminary. At the time, there were only three places in the US where a young man could go to start studying for the priesthood while in high school and this was the closest, located in Hannibal, Missouri. As you can imagine, there was not a huge number of guys ready to make that commitment and live away from home, with strict rules, no girlfriends, no cars, and only about 14 hours of unscheduled time each week! In fact, during my years there, there were never more than 30 students across all four years but we were still expected to field a basketball and soccer team to play against the other schools in the area. As you can imagine, we were terrible. we made a lot of other bad teams feel great about themselves. I suppose one benefit was that we practiced a lot of humility, whether we wanted to or not.
One of the things that sticks in my memory from those futile sporting days was the conditioning drills the coach would put us through. The worst were the sprints! At the end of practice, he would line us up and have us run as fast as we could until he blew his whistle, then we would stop, recover, and begin again when he blew the whistle once more. The worst part wasn’t even the sprinting, it was not knowing how many sprints you had to do, how long each would last, and how long you would get to recover in between.
Human beings can endure tremendous hardship when they know what or who they are suffering for and when it might end. It is the uncertainty that can break a person’s resolve.
The readings this weekend are all about hanging in there and not giving up. They are God’s version of a pep-talk where he tells us to keep fighting, keep struggling because we are almost through the worst of it.
In our first reading from the book of Jeremiah, something terrible is happening. For the first half of the prophet’s ministry, he goes about warning people to repent, to listen to God’s commands and stop putting their trust in worldly kings and power. He warns them if they don’t listen, the worst possible things will happen. Well, the people don’t like Jeremiah’s message and they don’t listen to anything he has to say and of course they reach a point of no return. They back the wrong king who gets defeated by the Babylonians who then punish Israel by destroying their cities and sending them away to Babylon as slaves. This is a full-on armageddon type of disaster and Jeremiah is right in the middle of it. The second half of Jeremiah’s ministry is passing along God’s consolation, where the Lord essentially says, “I tried to warn you and you didn’t listen so you had to be punished. But this punishment won’t last forever. Just stay faithful to me and I will make things right.”
In the Old Testament, God loves to speak through the signs and actions of his prophets. In the chapter right before today’s reading, the Lord tells Jeremiah to go buy some land. Keep in mind that Babylonian armies are closing in on Jerusalem. They are burning cities, slaughtering populations, and shipping the survivors away as slaves. This is not the time you would expect for a real estate deal, although I suppose it was probably a buyer’s market! Jeremiah does what the Lord asks, buys the property and then puts the deed into a jar and buries it. When people ask him what in the world he is doing, he tells them this is their sign, that a time will come when they return and claim this land once again and that deed will mean something. Their punishment and suffering will not last forever. In other words, hang in there!
Something similar is happening in the gospel. However, for Jesus’ disciples, life is great right now. Even though the Scribes and Pharisees want to put him to death, he is a fan favorite, working miracles, healing the sick and drawing huge crowds wherever he goes. As his inner circle, the followers of Jesus soaked in all this praise and glory and some of them even argued amongst themselves who was the greatest. But Jesus sees what is coming, He knows his victory will only take place on the cross after indescribable agony and suffering. He knows the confusion and fear that will follow for his apostles who, like the people of Jeremiah’s time, wanted to follow an earthly model of kingship and power. Their world will be shattered as they face persecution, exile, and even martyrdom for what they believe. Jesus’ words today, at the beginning of our Advent season, are words of hope in the midst of darkness. He doesn’t pull punches. “Terrifying times are ahead. People will die of fright. Nations will be in dismay.” But you, you who believe and follow me. Stand up straight, lift up your heads because the time of redemption is near!”
The apostles didn’t get it at the time, when everything was still going great. But once Jesus is crucified and they are persecuted, they will reflect on his words and understand that he was encouraging them not to give up. He was telling them their time of suffering and pain had a limit and would not last forever; all they had to do was be faithful, keep holding on, and things would eventually get better.
This message is just as relevant for you and me today. We see a lot of bad things happening in our world and tremendous human suffering everywhere. There seems to be corruption and selfishness at every level of power. Even in our Church, we see horrible things that have taken place and innocence lost. It seems to get closer and closer to home like the poor woman murdered at Catholic Supply two weeks ago. It can be tempting to chase after worldly power to solve these problems and make things right. Or we can think that fear is the new way to survive as we withdraw from the world and just hope everything will pass over us. But a better way is given to us in this first week of Advent from the words of Jeremiah and the wisdom of Jesus: 'Hang in there! Times will get dark, things will get rough. But they will not last forever. Stay true to me, lift up your heads and one day you will see, I will bring victory and joy where world only saw pain and defeat!’
The rest of this short advent season is deepening our belief in this promise and remembering the many ways God has always kept his promises, albeit in unexpected ways. May we join with the psalmist in saying, “To you, O Lord, I lift my soul.”
