This and That:
Advent: Celebrating Promise, Joy, and Hope in Your Life
Advent, the season of beginnings, contrasts with the end of our calendar year. Advent’s prayerful pondering will be jarred by our shopping and holiday preparation. A season of joy will become a season of stress very quickly. Nevertheless, Advent is a time of expectant hope, when we look to the future and the past in order to focus on the present and find that God’s Reign is indeed in our midst!
The following is a little guide for the Scripture readings over the next four Sundays:
1st Sunday of Advent: A Season of Hope – The Church turns our attention to the God who fulfills promises and to the distant future, the end time, the return of the Son of Man. The Gospel, with its dramatic images and symbols, communicated hope to fearful people by revealing how God would definitively save faithful people from evil forces. In the past, present, and future, God comes to save us, strengthening our hearts with an abundance of love. During this first week of Advent, prayerfully ask yourself: “What is my understanding of the Gospel? How is it good news? What are my fears? What are my hopes?”
2nd Sunday of Advent: A History of Salvation – Our Advent readings frequently speak of time and history. This is not surprising, for both Judaism and Christianity believe that God works within history, freeing, choosing, loving, and saving people in specific times and places. Advent is much more than preparation for a celebration of the Nativity. Advent invites us to prepare again for the coming of the Reign of God in our lives. This Sunday’s Gospel looks back to John the Baptizer. With almost solemn, if not perfectly accurate, historical details, Luke sets the stage for the action of God in John and then Jesus. Do the words of Luke speak to us today? It is so easy to feel the opposite – hopeless and oppressed, like a people in exile. There are so many reasons to feel that way: poverty, war, violence of all kinds, division and anger in our families and Church. Nevertheless, God continues to lead us from slavery to freedom at home and in our communities. God’s Reign is in our midst! This week ponder how God has been active in your history. “Where in your life do you experience light, joy, mercy, and justice?”
3rd Sunday of Advent: A Promise of Joy – This Sunday’s Scriptures offer us a curious mix of joy and love along with profound challenge. The prophet Zephaniah lived around 625 BC, a time of great political turmoil among the superpowers of Assyria, Egypt, and Babylon. Israel suffered under each of these powers, and its people turned away from faithful religious observance. After a strong call to conversion, the Prophet speaks a word of hope and promise. “The Lord, your God, is in your midst…he will rejoice over you with gladness, and renew you in his love, he will sing joyfully because of you. As one sings at festivals.” What a wonderful word of comfort! Surely, then, we can rejoice, rooted not in some hollow optimism, but in profound hope and promise. Our God is in our midst, renewing us in love. Yes, we can know peace, as Paul writes in his affectionate letter to the Philippians, a peace that surpasses all understanding. We can rejoice in the Lord always.
4th Sunday of Advent: The Word Made Flesh – As we near the end of Advent, our Scripture readings turn to Christmas themes. Even though we merge the details into one story and crib scene, the originals (Matthew and Luke are the only Gospels with Christmas stories) are very different. The crèche has both Magi and shepherds, but neither Gospel has both. Matthew focuses on Joseph, has Mary and Joseph living in Bethlehem, and includes the Magi and the flight into Egypt. Luke focuses on Mary, has Mary and Joseph living in Nazareth (going to Bethlehem for the Roman Census), and includes the shepherds and a peaceful visit to Jerusalem. The birth stories are first of all proclamations of faith, not exact historical accounts. The two stories do agree that the central meaning is about Jesus’ identity: he is Son of David and Son of God. These infancy narratives also serve as a bridge from the Jewish Scriptures to the story of Jesus’ ministry. The Gospel writers made a summary of Old Testament stories and related that summary to the beginning of Jesus’ life.
Our Advent readings have led us into holy mystery. God’s Word comes deeply embedded in human words and in human flesh. Promise and meaning, hope and life, pregnancy and flesh – how wonderful it is that God so loved the world. How fortunate we are to hear and ponder this Good News. Still, the world is full of cynicism and suspicion, of oppression and violence, of sickness and death. It was like this for Micah and Isaiah, for Mary and Elizabeth, for John and Jesus. It is still like that for us.
Right here in these difficulties God’s Word comes embedded in human words and human flesh. Modern prophets creatively search for justice and peace. Family members choose to forgive old wounds. People of hope look for light in the darkness. Faithful disciples delight in the simple joy of children and in the warmth of good friends.
During these darkest days of the year in the Northern Hemisphere and in all our wintry season, we sill live in a world of grace. God’s Word in human words and human flesh – are we listening?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment