SECOND SUNDAY OF ADVENT
4 DECEMBER 2022
The
Jesse Tree is all about the kingship of David, whose father was Jesse. It is
a reminder of the promise that the messiah would come from his house. But the Prophet Isaiah is honest about the
state of that tree in his time. The
kings had not been good successors of King David. They had trusted the appearances of those who
clamored for favors. They had believed
rumors and had gone to wars needlessly.
They had ignored the poor, and they could have cared less for the land’s
afflicted. They focused their energies
on their own needs.
That
stately tree has become a stump, Isaiah says.
Yet, he gives hope to his people.
He says that a shoot would sprout from that stump. God would keep his promise. With the gifts of wisdom and understanding,
the promised Messiah would have the intelligence to rule rightly. With the gifts of council and might, he would
have the practical ability to govern.
With the gifts of knowledge and fear of the Lord, he would have the
piety to be the Lord’s anointed one. The
kingdom of this Messiah would usher in the peace of the Garden of Eden. It would be a peace so profound that natural
enemies will live together in absolute harmony.
We believe
that this prophecy has been fulfilled in Jesus Christ. During Advent, we prepare to celebrate his first
coming at Christmas. We prepare for his
second coming at the end of time. We believe
that his first coming has ushered in the kingdom of heaven in our midst. But non-believers scoff at that. Where do those natural enemies of nature live
in peace? Where is that perfect harmony
promised in the kingdom of heaven? It is
true. War is raging in Europe and other
areas of conflict in our world. The
Mideast continues to be in turmoil. We
see strife and division and racism and hatred in our own country. Even within our Catholic Church, there are
tensions and divisions. Where is the
absence of harm or ruin promised by Isaiah?
That is why
Advent is so important. His kingdom is
here, but not yet perfected. The end of
time will usher in the fullness and absolute peace of the kingdom of
heaven. Advent invites us to catch
glimpses of that kingdom already in our midst.
We can catch a glimpse if we slow down and express gratitude for those
people whom God has brought into our lives.
We can catch a glimpse of his kingdom when we can finally let go of a
difficult hurt inflicted by someone we once considered a friend and confidant.
We can catch a glimpse when we see the abundant fruits of this year’s Giving
Tree and its impact on so many of our needy brothers and sisters. We can catch a glimpse when we allow our
children to teach us what it means to be “childlike.”
In today’s
Gospel, John the Baptist points another way to catch a glimpse of the Kingdom
of heaven in our midst. He calls us to repent. He wants us to acknowledge the ways in which
we have turned our backs on the kingdom of heaven with our sins. He invites us to examine the ways that we
have failed to allow the kingdom to be more evident through us. We can do that by encountering the Lord’s
mercy in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
Come to the Advent Penance Service a week from Tuesday, or make a good
Confession during the week before Christmas.
Saint Paul says that we can maintain
our hope in the presence of the kingdom of heaven and its fulfillment at the
end of time by endurance and by the encouragement of the Scriptures. The Scriptures we hear during this Advent Season
give us hope. Encouraged by what we
hear, we can repent and resolve to encounter the Lord more clearly in our daily
lives and see him in our encounter with others, especially with those we do not
like or with whom we disagree. If we can
make these efforts, then Christmas will be different. It will be more than one day that will pass
into our collective memory. It will be
an authentic encounter with the essence of Christmas: The Mystery of the
Incarnation. Christ truly dwells in our
midst. He will keep his promises.
No comments:
Post a Comment