Advent

The word ‘mission’ has had different meanings in the history of the Church. Today in can refer  to the outreach asked of each of us as Christians to those who are not of our faith.

Some would see division as being the difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament.  In the OT the picture of God is that of an angry judge, in the NT the picture is that of a loving Savior. Our readings today undermine the simplicity of such a view. In our reading from Isaiah we are offered a vision of peace, even among those who are naturally enemies. In our Gospel reading you feel John the Baptist would be perfectly at home in one of those old-style parish missions.

Jesus chooses to be the victim of violence rather than invoke His mighty powers to bring home the truth of His message. By doing this He reveals the nature of God. He also seems to have become fairly exasperated by the obtuseness of His disciples at times, in their case referring more sadly to their lack of faith and their likely weakness under attack. His main concern is to find a way of communicating that gets through to His listeners.

St. Luke the Evangelist does not dwell on the journey. He merely states that around the time that the angel left Mary, she set out to the hill country of Judah to visit Elizabeth, who had kept the conception of her child to herself, living in seclusion in the house occupied by her and Zechariah. This story is more than visitation, in the sense that the issues are far greater than a young woman setting aside her own concerns with an unexpected pregnancy to visit her relative, also dealing with an unexpected pregnancy. Both of these women have things in common: they are under a cloud because of their circumstances. Mary is a young, unmarried mother-to-be; Elizabeth is elderly to be considered beyond any possibility of having children. Both of women have been informed by unusual sources of the divine origin of their children.

Mary will sing the song we call the Magnificat, where she proclaims that her soul gives glory to God and her spirit rejoices in the God who saves her. St. Paul says that God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise that God chose what is weak to shame the strong. In Mary and Elizabeth we see the best expressions of this.

Today we hear the prophetic words of St. John the Baptist. They are words of judgment and yet we are told he announced “the Good News”. John has been sent to prepare the people for the coming of the Lord who will bring salvation. In St. Luke’s Gospel, Jesus  links salvation to what we do with our possessions. John’s words of judgment arouse the people from their complacency but prepare them to receive the good news of salvation which Christ will bring.

We may sometimes wish that God would leave us alone – get off our backs. But St. John the Baptist and the prophets tell us that this is the worst thing God could do. Left to ourselves we get lost following whatever desire we have for possessions, money or just a comfortable, quiet life. St. John the Baptist still points to a deeper freedom beyond the enticement of comfort or possessions. It is a word of judgment that leads to the good news of salvation. And this is why we rejoice today because we know that beyond the pain and inconvenience of change we can rejoice in Christ’s presence as He comes to us this Christmas.

To live in the desert is to depend utterly on God and to live without protection. The books of Exodus and Deuteronomy tells of the testing of Israel as they made their escape from Egypt; they could not live in the desert without the direct protection of God, a fire by night and a cloud by day. To live in the desert is to be open to what is coming, yet not even John fully realized what the coming of Christ would mean. The world becomes completely open when Jesus the Messiah arrives. He is to be the Savior not just of one people, one nation, but of the whole of humanity, and humanity must have no more barriers.

How today we make ourselves able to accept Christ into the world? Jesus is the great arrival, the messenger of the Father and the message. The message is more than words; it is God coming into the world in God’s own fullness. Anyone who welcomes any human being in the name of Christ, welcomes Christ himself. Advent can be for us the season of welcome, when we consider how we will allow new people into our lives, as we prepare to celebrate the coming of Christ into our world.

We believe in a Savior who is risen, ascended, glorified; but first He had to be crucified. There can be no resurrection without the crucifixion, no Easter without Lent; and likewise no Christmas without Advent. Jesus teaches us that we cannot journey with Him to the joys of heaven unless we first take up our cross and follow Him to Calvary.

Those of us who have not lived through the cruelty of war in person have suffered disasters on the more ordinary level of our everyday lives. We suffer sickness and pain, bereavement and grief, guilt and shame. Many of us have felt that our own world was coming to an end.

Christ predicted disasters, but His message is still one of the hope. “Stand erect, hold your heads high, because your liberation is near at hand,” He tells His listeners, and the message is for us too. The crucifixion must come, but it is followed by resurrection and glory, for us as for Christ. By this hope we may well stay awake, and stand with confidence before the Son of Man.

The Jewish people were deeply imbued with the story of their ancestors and lived in hope that God would redeem them from past failures. The long-awaited Messiah is announced and St. Luke is concerned that we make the necessary connections, and see that this is God’s plan, so long foretold by the prophets, coming to fulfillment. Isaiah prophesied that a “virgin would be with child”: Mary is that virgin. Joseph, the one to whom she is betrothed, is of the House of David.

As we approach the celebration of the great feast of Christmas, once again the Church is inviting us to think about our heritage. Like the Jewish people of old, Christians are generally very conscious of the chequered history of the pas 2000 years. It is the story of saints and sinners, struggling with the complexities of life in every age. Like the people of the Old Testament, we may often be tempted to imagine that God has abandoned us. We are part of the new inheritance, invited to be brothers and sisters of Jesus and therefore heirs to the kingdom of God. The message announced to Mary is proclaimed again this Christmas and we are to be its heralds.