Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph (December 30th, 2018)

Just days ago, the Church celebrated the Christ-Mass. The Christ-Mass (or Christmas) is the day the Church solemnly and joyfully observes the Nativity of the Lord Jesus- the day that God in Christ revealed himself to the world as a baby, as the Holy Child of Bethlehem.

It is our Faith that God in Jesus Christ accepted a human nature and lived a real, human life. God allowed himself to gestate for nine months in the womb of his mother. God allowed himself to be born and lived among his creation as a vulnerably infant, then as a child, then as an adolescent and then as a man. God in Christ has a human body, a body that grew and developed; a body of skin, hair, muscle, guts and bones. God in Christ has a family, a mother her bore him and nursed him, a father who adopted him and reared him and taught him a trade, God had grandparents who loved him, as well as aunts, uncles, and cousins. God knew for himself the joys and sorrows of being human- and he knew it from the inside, not as a passive observer from far off distance.

This revelation of God in Christ, called the Incarnation (which literally means God accepts or “takes on” our flesh) is a startling surprise and it should never cease to startle and surprise us. God is not for us Christians a distant force in the universe or the projection of an idea or an emotion that pleases us and makes us feel good about ourselves. God is for us Christians the one, true God, who in Christ, has accepted for himself a human nature and lived a real, human life. We have the Faith of the Church if we believe this to be true and factual. We are disciples of God in Christ if we live out the implications of what God in Christ has done by accepting a human nature in what we say and what we do.

The great day of the Christ-Mass is a celebration of what God has accomplished in Christ, for we Christians believe that this revelation has not only changed us, but also changed the whole world for the better. However, it is also a day of reckoning inasmuch as the Christ-Mass compels us to come to terms with what our faith in God in Christ is and what it is not.

It is easier to dismiss God to a distant corner of heaven and thereby reduce him to irrelevance or to diminish God to a thought or feeling and in doing so pretend that we can control him than it is to accept him as a living person who meets us face to face, who reveals himself in flesh and blood.

At the Christ-Mass we have to seriously contend with the reality of God’s revelation in Christ which means we have to ask ourselves as to why we withhold so much of ourselves, our lives, from God, who in Jesus Christ, gives himself entirely to us.

On this the first Sunday after the Christ-Mass, the Church celebrates the Feast day of the Holy Family. In doing so, we Christians are being reminded again of not only the joy, but the raw and real truth of the Incarnation- of God in Christ accepting a human nature. God in Christ did not live in this world as a spiritualized presence, immune from all the hard facts of human existence, but, instead, he lived in a body, embedded in the reality of a family, of a people, of a culture- just like all of us.

Our first scripture for today, from the Old Testament Book of Sirach, reminds us that the family is not merely a product of human invention, but comes from God. God wants us to have families and achieves his purposes for our lives through families. Of course, we so often frustrate God’s purposes for the families that he gives us, but that does not change the truth that the family is a reality that God wants for us and establishes as being necessary for human flourishing. We can take any of God’s gifts and make that gift into poison, turn blessings into a curse, and the Bible is honest about this, and insists over and over again just how we do this to our families. But God wants families for us and his purposes for us are frustrated when we refuse this gift.

The Book of Sirach makes it clear that families will place demands on us, but that these demands are the demands of love and love always reveals itself in sacrifices. It is through this demand of love, of sacrifice, that the family functions and it is also through the demands of love and sacrifice in our families that God’s purposes are fulfilled. Life is not made easy by the demand of love and sacrifice, but without this demand, we never become who God intends for us to be and therefore never know the purpose or meaning for our lives.

The second scripture for today, from the New Testament letter of St. Paul to the Colossians presents the Church as a new kind of family that God in Christ has given to us.

This Church, this new kind of family, expresses its purpose and meaning in values and virtues that are meant to make us more and more like Christ, for in becoming more like Christ, we become more like the children of God- members of God’s family. Through the Church’s unique way of life we show ourselves to be members of God’s household, of God’s family- God’s very own sons and daughters.

Unfortunately, this truth about the Church is lost on many Christians. The Church is not so much a family as it is an institution, a corporation, an ethnic identity or a local faith-based building and grounds project. It is because of this misperception that many drift from the Church or find it lacking in love. Policies and procedures do not offer purpose and meaning. Ethnicity is relative to circumstances and can be lost in a single generation. The Church has institutions, but these are meant for mission, not as ends in themselves.

If people do not find in the Church God’s household, God’s family, then the Church will falter and it will fail.

Finally, in Christ’s Gospel, we hear a story told about God in Christ’s childhood, that upon a visit to the city of Jerusalem, the child Jesus was for a time lost and his parents had to search for him. They found him in the great temple of the Lord, among the great sages and religious leaders, who were astounded at his wisdom.

Many preachers will emphasize the emotional import of this story- after all, what parent does not know the emotional agony of a lost child, or the fear that grips a child when separated from their parents.

This is certainly a way into today’s Gospel, but it is only a preliminary move.

The deeper meaning takes us deep in the scriptures, into the Old Testament, and a vision of the prophet Ezekiel centuries before Christ’s revelation, where the prophet saw the Lord’s divine presence abandon the temple prior to the catastrophic events of 587 BC- the year the Kingdom of David came to a violent end, Jerusalem destroyed, the temple desecrated, and the Israelites enslaved and scattered.

Thought the Israelites returned to their ancestral lands and rebuilt Jerusalem and the temple, there was the aching fear that despite these accomplishments, the divine presence that had left the temple in 587 BC had not returned and would not return until a son of David was again the king and the Kingdom of David was restored.

This son of David is Christ the Lord and his return to Jerusalem and his “finding in the temple” brings to fulfillment the hope of the prophets that the divine presence of God would again dwell with his people.

This story is about the fulfillment of prophecy and the God restoring what had been lost in 587 BC.

Its meaning for us in found in where the discovery of God in Christ happens for us. We search for the Lord but where does he dwell? Where will we find him? The Gospel indicates that we find him in the temple, but where is this temple?

The temple in which the Lord is found is the temple of the Church, the temple of the Mass. The Mass is meant to be the culmination of our searching for God in Christ. The Mass is not simply the gathering of the community or an ethnic pageant, or a celebration of ourselves. The Mass is temple worship, it is the temple where God in Christ offers himself for us and we in turn off our own lives to him.

This happens in the revelation of the Blessed Sacrament, which is not just a symbol of Christ, but the gift of his own divine life and presence. We find in the Blessed Sacrament what Christ’s parents found in the temple centuries ago.

We need not search for Christ anywhere else. He is in his temple. And his temple is here.

It is here in this temple, the temple of the Mass, that we discover Christ, and most importantly, that at the end of all our searching, that God in Christ finds us.

The Nativity of the Lord (December 25th, 2018)

It is on this day, Christmas Day, that Christians throughout the world gather to celebrate the birth of God in Christ.

Yes, it is our faith, that God in Jesus Christ has accepted a human nature and lived a real, human life. This means that over two thousand years ago God allowed himself to be born into this world and revealed himself as a tiny baby.

This is not for us Christians a myth or a legend, an idea or an opinion. It is not for us Christians a metaphor or a feeling. It is an event in space in time, in history. God has in Jesus Christ accepted a human nature and lived a real human life, and he does this, not in symbol, but in fact, in reality.

Christians celebrate this event on this day and we call it the Incarnation. This sophisticated sounding word is actually quite raw and visceral. It literally means that God accepted our flesh as his own. “Carne” is the word for “meat” and with that association in your mind, think about the full implications of what God’s incarnation in Christ means. God in Christ accepts as his own body a human body, a body of flesh, a body of “meat”- of skin and hair, muscles and bones, blood and guts, pain and death. This is what the “incarnation” of God in Christ means.

God in Christ is God in our meat, in a body, in our flesh.

That God in Christ did this was a total and complete surprise, an unexpected revelation. In fact, it was so surprising that it was not immediately apparent to all those who would meet God in the flesh that this was what God had done and many who met him or heard about his incarnation just couldn’t believe that it was possible. As it was then, so it is now. It’s just so incredible. It’s too beautiful to be true- but it is!

Why God did this is as astounding as that God did this.

God in Christ accepted a human nature and lived a real human life so that we might share in his own divine life. This is his gift, his grace. He has given each of us a human life, but he wants to give us more than what this human life offers. He wants us to share in his divine life, a divine life that opens up possibilities for us that we would not have otherwise.

The early sages of the Church called this gift for us, this grace of the Incarnation a “marvelous exchange”. God accepted from us a human nature so that we could receive from him a share of his divine nature. The purpose and meaning of our existence is revealed to us when we accept this gift.

Just as the Incarnation of God in Christ is a matter of flesh, a matter of body and blood, so also is the gift we receive from God in Christ’s marvelous exchange. The same divine life and presence that was revealed to the world over two thousand years ago, reveals itself to us, gives itself to us as a gift, as a grace in a revelation just as wonderful and mysterious. We call this this revelation the Blessed Sacrament, Holy Communion, the Eucharist of Christ’s Body and Blood.

Over two thousand years ago God in Christ revealed himself to the world in body and in blood, and he extends that revelation to us through the centuries in the Body and Blood of the Blessed Sacrament.

This is why we Christians come here, on this the day that the birth of God in our world is celebrated. We come to the Christ-Mass. The mystery of God in Christ revealed in Bethlehem is the mystery of God in Christ revealed in the Sacrament of his Body and his Blood. It is here, at the Christ-Mass, that the “marvelous exchange” is accomplished anew and we behold the same mystery that the Holy Virgin received with love, that Joseph guarded with vigilance and care, that the angels proclaimed in shouts of glory, and that the shepherds drew close in awe- the same mystery that was illuminated by the light of Bethlehem’s star is the mystery given to us in the Christ-Mass.

Christmas is not for us Christians merely a festival of winter themes or a cultural pageant. The gift-giving that is most important to us is not one that has retail value, for it is priceless- it is the gift of the marvelous exchange. And this gift is offered here- the gift of God in Christ’s divine life and presence given to us in his Blessed Sacrament.

This gift, once received, and received in faith, hope and love, has the potential to change us and indeed that is God’s purpose. He does not give himself to us as a gift merely to affirm us as we are, but to offer us a life that is different, a life that is changed, transformed, forgiven and redeemed.

The exchange of the marvelous exchange remains dreadfully incomplete if in response to God in Christ’s giving his life to us we withhold our lives from him.

Thus, know right now that receiving God in Christ in the Sacrament of his Body and Blood is not merely a symbolic gesture, an expression of culture or of community values. Receiving Holy Communion is an expression of your relationship with God in Christ- to receive him this way means that when you come forward and accept him, you intend to give your life over to him. God in Christ gives his life to you and you in response, give your life over to him. God in Christ makes his sacrifice, and now you make yours. God in Christ has made his life his gift to you, now you must decide whether or not to make your life a gift for him.

No one who beheld the revelation of God in our flesh over two thousand years ago in Bethlehem was ever the same. The “Word”, that is God, became flesh and they came face to face with him, and in this encounter, they also came face to face with a decision. Would they make their lives a gift for God who had made his life a gift for them? That same decision is ours today.

 

Fourth Sunday of Advent (December 23rd, 2018)

Christians, we are now in the last hours of our Advent grace. Yes, Advent is a gift, a gift through which we can renew our relationship with Christ in the Church, coming to know him better and coming to terms with what he asks of us.

The days and weeks of Advent progress towards the great and solemn celebration of Christmas- or more literally, the Christ-Mass. This Christ-Mass commemorates the nativity or birth of the Lord Jesus. This is for us Christians no ordinary event, but a revelation of God. For Jesus Christ is not just one among many important historical figures, he is God, the one, true God, who has accepted a human nature and lived a real, human life.

The implication of this are staggering and first revealed to the world in the birth of Christ. God becomes human in Christ. God becomes a man. After nine months of gestating in the womb of his Holy Mother, God in Christ is born into this world as a baby. This is his gift to us. God so desires communion with us, to share his divine life with us, that he does something that is utterly surprising and seemingly impossible- God accepts a human nature and lives a real, human life, meeting us in the midst of his creation, not as an idea or opinion or as a book or as a feeling, but face to face.

The Christ-Mass brings Advent to its fulfillment. It is the purpose of Advent to take us to the Christ-Mass and receive from God in Christ in his Blessed Sacrament, in Holy Communion, the gift he reveals to the world in Bethlehem centuries ago- the gift of his divine life and presence. Let me say that again: In the Christ-Mass we are given the opportunity to receive the same divine life and presence that revealed itself to the world in Bethlehem. We do not, come to Christ through a holiday pageant, but we come to Christ in the deep mysticism of his sacramental grace- through the Mass; through holy communion with the gift of his divine life in the Sacrament of his Body and Blood.

Advent has been preparing us for this Christ-Mass that celebrates the birth of the one, true God into this world in Jesus Christ. Christians have been called to repentance and works of mercy and in the scriptures assigned by the Church for Advent, we have been introduced anew to Jesus himself- and this introduction has happened, not according to our opinions, or according to our emotions, or according to our ideas, but according to the Scriptures. Through the Scriptures of both the Old and New Testaments, the Church has re-introduced us to Jesus Christ.

This is important to remember: the Church does not proclaim the Scriptures merely as a source of ancient wisdom for developing life skills, or as an ancient history lesson, or as a text for religious debate and discussion. The Church proclaims the Scriptures as a long, sustained introduction to God in Christ, to Jesus himself. Knowing who he is we can know what he asks us to do and in knowing Christ and doing what he asks of us we discover God’s purpose and meaning for our lives. In knowing Christ we become who God intends for us to be.

If we have accepted the Church’s introduction to Jesus Christ “according to the Scriptures” in these weeks of Advent, we have the opportunity of meeting him at the Christ-Mass, not as an idea or emotion, not as a remote figure from the distant past, but as a Savior and as a friend.

During Advent, I have spoken about the relationship of the Old Testament scriptures to the catastrophic events of 587 BC. This was the year that the once mighty Kingdom of David came to end. The Israelites were enslaved and driven from their lands. The city of Jerusalem was destroyed. The temple of God was desecrated, ransacked and burned, and the royal house of David was humiliated and executed. Only a remnant of the Israelites remained and the only hope they had was that God would one day set things right, restoring to them their land, their city, their temple and their king. This seems impossible for them to accomplish. Only God could set things right. And their hope was the God would come into this world and do precisely that.

This hope is fulfilled in Jesus Christ, but it is fulfilled in an extraordinary way. God comes to this world as the true King, but he extends his kingdom beyond the territory of the Israelites to include the whole world. God comes in Christ and establishes a new city for his people, a city we know as the Church. God comes in Christ and builds a new temple, but does so, not out of stone and mortar, but out of the Body and Blood of Christ.

The hope of God in Christ is signaled to us in the writings of the prophets and this hope is expressed by the prophet Micah today is his testimony that God will reveals himself in an extraordinary way in the city of Bethlehem. Bethlehem was known as the city of the family of David, the greatest of the Israelite kings, and from this city a new king, a new David would be revealed. We Christians know this king, this new David to be the Holy Child born in Bethlehem. In Christ the vision of the prophet Micah is fulfilled.

Our second Scripture for today is from the Letter to the Hebrews. The Letter to the Hebrews is a New Testament text that has as its purpose to demonstrate how the worship of the Church, the worship we know as the Mass relates to the temple worship of the Old Testament.

The Letter to the Hebrews testifies that God has revealed himself in Christ as a new High Priest and given to his Church a new kind of temple worship. Thus, the temple of God, destroyed so long ago, renewed, restored, and redeemed. The worship of the Old Testament temple is no longer necessary for us Christians, because God in Christ has given to us in a new temple, a temple that we enter into during the Mass.

As God made himself present to his people in the ancient temple of Jerusalem, now God in Christ makes himself present to us in the temple of the Mass. This is why we do not settle for an experience of Christ that is merely ideas or feelings or opinions, but we come to the Mass, where he gives to us in mysticism and mystery, the gift of his divine life and presence.

And therefore, our Christmas joy can never simply culminate in holiday themed decorations, culinary delights and the exchange of material goods. Our Christmas joy comes to fulfillment in the Christ-Mass, in the new temple, in our holy communion with Christ’s divine life. All the customs of Christmas as meant to take us to the new temple, to the Christ-Mass, or they become incomplete, even misleading.

Finally, in the Lord’s Gospel we hear about the visitation of Christ’s Mother to her cousin, Elizabeth. Elizabeth bears in her womb infant John the Baptist, who will proclaim to the world that the day of the Lord’s coming is near and that God has come to set right what went so wrong in 587 BC.

Christ’s Mother bears in her womb the Incarnation of the Living and True God, the King who has come to set a world gone wrong right.

The Gospel insists that this testimony is true. It has really happened. God entered really history over two thousand years ago on March 25^th, the date that he first quickened to a human life in the womb of his Holy Mother. Nine months later, on December 25^th, in the little city of Bethlehem, David’s city, he revealed himself to the world as a child, as a man, for the first time.

This is the revelation that Advent leads us to. The grace, the gift, first revealed in Bethlehem over two thousand years ago, is the grace, the gift that is given to us at the Christ-Mass on December 25^th.

This gift is not a myth or a legend. It is not given to us in holiday themed pageants or merely through ideas or feelings. These can at best direct our attention to the gift, but they are not the gift himself. The gift is Christ’s divine life and presence, given to us as a Sacrament, the Sacrament of his Body and his Blood.

Advent is ending.

It is the Christ-Mass that is God’s gift.

 

Third Sunday of Advent (December 16th, 2018)

The Church’s first scripture for today’s Mass is an excerpt from the Old Testament prophet Zephaniah.  Zephaniah was a contemporary of the prophet Jeremiah and Baruch, the great Old Testament prophets we heard from on the First and Second Sundays of our Advent commemoration.

Each of these prophets has in common the terrifying experience of horrific loss.  In the year 587 BC, the Kingdom of David, long in decline, would be utterly destroyed by the invading armies of the Babylonian Empire.

The royal family, the successors of King David, who had been promised by God a throne that would last forever, would be executed.  The lands of the Israelites, that had been promised to Abraham as an everlasting inheritance, would be seized and occupied.  The city of Jerusalem, King David’s city, would be reduced to ruins.  And the temple, built by King David’s son, Solomon, as the spiritual center of all Israelites and the house of God on earth, would be desecrated, ransacked and destroyed.

The Israelites themselves would be humiliated, some fleeing as refugees, others subjugated and enslaved.  Israel was no more.

Prophets like Jeremiah, Baruch, and Zephaniah witnessed all this, and in the years preceding this catastrophe, they warned the Israelites and begged them to change.  The prophets were certain that the Israelites had elevated wealth, power, pleasure and honors to a significance in their lives that belonged properly only to God- and these idols of their desires would crush and destroy them.  They understood the terrors of 587 BC as the horrific consequence for idolatry.  False gods are liars, murderers and thieves, and all their empty promises to deliver to the Israelites wealth, pleasure, power and honors were exposed in 587 BC.

This history is not just ancient history, but the perennial story of humanity.  It is a story from which neither Christians or the Church are exempt.  As I have taught many times now from this pulpit- the story of Israel is the story of the Church.  We look back into the history of the Israelites, not simply to hear interesting stories from the past, but to understand ourselves, to understand the Church as its moves through time.  We have our own dangerous idols to contend with and the enticements of wealth, pleasure, power and honors tempt us and we would be liars if we said that these allurements are not greatly desired by us.  We are not all that different from the Israelites.  The warnings of the prophets are not for generations in the past, but for all of us in the present and in the future.

But, it must be remembered that the great Israelite prophets did not just offer warnings, they also offered consolation.  And this consolation is what the prophet Zephaniah offers us today.

In the face of the darkness of 587 BC, Zephaniah casts light.  The Israelites have been defeated, but God has not.  God will one day act to restore all that has been lost- king, land, temple, city.  God will free captive Israel and bring the exiles home.

This hope will sustain the Israelites and the fulfillment of this hope will be the cause of their joy.

We Christians believe that the words of consolation offered by Zephaniah has bene fulfilled by God in Christ.  God in Christ has made himself the one, true King and has extended his Kingdom beyond the lands of the Israelites to include the whole world.  He has built a new temple for himself in the very body of the Lord Jesus and made his Church a new Jerusalem, for not only the Israelites, but for all the nations.  God in Christ has defeated the dark powers that wreak such havoc and destruction in our world, the powers of sin, death and the devil.

This is for Christians the cause of our joy.  All that was lost in 587 BC has been restored, but it has all been restored in a manner that is beyond all expectations.

God in Christ is not for us Christians merely a symbol.  His revelation is not just a metaphor.  He is not just one among many great men of history.  God in Christ has entered time and human circumstances, becoming one like us, accepting a human nature and living a real, human life.  His revelation is not that of an idea or an emotion, but of the fulfillment of the prophets.  He gives to us not just rules or regulations, but a new way of life.  He reveals himself as God and as King and acts to cast out the idols we desire and free us from the exile that the dark powers of sin, death and the devil impose.  He opens up for us the possibility of a new kind of world, not just in heaven, but here on earth.

This is all marked and remembered during the season of Advent lest we become distracted and complacent, and come to believe that the Church is merely a social club, God is merely an abstraction, our profession of faith merely an opinion, and Jesus Christ merely a feeling or an idea.

God has acted in Christ to set right what went wrong in 587 BC and he acts right now in Jesus Christ to set right what is going wrong in all of us.

This is why the Apostle Paul in our second scripture, his letter to the Philippians, tells us to rejoice.

He is not simply telling us to be optimistic, but to express genuine in faith in what God in Christ has accomplished for us.  Too many of us Christians treat the Gospel as if it’s a tale from long ago and the Church as if it’s an ethnic identity.  And that is why we can come across as sad, narrow and brittle.  We resist seeing in our own lives the power of Christ to move us, shape us, change us- to invigorate our lives with mission and meaning.  We settle for a faith that we confine and control and there is not joy in any of this.

This is a spiritual dead end and it can only be remedied by intensifying our focus, not on ourselves, but on God in Christ, learning anew who he is and accepting the joy that comes with meeting him as if for the first time.

This is the opportunity that Advent calls us to accept.

Finally, in Christ’s Gospel, our introduction to John the Baptist continues.

John the Baptist is a curious and strange figure.  He is the Wildman of the New Testament.  He is the last of the biblical prophets.  He is a priest who has left the temple.  He speaks God’s word of truth, insisting that the time is now to repent because God in Christ is no longer just coming- but he is now here.

Today, John insists that the coming of God in Christ necessitates that we examine our consciences and change our way of life.  God in Christ comes to us, not to affirm us as we are, but to transform the way we think and act.  As I have said, his revelation is not just an idea or a feeling, but a new way of life.

John also indicates truth about the Lord Jesus that most of us find difficult to bear- that God in Christ comes into this world, into our lives as judge.  This means, as John testifies, he is greater and mightier than us.  And that further, his judgment means that he intends to set right what is wrong in us, wrong in our world.  This is why John says he will baptize us with fire- he will unleash in us a what seems like fire, and all that is unworthy of God- all the sin and death and the devil that makes us a distortion of who God intends us to be, will be burned away, cleared out so that a new way of life can emerge and grow.  The good in us will be separated from the bad and it is God in Christ who will accomplish this in us.

The Gospel for today testifies that John the Baptist’s message of repentance, judgement and transformation in Christ is good news and there is, perhaps, the lesson for us.

The opportunity to repent, the coming to terms with our truth, the possibility of a new way of life.  The coming of Christ into our lives to set us right. The experience of not simply being affirmed, but truly changed.  This is all good news.  This is all reason to rejoice.

 

Second Sunday of Advent (December 9th, 2018)

The prophet Baruch was a friend and collaborator of the Prophet Jeremiah, both proclaiming God’s truth to the Israelites during a time of great fear and distress.

The Kingdom of David was coming to an end. Long in decline, it would fall before the armies of Babylon in the year 587 BC, and this catastrophe would be for the Israelites, apocalyptic. Jeremiah foresaw this disaster, as did Baruch and both prophets would see the horror for themselves- the royal family executed, the people scattered and enslaved, the walls of Jerusalem reduced to ruins, the city of Jerusalem ransacked and the great temple, the spiritual heart of the Israelites, desecrated and razed to the ground. It was, for the Israelites, the end of the world.

The scriptures cannot be properly understood without the events of 587 BC in mind and this is more so for the New Testament, which is unintelligible without 587 BC as the reference point, for it is the Israelite hope for a Savior, and the promise of a Redeemer that rises up from the ashes of this catastrophe. Only God could set things right. But would he?

Today the prophet Baruch testifies that God would set things right and restore what the Israelites had lost- king, land, city, temple.

Christians believe that God has, in Jesus Christ, acted to set things right and restore what had been lost, but does so in way that confounds and surprises. God comes himself as the king, extends the boundaries of his kingdom to the whole earth, makes for himself a new city which is his Church and establishes a new temple in the Body of Christ himself.

This is what the revelation of the New Testament is all about and it is what the scriptures of the Advent season present to us. The coming of God in Christ into the world was the fulfillment of hopes and expectations that followed the events of 587 BC- the hope that God would become king.

This is what shepherds and magi saw in the manger of Bethlehem. This is what caused King Herod to tremble in his palace. This what the disciples of the Lord Jesus saw in him. This is why he was crucified. This is reason why Peter and Paul and the Apostles surrendered their lives to follow him. This is why Christians to this day remain a provocative and at times unwelcome reality in the world. All this is because God came into this world in Christ to reveal himself as the world’s true and only king.

The prophet Baruch foresaw what God would accomplish in Christ. What Baruch only foresaw in visions, we possess in reality. Advent is intended to remind us of this truth. This why the Church turns again and again to prophets like Baruch during the Advent season- to remind us who God in Christ is and also, to remind us, because of Christ, who we are.

Last Sunday I spoke about the coming of Christ in history, mystery and in glory and the second reading for today references the coming of Christ in glory.

Christ has come into this world as a man and his life and presence endures in this world in his Church, but the day will come when all of us, without exception will meet the Lord Jesus face to face. As such, we should be prepared, and we prepare ourselves, the Apostle Paul tells us in his letter to the Philippians, by our way of life, the manner in which we live. What we say and do in the course of our lives matters and it all constitutes what the Lord Jesus will meet in us. Will he find in us a friend or a stranger? Our way of life right now determines the answer to this question.

The coming of Christ in glory is presented by the Scriptures as the coming of Christ as judge. This is not a popular truth for many Christians, for one of the worst things many believe that anyone can do is judge someone else. Perhaps this is the case for sinners, but not for God in Christ, who purifies us in judgement and effects through his judgement our forgiveness and reconciliation.

Christ knows our truth and when we meet him he knows fully who we are, and what we have become through our choices and decisions. Meeting him is not just affirmation, but a reckoning with what we have done and failed to do. He promises us mercy, but this mercy always happens through a sifting of our truth. This is what is meant by the judgement of God, a judgement that we all will experience when we meet Christ in his glory.

It is for this reason that St. Paul insists that Christians ready themselves right now for this moment. Do our lives conform to the demands of the Gospel or not? Are we even trying? Do we know what Christ asks of us? Are we truly his disciples or do we follow other masters? Is our faith in him or in someone or something else? Do we act as if we truly believe Christ is living and present to us or… through our actions do we demonstrate we believe Christ exists only at a distance and as a secondary concern?

The Church offers us the Sacrament of Reconciliation to prepare us for our inevitable meeting with Christ face to face. Advent reminds us that the time to prepare ourselves for the coming of the Lord, is now, not later.

The Gospel for today introduces us to the curious figure of John the Baptist, the wild man of the New Testament. John is popularly known as the “last of the prophets” meaning, that in him biblical prophecy comes to its fulfillment, because the reason for that prophecy, the Lord Jesus, has finally been revealed.

The scriptures testify that John was not only a prophet, but a priest, in fact, a descendent from two of the greatest of Israelite priestly clans. And yet, the Gospel tells us, he eschews his priestly identity and retreats into the wilderness, where he is summoned by God to call the Israelites to repentance.

This he does with great passion and fervor, upsetting the elites of his day and signaling to the Israelites that God was ready to reveal himself (to the Israelites) in an extraordinary way.

This revelation is Christ the Lord, God who comes to his people face to face as a man. This is reason for John’s call to repentance. God has come in Christ as king and he has come to set things right. He will compel us to a decision- will we give our lives to him or to someone or something else? Now is not the time to argue, to equivocate, to negotiate, or make demands. Now is the time for decision, for or against God the king.

John’s call to repentance remains necessary and relevant to this day in the life of every Christian- without exception. Repentance is an act of humility, an acknowledgement of our resistance to God. There is in all us sinners a refusal of God, a great “no” to his will and purposes.

God in Christ comes to us in his Church, in his Sacraments, to set us right.

The Sacraments are not just pleasant customs or expressions of culture but an encounter with the Lord Jesus himself. The manner in which Christ presents himself to us today is different from it was at the time of John the Baptist, but his presence is nevertheless real. He comes to us, not just in ideas or emotions, but in the Church, in the Sacraments, in the suffering bodies of his beloved poor, and he comes to us not just for affirmation, but for transformation. His means to change us and resists our efforts to stall him in his work of renewal.

Christians are called by Christ to many things, but foremost and primarily, we are called to repent.

First Sunday of Advent (December 2nd, 2018)

Today the Church begins the solemn observances of Advent, a time dedicated to heightened prayer, penance and preparations for the celebrations of the Christmas season.

Consider this time as an opportunity to renew your relationship with Jesus Christ in the Church. Remember, we Christians do not have a relationship with Jesus Christ simply in our minds or in our emotions, but we have a relationship with Christ in the Church. The Church bears the life and presence of the Lord Jesus into our lives and into the world and it does this because of what the Church really and truly is- Christ’s own body in the world.

The reduction of the Church to an institution, a faith-based building and grounds department of an international religious cooperation is one of the great misperceptions of the Church in our times. The Church has institutions, which are intended, not as ends in themselves, but a means to further the mission Christ has given the baptized to transform lives and the world. But none of the institutions are what the Church really and truly is- the living presence of Christ in the world.

This distinction is worth considering during this season of Advent.

The scriptures the Church proclaims for Advent will invite us to consider the coming of Christ into the world and will propose three ways of understanding how Christ’s coming happens- Christ comes in history, in mystery and in glory.

The first, Christ comes in history, directs our attention to revelation that God has acted and continues to act in time and in reality. God’s power and presence is not sequestered in heaven and he does not remain aloof and indifferent to his creation. The scriptures testify that God has intervened in history in extraordinary ways and continues his interventions- the greatest of which is revealed in Christ, where God accepts a human nature and lives a real, human life.

Christ is not for us Christians merely a great man of history, a hero who stands alongside other religious and civic leaders who advanced the cause of civilization. Christ is God, the Lord of all history, who shows the extent of his interest and involvement in our world and in our lives by being born in his creation as a man and living among us as a brother and as a friend. The great solemnity of Christmas, the Christ-Mass, that the Church will celebrate in a few weeks celebrates our first glimpse of God in Christ, the wonder of heaven and earth, as God presents himself to the world in our flesh, as one like us, as a man.

Our first scripture for today, from the Old Testament book of the Prophet Jeremiah is about the coming of Christ in history. The Book of Jeremiah is one of the saddest of the books of the Bible. The once mighty kingdom of David is doomed to destruction and in the year 587 BC will be utterly destroyed with only a remnant of the Israelites remaining. Jeremiah warns the Israelites that this terrifying turn of events is about to uproot their lives, but his warnings are not heeded. And as the Israelites gaze in horror as everything they know and love is taken from them, the prophet Jeremiah attempts to speak words of consolation, assuring them that God will one day act to set things right and restore what has been lost.

The restoration happens in Christ for in him God reveals himself to be the not only the one, true God, but the one, true king and he offers to his people and all peoples of the world his kingdom, the renewal and transformation of the world through his presence and power in the lives of those who follow him.

All this happens in history, for God in Christ enters this world, his creation, not as an idea or as a felling or as a myth, but as a man. Those who believed in Christ and who followed him saw in Christ God’s intervention in the world, an intervention to set right what had gone so wrong in 587 BC. God in Christ came in history and he comes in history to this very day.

The second coming of Christ is in mystery and by this is meant that his power and presence comes into our lives through signs, symbols, and Sacraments in the Church. Christ comes to us in mystery does not mean that he comes into our lives as problem for us to solve, but as a revelation that confounds us in all our expectations of who God is and what we think God should do. This is what the apostle Paul is alluding to in the Church’s second reading, an excerpt from his first letter to the Thessalonians.

The apostle Paul testifies that if we are truly responsive to the power and presence of Christ offered to us in the Church, then our lives will change and this transformation will be most evident in how we treat one another. How does this work?

In the Sacraments we learn what God loves, and knowing what God loves, we will love what he loves. What God loves is all of us, despite how unlovable we can be- and yet God loves us, even forgives us when that forgiveness is undeserved. The invitation of the Sacraments to love what God loves is an invitation to love one another as God in Christ has loved us. Christ is the pattern which God reveals as the way that we should love him, love one another and engage the world in which we live. The love of God in Christ is not sentimental or romantic, but gritty, raw, and realistic. It is love incarnate in the mess of our flesh and blood, in the midst of our suffering and our pain. It is not love as a feeling, but as an act of will that stands defiant before all the dark powers of sin and the devil. It is a love that risks all, even poverty and death, so that it might be given to the world as a grace, as a gift.

If we permit our spiritual vision to expand from our self-centered narrowness we will see all this in the Church’s mysteries- in the signs, in the symbols and most importantly, in the Sacraments and we will then learn from the Sacraments to love what God loves and in doing so, come to appreciate how Christ comes to us right now in mystery.

The third coming of Christ is in glory and the Lord Jesus himself gives testimony to this revelation in his Gospel for today.

Christ speaks of his revelation as the “Son of Man” and by this is meant that he comes into this world to set a creation compromised by the powers of sin, death and the devil right and this righting of a world gone wrong will shake the foundations of the world.

This revelation of Christ in glory is anticipated in how so often our encounter with Christ shakes, indeed overturns, the foundations of our own lives, compelling us to a decision, insisting that we change.

The offer of a relationship with Jesus Christ is not an offer of affirmation of our status quo. God in Christ does not affirm us as we are, but offers us a new way of life, a way of life that radically reorients our sense of who we are and what we are supposed to do. A relationship with Jesus Christ is a crucible in which the power of sin and devil is exorcised from us, cast out, and we are set free for mission, a mission that will most often take us where we would not have chosen to go.

In all this, Christ comes to us in his glory.

But we must also remember, that the coming of Christ in glory is also where all creation is headed. God in Christ promises his return and God in Christ keeps his promises. In the past, God in Christ came into this world as a man, being born into this world as one life us. And now he is with us still, in the Church, in mystery and in Sacrament he continues to influence and remake the world. But Christ’s coming in history and mystery anticipates his coming in glory- a real event in space and in time, where he will bring raise up a fallen world and offer to a world at its end, a new beginning.

In these days of Advent, let us mark and remember well the coming of Christ- in history, in mystery and in glory.