Advent is the season of Christian imagination;
God given, enriching, a positive human faculty to think creatively - to imagine
a mystery.
I want you to imagine this - a promise
so full of potential, it is like a late fall pomegranate
splitting open revealing its sweetness.
Imagine a promise so potent, so generous
and self-giving - that even as the promise is being given it is already pouring
out what is promised.
Imagine a promise that even as we wait
for its fulfillment it gives us the abundant means, the grace, to wait in Hope
and Joy.
And I want to imagine being able to look
backwards and forwards simultaneously
because this what the Church does and
along with the whole Church I want us to imagine the fullness of the inexpressible
mystery Advent.
At Advent we look backward and call to mind
that all of scripture is the revelation of God’s promise; from creation when God
declared all to be good, through Abraham the father of faith, through Moses and
his complete trust in God, through the prophets with their visions of God.
But, most of all, in Advent, we remember
God’s promise fulfilled in Jesus, his son, our Lord.
We remember that God himself, through the
incarnation, the Word made flesh, came to be with us as Emmanuel, God is with
us.
He came because he simply loves us, he
came to bring us home, he came as truth, life, and salvation.
In this season of Advent we celebrate
the incarnation, the first coming of Christ as an infant in the manger, and we look
forward to the second coming of Christ, the Parousia, when he comes as Lord
over all.
As we celebrate we live in hope and we patiently
wait for that day and when it comes to pass and God’s promise
is fulfilled, the Church will pass away.
There will be no need of scripture. No need of
bishops, priests or deacons and the people of God will include everyone.
The work will be done, the waiting will
be over. Only God’s beatific vision will remain.
Advent, Latin for “to
come” is the longing for that momentous day.
A day Isaiah repeatedly points to as “on that day” and
what St Paul has described as
"The
plan to be carried out in Christ, in the fullness of time, to bring all things
into one in him in the heavens and on earth"
In the first reading Isaiah paints us an
imaginative view of God’s promise as the new heaven and the
new earth.
On
that day ... a shoot shall sprout....a bud will blossom…
the Spirit will judge in truth and justice.
The wolf will love the lamb and the lion
will yield to the child, the baby is safe with the cobra - for the world will
be filled overflowing and abundant with God.
On
that day, I might add
The poor and the rich will share the
same table, because they are equal, judged for who they are not for what they
have.
Nations will rejoice in God; Israelis
will love Palestinian, Sunni the Shite.
Moslem and Christian will remember that
there is only One God and we are all brothers and sisters, children, each one
of us, of that One God.
On
that day all of creation, like the prodigal son, will return to right
relationship with God, the Father and he will welcome us and all of creation, and
he will rejoice.
But, our Advent longing for that day cannot
be passive wishful thinking, but must be active and life affirming, it must enliven
our hearts to trust God completely, to him love more deeply and to have a faith
that lasts for as long as it takes.
John the Baptist longed for that day and
pointed to it when he preached repentance in the desert and when he baptized in
the Jordan as a sign of that repentance and as a first step in preparation for
the coming Lord.
John was fired up and there was urgency
in the air "for the Kingdom of God was at hand"
John called for a new honesty of
character, a true conversion and an openness to what was/is coming. John, the voice of one crying out in the
desert, prepare the way of the Lord, make
straight his paths calls the Pharisees and Sadducees, who are lurking
around his baptisms, a brood of vipers,
trouble makers, because they stubbornly look backwards to Abraham as their hope.
Abraham was a holy man loved by God, but
he could not save, only he who was coming could save.
the
Pharisees and Sadducees were roadblocks to the people because they denied the
potent truth of Isaiah’s vision.
John, who I imagine, would be losing his
temper says look!
"I am baptizing you with water, but
it is only a sign of repentance.
I
tell you, the one who is coming after me - is mightier than I.
He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit
and with fire"
The one who comes will change everything
and every tree that does not bear good fruit
will be cut down and he will consume all
of us one way or the other.
John who was not the light, but pointed
to the light seems to be saying –
we can argue till the cows come home,
but "on that day" it will
not matter.
Only Truth will matter and all will be subject
to an unquenchable fire.
A divine fire that will devour, but it
will also purify, and those purified will be foraged together, in Christ, one
body one spirit and “on
that day” all
things will be brought together into one and handed back to the Father.
This is a good thing and the Church especially
at Advent celebrates and rejoices in hope & joy for its coming.
Let
us then celebrate by looking back to God’s first coming; in all its tenderness
and joy; the nativity, the Holy Family and the child Jesus and we look forward,
beyond the horizon, to His second coming in glory to judge the living and the
dead and his kingdom will have no end.
"on
that day" our hope and our joy will spill out like that over ripe pomegranate.
and
we will rejoice in the presence of the Lord.
Come, Lord Jesus. Come!
"On that day”
the earth shall be filled with Spirit of The Lord and his dwelling shall be
glorious"
“On
that day”
our Advent longing will be over.
