First Sunday of Advent
We are all waiting for something. Students wait anxiously for exams to be over. Expecting parents wait for the birth of their child. The addict waits for sobriety. The ill person waits for a day when pain will no longer be his constant companion. Residents wait for a day when violence will cease and peace will return to our streets. The unemployed wait for a day when they can secure a job to provide for their family. We are all waiting for something.
Today we begin the season of Advent. Advent is all about the spirituality of waiting.
As we begin this season we hear from the great advent prophet. The first reading comes from the book of the prophet Isaiah. It has to do with the passionate waiting of the people of Israel. They were a community in crisis, a ragged group of exiles who had return from Babylon after 48 years in captivity. They returned to the devastation of their Temple and their beloved city. As they made their way to Jerusalem the returning exiles had to confront their adversaries who had taken over the city. They were a tired people, discouraged by their efforts to reclaim and rebuild their city.
In the verses just before the passage for today, Isaiah cries out to God giving voice to the people’s frustration. He says: “Our adversaries have trampled down your sanctuary. We have become like those over whom you have never ruled, like those who are not called by your name.” The prophet was giving voice to the frustrations of a people who felt as if God had abandoned them. Events made it seem like God’s enemies had triumph; Israel had lost its privilege as God’s chosen people-like God had forgotten his promise to bless Israel and to give them a future of hope.
Listen to Isaiah as he laments: “Why do you let us wander, O Lord, from your ways and harden our hearts so that we fear you not? Return for the sake of your servants, the tribes of your heritage. Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, with the mountains quaking before you.”
Isaiah’s lament is borne out of frustration that God is silent, seemingly unconcerned at the plight of his people. It is the frustration of one who is tired of waiting; one who has heard of God’s mighty deeds in the past, but has not seen them in the present.
My friends, there is so much that is a part of our world that makes us want to implore God with Isaiah. We have days that tax our patience, endurance and faith. Losses of every sort, a spouse, a child, a home, a job, one’s health, all might constitute an occasion for us to echo Isaiah plea that God rend the heavens and come down. Through the ages believers have found a voice in Isaiah, wanting to know where God is when calamities and injuries confront us.
God would rend the heavens and come down but not as Isaiah expected. God came down to earth not in power, but in weakness, not in pageantry and spectacle but in simplicity, not in brilliance and glory but under the cover of darkness. Not as a mighty champion, but as vulnerable infant. In the little child of Bethlehem God answered Isaiah’s prayer.
My friends, a basic principal of the bible is that God comes in ways we least expect. As we begin the season of Advent we ask for that spiritual vision that allows us to recognize the in breaking of God in our lives and world.
The way God answered Isaiah’s prayer is the way that he continues to come: quietly, hidden from the world, in a way that is discernible only to the eyes of faith to.
We come to this great season of hope and excitement but yet the gospel strikes a rather somber tone. The Church has us begin our preparation for Christmas not with the joyful message of Christ’s birth, but with a sober message: “Be watchful, be alert, you do not know when the time will come.”
Today’s gospel is part of the 13 chapter of Mark, a chapter known as the “little apocalypse.” Apocalyptical writings usually are addressed to people in a time of uncertainty or suffering. Such was the case of the community to which Mark was writing. At the time Mark wrote his gospel Jerusalem and the Temple lay in ruins. Persecutions were a painful reality. Experiencing most heavily the absence of Jesus, the early Christians were torn between giving themselves over to despair or reaching for any flicker of hope.
Mark incorporated these words of our Lord to challenge the early Christians to remain steadfast in their commitment to Christ, uncompromising in their fidelity and firm in their hope.
For us who are years removed from the Mark’s community, the gospel call to be watchful and alert carries the same challenge. To be watchful and alert is to be faithful in our work, persistent in our prayer, constant in our pursuit of holiness and firm in our hope.
We are all waiting, not for something but waiting for someone. But we are challenged to wait not in a passive sense, sitting still and doing nothing, but wait in an active way, by remaining faithful to our Christian duty.
