2nd Sunday of Advent

December 7, 2003

"As the sands in the hour glass, so are the days of our lives." I don’t know of anyone who uses an hour glass any more, except perhaps for boiling an egg. We have more precise analogue clocks and watches, which measure the movement of hands in relationship to one another. And we also have digital time pieces precise to the millionth of a micro-second; but these read strictly present time with no relationship to past or future.

As human beings we are deeply rooted in the cycle of time and seasons and anniversaries, which help us to understand the mysteries of life. In different ways the changing seasons help us to celebrate a particular expression of Jesus’ Paschal Mystery.

By declaring that God dwells in our time, that God dwells with us, He has sanctified time forever. All too often Advent is viewed as the time of waiting for Christmas. But that does not express the reality of our life! Whose waiting? Stores have been decorated since Labor Day. Perhaps the only waiting is in long lines at the market or mall a waiting that can grind on our nerves. Ask any expectant mother.

Advent is not so much a time of waiting but of preparation. A call to wake up, pay attention, to be attentive: attentive to what? To the fact that the Messiah is with us He has already been born and lived and died on this earth.

But more than 2,000 years after His Nativity, He remains as Emmanuel, God with us. Advent prepares us not merely to celebrate a past event, an historical remembrance, but to participate in an ongoing reality.

All of us need a wake up call now and then. On this Second Sunday of Advent the scriptures call us to rejoice even in the face of our personal failures because in faith we know that God will not fail us.

During November we heard the message of the prophets Daniel and Jeremiah to a people bewildered and in need of consolation; broken, seemingly hopeless; their Temple being destroyed and many being deported or murdered. Surely we have seen the same in our own day. But the prophets of God turn their eyes, no matter how dark it might seem, to wake up to the light.

Today the prophet, Baruch writes to this people returning from exile, home at last but everything must be rebuilt, everything renewed. There is nothing left of what once was.

While Baruch speaks of rebuilding the land and the culture, and the Holy City Jerusalem, Paul speaks to us of rebuilding ourselves as a holy people. Even writing from a prison cell, Paul rejoices on behalf of his people, God’s people.

What if we really believed that? Wouldn’t we welcome one another and help one another to recognize and rejoice in the salvation of God? Advent is not a time of merely waiting; of sitting or standing around in frustration and reluctantly accepting things as they are; it is a time of preparation and action; it is a time of making things happen, now.

In the gospel we hear the voice of John the Baptist cry: Make ready, make straight, Fill in. These are words of construction and building, not sitting by idly grumbling. This is a time for both preparation and celebration.

Preparation, because we are not yet all that we can be. Sure God loves us as we are, but He does not want us to stay as we are. Doomsayers cry out: Repent the End is near! But Pope John Paul wisely advises: Repent, for the New Beginning is now!

The Holy father envisioned the third millennium as a door opening to great graces, a threshold of hope in which we can usher in a transformation and renewal of our own lives, of our church, and our country and nation as we awaken to the power of the Holy Spirit living within us.

John the Baptist points to Christ in the Jordan, "Behold the One!" As Jesus is baptized, the voice of the Father is heard and the Spirit appears. He who is Gift of Jesus who indwells and empowers us to grow as Paul challenged us, if we dare to accept the challenge.

Vigilance and attention will help us to find the Messiah in all with whom we have contact this season: sales clerks, Salvation Army volunteers, the homeless, the obnoxious co-worker at the Christmas Party, or most importantly of all, the familiar face in the mirror, often the one hardest to love.

May you have a happy and a holy season of Advent and know always that God is with you. Amen.