First Sunday in Advent
Isaiah 63:16-17; 64:1-8 1 Corinthians 1:3-9 Mark 13:33-37
Each year Advent shakes us awake to a marvelous story of love. This is a love that is unimaginable and wonderfully irrepressible. To the human mind it seems utterly impossible. Therefore it holds great promise!
Things can and will change. The break comes with the painful trauma of crying out in our utter frustration and despair with things as they are. Limited human vision can be broken open to the hope that comes from beyond ourselves, the possibility that crashes through impossibility.
In a time of weary and numbing exile, the prophet Isaiah cried out: "0 that thou wouldst rend the heavens and come down" (64:1). It is the cry of lament wrung out of the experience of disappointment and despair. It is also a challenge to remind both God and the people of the mighty, saving actions of the past.
Perhaps these are the most dangerous of times, when needs are nominally met and the citizenry is lulled into complacent conformity. Memory is jammed, and the cutting edge of what has been and could be is dulled.
When the glimpse of possibility is recovered, then one feels the searing pain of disappointment and betrayal. It has been better; there is the possibility of justice and compassion once again in the land, even if it calls for movement into a new land. We need you, God. Come down and join with us in the journey.
The prophet has already pled, "Look down from heaven and see, from thy holy and glorious habitation" (63:15). This is a bold affirmation of the reality of a holy God strong enough to save. He now goes on to affirm:
From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God besides thee, who works for those who wait for thee. Thou meetest those that joyfully work righteousness, those that remember thee in thy ways. (64:4-5)
This is a God who not only carries the power of the heavens; this is a God who "works for" those who wait, who work justice, and above all, who remember!
These are Advent words: come, wait, remember. The poverty of love is filled in the humble act of deference to the one who will come. The awakening to possibility is ignited through the impregnation of divine love in human form. It takes patience and humility to wait for the God who "works for" us.
The people of God need constantly to be reminded that God is faithful. This memory evokes trust. God's faithfulness, not ours, is the bottom line of such trust. It was Jesus himself who commanded the Advent message for the ages, that we are to "Stay awake!...And what I say to you I say to all: Watch" (Mark 13:33, 37).
Advent calls us to watch for the coming of the faithful one. Wonders of salvation and justice will be worked for those who wait and cry out for God to join with them in the solidarity of love.
Second and Third Sundays in Advent
Isaiah 40:1-5, 9-11 2 Peter 3:8-14 Mark 1:1-8
Isaiah 61:1-2,10-11 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24 John 1:6-8, 19-28
Voices are heard from the great council in heaven. The prophet of the Lord has the ears to hear. Isaiah is one who waits, watches, and cries out what he has heard. The words of the council have echoed down through the centuries: "Comfort, comfort my people....In the the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord....The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever"(Isaiah 40:1, 3, 8).
John the baptizer was this same kind of prophet who watched and waited. When the time was ripe, he proclaimed the coming anew of the Word. In the wilderness John prepared the way for the coming of the gospel, the good news of the Lord, by "preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins" (Mark 1:4). Change was required and a surrender to the mercy and truth of God.
Also note, John was careful to distinguish between himself and the one who was to come, who was mightier than he. He came to bear witness to the light but knew well that he himself was not the light. He left no room for confusion and did not distort the light through his own posturing. John would not play very well as an electronic evangelist.
Advent tells us to wait and watch, which suggests the more passive stance of the contemplative who is attentive to the signs of God's presence in our midst. It is the straining, listening ear that can hear the cries of the heavenly council. It is the quiet penetrating eye of the contemplative that "sees God behind everything that happens," as Thomas Merton once said. Out of this rootedness in memory and trust comes the word to cry and the compassion to live.
But Advent is also the prod to our faith memory to participate in God's continual coming into the midst of human misery. Prepare the way of the Lord wherever there is hunger, imprisonment, mourning, injustice, and oppression in the human family. Become a part of the movement of God's love enfleshed in the church to bring the glad tidings and to proclaim the liberty.
The disciple of Jesus Christ is commanded to watch for his coming; to prepare his way in the wastelands. How do we prepare the way for his coming? Prayer is certainly an essential part of this vocation. To pray daily that God would come in the midst of the most menial tasks of love and the costliest struggles of survival. Expectant prayer is an attitude of life, a focus on God's presence in history. It is a crying out in the face of human need and a stance of trust which is luminous with hope.
We prepare the way of the Lord as we repent of the blindness and stubbornness of our hearts. The capacity of the human heart for idolatry and control is astounding. In repentance one gives up the sin that blinds the heart and obstructs the way for God's coming. Thus we can be attentive to the signs of God's presence as eyes are opened and perceptions cleansed.
Paul's vision of the expectant heart filled with trusting hope is revolutionary. It is a vision that involves rejoicing always, praying constantly, and giving thanks in all circumstances. Such an empowered heart is not overwhelmed by the wastelands of any age. For, "The one who calls you is faithful, and will do it" (1 Thessalonians 5:24).
We prepare the way of the Lord by opening that empowering heart to others. We share with them a new way of seeing and being. In her book The Spirituality of Dom Helder Camara, Mary Hall records this story. A hired assassin was sent to kill the Brazilian bishop of the poor. Dom Helder himself answered the door, invited the man to be seated in his simple quarters, and asked him what he could do for him. The man looked at Dom Helder and then said, "No, no, I don't want to have anything to do with you because you are not one of those that you kill....No, you are one of the Lord's." And he left.
Fourth Sunday in Advent
2 Samuel 7:1-5, 8-11,16 Romans 16:25-27 Luke 1:26-38
We conclude with the wondrous story of the annunciation as provided by Luke's community. It contains the quintessential statement that the impossible is possible, "for with God nothing will be impossible." Again the roots go deep in memory. Out of the barren woman there comes the child of promise. Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, the mother of Samson, Hannah, and now Mary's kinswoman, Elizabeth, are the bearers of God's miracle of salvation. When there seemed to be no hope at all, the impossible became possible.
And now Elizabeth's miraculous pregnancy is a sign to Mary, and to us all, that an even greater event will take place. God's own son will be born of a virgin. That which defies the natural order startles us into attention. Truly God is faithful, and what has been promised through the ages will be done.
What tremendous power of the Spirit is set loose in those who believe that "with God nothing will be impossible." They are impregnated with prophetic vision, radical courage, and enduring compassion. They are companions of the one who has come, is to come, and who will come again at the end of the ages.
Mary humbly waited for the promise of God to be fulfilled through her own flesh. Her trusting openness to love gave birth to Love in the world. The impossible became possible. Through her radical courage, she was willing to have the miracle take place within her and through her.
This same power of love and hope can be liberated in us and through us. A friend of mine went to the bedside of a stranger with AIDS who was the sponsor in Alcoholics Anonymous of an acquaintance of hers. The acquaintance was now in another hospital and could not visit, so my friend went in her place.
At first he was hostile and apprehensive. No one else had come to visit him, and he questioned my friend's presence. The nurse asked her to light a cigarette for the patient. She had to ask how, since she herself did not smoke. When she later questioned what she could do for him, someone suggested that perhaps she just go and light his cigarettes. She did so, faithfully.
One day she took him a flower from her garden. He also loved flowers, and from then on each time she went she shared her flowers as well as her presence. Gradually a bond of trust and love grew which transformed both his heart and hers. They had become companions in love through life and death. Hope was born anew, for with God nothing is impossible.
Conrad Hoover was a member of The Oratory in Rock Hill, South Carolina, where he offered retreats and spiritual direction, when this article appeared.
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