Monday in Advent 2 -- Homily at Mass

Isaiah 35:1-10
Luke 5:17-26

Today’s readings fall into the classical biblical pattern of promise and fulfillment. The Old Testament reading from Isaiah describes the coming of the Lord to redeem his people in many wonderful images, including verses 5 and 6: “Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap like an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing for joy ...”

The Gospel shows the fulfillment of the specific part of the promise concerning the healing of the lame in the story of the paralyzed man brought on a stretcher to Jesus and lowered down to him from an opening in the roof of the house where he was. The healing of the paralyzed man serves as a twofold sign: first of the fulfillment of the old prophecies concerning the dawning of the messianic age; and second as confirmation of our Lord’s authority to forgive sins in the name of God.

The biblical pattern of promise and fulfillment is actually threefold. Between the two there is usually given a sign that serves to confirm the promise. Thus, for example, at the beginning of Saint Luke's Gospel Zechariah is struck dumb as a sign that the promise given him by the angel Gabriel will be fulfilled in its time, despite his doubt. And likewise Mary is given the sign to confirm the angel’s message to her: “Behold your kinswoman Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren.” In this latter instance, the fulfillment of one promise—namely the conception and gestation of John the Baptist—becomes the sign confirming the imminent fulfillment of another promise—the conception of Jesus himself.

And I think something like this pattern is at work in today’s readings: the fulfillment of one promise becomes in turn the sign of the more wonderful fulfillment of still greater promises. The underlying point is that God keeps his word. And when we see the fulfillment of some promises having already taken place, we are thereby given assurance that God will fulfill all his promises to us.

For this reason, we do well to think of the ministry of Jesus as described in the Gospels as the dawning of the messianic age, the inauguration of the kingdom of God. Theologians often say that we live between the times, in the interim period between our Lord’s first and second comings. And during this in-between time, the kingdom is already-but-not-yet. In the life of the Church, in the Sacraments, and in the many mysterious ways in which God works in our midst, we experience the stirrings of the kingdom, even though we continue to live in a world whose redemption has not yet been made fully manifest.

Yet even now we catch glimpses of the fulfillment of God’s promises. And those become in turn signs to us that everything that he has promised will come to fruition in its own time. C.S. Lewis says somewhere that when we reach our final destination, be it heaven or hell, we will realize that it was the state in which we were living all along. The only difference is that it has now become not only fully manifest and all-encompassing, but also fixed, permanent, and irrevocable. The weekday Mass readings of this Advent season exhort us to be alert for signs of the fulfillment of God’s promises in our midst, here and now, so that we can embrace and hold fast the eschatological and eternal realities to which they point.