FIRST SUNDAY AFTER CHRISTMAS

December 26, 2021

St. Uriel’s, Sea Girt, N. J.

Isaiah 61:10-62:3

Psalm 147:13-24

John 1:1-18

Less than a week ago, on December 21st, we marked the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. Between now and the Spring Equinox on March 20th, we can unfortunately expect the worst of the winter cold even as the days begin to lengthen again. (Although this season has been mild so far.) And a theme running through the readings appointed for this first Sunday after Christmas Day is the light and warmth that Christ brings us, illuminating the world with his glory, dispelling the darkness of sin and death.

It’s no accident that today’s reading from the Prophet Isaiah employs springtime imagery to portray the Lord’s arrival: “For as the earth brings forth its shoots, and a garden causes what it sown in it to spring up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all nations.” Then the prophet switches to the image of light driving out darkness: “For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest, until her vindication shines out like the dawn, and her salvation like a burning torch.” 

The verses of Psalm 147 that we’ve just prayed together describe a freezing winter storm: “[God] gives snow like wool; he scatters hoarfrost like ashes. He scatters his hail like breadcrumbs; Who can stand against his cold?” But then, in the immediately following verse, comes the springtime thaw: “He sends forth his word and melts them; he blows with his wind and the waters flow.”

The Church’s tradition reads such a psalm as depicting not only meteorological but also spiritual realities. God’s word is capable of thawing not only a frozen landscape but also our frozen hearts. Moreover, this image of God blowing with his wind so that the waters flow calls to mind the breath of the Holy Spirit and the waters of Baptism.

Today’s Gospel sums up all these images in its description of the Incarnation of the Divine Word, the eternal Son of the Father, whose life is the light of all people: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it … The true light, that enlightens every man was coming into the world.”

In the children’s story, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe—a spiritual classic which I recommend highly to readers of all ages—C. S. Lewis deploys the metaphor of winter to portray a fallen world. The alternate-reality land of Narnia, accessed by a group of school children through a magic wardrobe, lies frozen under a curse, blanketed by snow. As Lewis puts it, it’s always winter, and Christmas never comes.

But when the lion Aslan, the story’s Christ-figure, arrives in Narnia, the snowing ceases, the ice begins to melt, shoots of plants and flowers start poking through the ground, the leaves on the trees begin to bud, and, to cap it all off, Santa Claus arrives with his reindeer and sleigh to distribute gifts to one and all. (Of course, as a British writer of that generation, Lewis calls him not Santa Claus but Father Christmas.) Aslan’s arrival in Narnia wonderfully symbolizes Christ bringing light, warmth, and life to a world that has lain for centuries under the curse of darkness, sin, and death. In short, Christmas has come.

The Collect of the Day often provides a helpful interpretive key to the readings and psalms appointed for that day in the Church calendar. So, let’s listen again to today’s Collect: “Almighty God, who hast poured upon us the new light of thine incarnate Word: Grant that the same light, enkindled in our hearts, may shine forth in our lives, through the same Jesus Christ our Lord …”

Notice how this this Collect describes a three-step process. First, God pours upon us the light of his incarnate Word. In other words, Jesus Christ comes into the world; his birth is what we’ve just celebrated on Christmas Day. But second, this light is not meant to remain external, as it were, illuminating us from without. We pray that it may be enkindled in our hearts, enlightening and warming us from within. Then, third, with our hearts thus set on fire, we pray that it may shine forth in our lives, bringing life and warmth to those around us—to our families and friends, our homes and workplaces, and indeed further afield, among people and communities across the nation and throughout the world. So, to recapitulate—Step One, God pours upon us the light of his Incarnate Word; Step Two, that light ignites and enflames our hearts; and Step Three, that same light shines forth from us, brightening the world.

A tension sometimes arises in the Church’s life between two tendencies that are sometimes called “personal religion” and “the Social Gospel”—or, in our Catholic tradition, “the contemplative life” and “the active life.” That is: between those, on one hand, who want to emphasize the Christian’s personal relationship with God in worship, prayer, and meditation, and those, on the other hand, who want to emphasize our Christian calling to go out into the world and participate actively in the Church’s mission and ministry.

Today’s Collect suggests, however, that this proposition is not “either/or” but “both/and.” That is, the light of Christ cannot truly shine forth in our lives unless it’s first enkindled in our hearts. But conversely, when that light does warm our hearts, we can’t help wanting to let it shine forth by acts of kindness, words of encouragement, works of mercy, and lives of service.

Above all, we need to remember that Jesus Christ, the Word Incarnate, is the only source of true light, warmth, and life. As today’s Gospel says of Saint John the Baptist, we are not that light, but are sent to bear witness to that light. And so, during this twelve-day season of Christmas, we might profitably meditate on that Collect, and then reflect on what steps we might take now to invite (or indeed to re-invite) Christ into our hearts, so that he may set us on fire, making our lives a beacon of his light and love to a cold and darkened world.

CHRISTMAS DAY, 2021

St. Uriel’s, Sea Girt, N. J.

At the Christmas Eve Mass yesterday, we heard the familiar account of our Lord’s Nativity, complete with angels and shepherds, as told in Saint Luke’s Gospel. Today, however, at the Mass of Christmas Day, the readings take us deeper into the mystery of our Lord’s Incarnation.

The Christian tradition speaks not of just one birth but of three births of Christ. The first birth takes place not in Bethlehem but in eternity, before the beginning of time. Today’s Gospel comes from what’s known as the Prologue to Saint John. The Fourth Gospel, Saint John’s Gospel, gives us no Nativity story. Rather, echoing the Book of Genesis, John starts “in the beginning.” 

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.”

Here it’s crucial to understand that “the Word” is another name for the Son of God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. The Greek word Logos, translated here as “the Word,” actually means something more like thought, reason, purpose, plan, or self-expression. When God the Father expresses himself, he does so by means of his Word. Through his Word he creates the world. Yet before God ever created the universe the Word already existed. The Nicene Creed, which we recite every Sunday, says that he was “eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father.” 

The doctrine of the Holy Trinity thus teaches us that God the Father begets the God the Son, who is co-equal and co-eternal with the Father, sharing fully and completely along with the Holy Spirit in the fullness of the Godhead’s life and being. So, to return to this image of the three births of Christ, this is the first birth: the Father’s begetting of his eternal Son before all ages. 

The second birth of Christ is the familiar one of the Christmas story: the bringing forth of the baby Jesus in Bethlehem. John’s Gospel sums it up in one sentence: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son of the Father.” 

The eternal Son came down from heaven and took flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary to assume our human nature and share in our human existence. The doctrine of the Incarnation teaches us that Jesus Christ is one Person, fully divine and fully human, true God and true man. He’s divine on account of his having been begotten from the Father in eternity; he’s human on account of his birth from the Virgin Mary in time and space.

Thus stated, the Incarnation of Christ is not so much a proposition to be understood, or a puzzle to be solved, as a mystery to be worshipped and adored. The fourth century church father Gregory of Nazianzus describes this mystery in a series of wonderful paradoxes: “He who has no mother in heaven is now born without father on earth. . . He who is without flesh becomes incarnate; the Word puts on a body; the Invisible is seen; he whom no hand can touch is handled; the Timeless has a beginning; the Son of God becomes Son of Man—Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever.”

This second birth of Christ took place at a specific time and place two thousand years ago in Bethlehem of Judea so that a third birth may take place even today: namely, the birth of Christ in our hearts. Here the Blessed Virgin Mary stands as a model for us all: just as she literally conceived and brought the Christ child into the world, so we’re called to let Christ be conceived in our hearts so that we may bring him forth into the world in our own day.

This birth of Christ in our hearts is the beginning of the process by which the Holy Spirit makes us like him. He’s the Son of God by nature; in him we become sons and daughters of God by adoption and grace. Again, as Saint John says in today’s Gospel: “To all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God . . .” 

The early Church fathers expressed this mystery using the image of a divine exchange. Christ comes down from heaven that he might raise us up to heaven. He shares in our human life that we might share in his divine life. Or, as Saint Athanasius put it most boldly of all: He becomes what we are that we might become what he is.

So, in our celebration of Christmas we contemplate the three births of Christ: the eternal generation of the Son of God from the Father before the beginning of time; his coming down from heaven to take flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary who gives him birth as the human being Jesus of Nazareth; and his birth in our hearts, which is in turn the beginning of our rebirth in his image and likeness.

There’s indeed a sense in which Christ’s birth in Bethlehem remains incomplete until he’s born in each of us. One of the greatest preachers of the nineteenth century was Phillips Brooks, successively rector of Trinity Church, Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia; then rector of Trinity Church, Copley Square in Boston, and finally Bishop of Massachusetts (the diocese where I live). Visiting the Holy Land himself, Brooks wrote in his well-known Christmas hymn the lines: “O holy child of Bethlehem, descend to us we pray; cast out our sin and enter in, be born in us today.” 

We can do no better than to make those lines our prayer this Christmas morning. May the joy of Christ’s birth in our hearts be ours, both now and in the days and weeks to come. 

CHRISTMAS , 2021

St. Uriel’s, Sea Girt, N.J.

Some years ago, the then Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams caused a bit of a stir in a Christmas TV interview. Among other things, he remarked that we don’t know at what time of year Christ was born. The Church chose December 25th because it was already the time of a Roman winter festival. 

Nor do we know how many wise men came from the East bearing gifts. The New Testament doesn’t say that they were kings – that idea came from the application of the line from Psalm 72, “The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall pay tribute, and the kings of Arabia and Saba offer gifts.” And the reckoning of them as three is simply an inference from the three gifts they brought: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. 

The Archbishop further pointed out that nowhere do the Gospels say that the birth took place in a stable or that any animals were present. That too, is an inference from Mary laying the newborn child in a manger—in other words, a feeding trough. On that basis, the tradition grew up of the birth taking place in the company of the ox and ass and a menagerie of other farmyard animals. Some biblical scholars point out that the manger’s narrative purpose is not so much to indicate the surroundings as to furnish the unmistakable sign by which the shepherds will recognize the child whose birth the angels have just announced.

The New Testament is in fact silent on whether any animals were present at all. So far as I’m aware, the first mention of the ox and ass comes centuries later in an apocryphal writing called the Infancy Gospel of pseudo-Matthew where they serve to fulfill a saying from the Prophet Isaiah—“The ox knows its owner, and the ass its master’s crib …” 

Moreover, Luke doesn’t say that the shepherds brought their sheep with them to Bethlehem. It’s entirely possible that they left their flocks in the fields under the care of junior shepherds and came by themselves. 

And again, Matthew says nothing about the wise men from the East arriving on camels. We aren’t told their mode of transportation. At some later date, however, the connection was made with another prophecy from Isaiah: “A multitude of camels shall cover you … they shall bring gold and frankincense, and shall proclaim the praise of the Lord.”

Despite the indignation that the Archbishop’s remarks provoked, everything he said was true. His purpose was, I think, to point out the difference between the barebones of what the Bible says and the details that popular piety has filled in down through the generations. The typical Christmas crèche represents the accumulated product of centuries of devotion rather than a forensically accurate recreation of the biblical text.

And yet—this accumulation of popular devotion may contain deep wisdom that it would be foolish to dismiss prematurely. This evening, I’d like to focus on one detail: the animals. As I’ve already noted, none of the Gospel accounts explicitly say that any animals were present at the Nativity.  But let’s imagine that they were. What theological wisdom might we glean from the ox and ass, the sheep and camels, surrounding the newborn Christ child?

 Well, for one thing, this imagery expresses the truth that the Son of God became Incarnate to redeem not just humanity but all creation. As the Prologue to Saint John’s Gospel puts it, “the Word became flesh.” Far from being unique to human beings, flesh is something we share with the entire animal creation. Indeed, I read somewhere that the structure of DNA is 70 percent identical between human beings and mice. 

One legitimate insight that we’ve gained from the ecological movement of the past several decades is that we urgently need to learn to see ourselves as an integral part of creation, rather than as somehow set apart from or over and above creation. It helps to remind ourselves that in the Incarnation, the Son of God comes down from heaven to share not only in our human condition but in the very life of the physical universe itself. So, in Bethlehem, he’s welcomed not only by his fellow human beings, but also by his fellow creatures—represented by the ox and the ass, the sheep and the camels.

Moreover, the animals gazing on the Christ child appear in their own way to be joining in the worship of the incarnate Son of God. Here we find fulfilled another one of Isaiah’s prophecies: “The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.” Not just all humanity, mind you, but all flesh. It’s no accident that Saint Francis of Assisi is credited with setting up the first Christmas crèche. As we know, Francis had a lively sense of fellowship with all God’s creatures.  So, in the nativity scene he naturally depicted the animals as joining in the adoration of the newborn Christ child.

The manger scene thus symbolizes what the seventh-century Eastern Church Father Saint Maximus the Confessor called the cosmic liturgy—all creation joining in the worship of God. Here begins the fulfillment of such biblical texts as the Song of the Three Young Men, which depicts sun, moon, stars, mountain, hills, streams, oceans, plants, animals, fish, and birds all joining together in God’s praises: “O all ye works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord, praise him and magnify him forever.” 

A certain parish used to encourage its children to bring their favorite toy animals to place around the church’s Nativity set. Much to some of the adults’ consternation, one little girl always brought her model tyrannosaurus rex. But why not? Again, Isaiah prophesies that in the new creation “The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.” If Christ came into the world to redeem all creation, then he came to redeem in some way even the dinosaurs. If we’re unable to see that, then that perhaps reflects nothing more than our own lack of imagination. 

The good news of Christmas is that God sent his Son into the world to redeem fallen humanity from sin and death. As Saint Athanasius put it in the fourth century: “God shared in our human life that we might share in his divine life.” But we mustn’t fall prey to the temptation to imagine that our eternal destiny can ever be separated from that of the natural creation of which we’re a part. The Bible describes the life of the world to come not as an escape from this present world, but rather as this world itself restored and made new. 

So, while we really don’t know whether any animals were present at Christ’s birth, the popular iconography of Christian devotion expresses profound theological truths that go beyond the literal details of the biblical text. As we stand or kneel before the Christmas crèche, then, we do well to linger a moment on the ox and the ass, the sheep and the camels—and give thanks there for the promise in Christ of a new creation.

FOURTH SUNDAY OF ADVENT, YEAR C

December 19, 2021

St. Uriel’s, Sea Girt, N.J.

Luke 1:39-45, 56

One of the Blessed Virgin Mary’s traditional titles is “Ark of the Covenant.” She’s actually so addressed in such devotions as the Litany of Our Lady. At first glance, that may seem strange. But in today’s Gospel of the Visitation, Saint Luke makes a series of subtle allusions likening Mary to this sacred object from the Old Testament.

As always, a bit of background may be helpful here. The Ark of the Covenant was a gold-covered wooden chest constructed according to God’s instructions as a container for the two stone tablets of the Law that Moses brought down from Mount Sinai. Also placed in the Ark was a jar of manna, the bread from heaven that fed the Israelites in the wilderness, and Aaron’s rod, the staff that miraculously bloomed to verify God’s choice of Moses’ brother Aaron to be Israel’s first high priest. The Ark was about four feet long, three feet wide, and three feet high. Attached to its corners were four gold rings through which two poles were inserted to carry it about. On its lid, known as the Mercy Seat, were golden figures of two Cherubim.

During the forty years in the wilderness, the Ark was carried ahead of the people. Wherever the Israelites camped, they placed the Ark in a special tent known as the Tabernacle or the Tent of Meeting. The Ark was, in effect, God’s throne on earth. Whenever Moses wanted to consult the Lord, he entered the Tent of Meeting, and the Lord came down on the Mercy Seat. A luminous cloud called the Shekinah would overshadow the Tent of Meeting signifying the divine presence; when Moses emerged from the Tent, his face would glow with supernatural light, so that he had to veil himself to avoid terrifying the people.

After the Israelites entered the Promised Land, the Ark resided for two hundred years at a place called Shiloh. Eventually, King David brought it to Jerusalem—about which I will say more in a moment. Later, David’s son Solomon constructed the Temple to house the Ark in its inner sanctum, the Holy of Holies. After the Babylonian Conquest of Jerusalem in 586 BC, the Ark disappeared from history—although all sorts of weird and wonderful theories abound to this day as to where it ended up. In the time of Jesus and the apostles, however, the Holy of Holies was empty.  Even without the Ark, however, it was still considered sacred space, God’s dwelling place on earth.

The original readers and hearers of Luke’s account of Mary’s Visitation to Elizabeth would immediately have recognized its parallels with the story of David bringing the Ark up to Jerusalem. When David made Jerusalem his capital, the Ark was nine miles away, in a place called Kiriath-Jearim, in the hill-country of Judah. Returning victorious from battle with the Philistines, David went with thirty-thousand men to retrieve the Ark. When the oxen pulling the cart stumbled, however, a man named Uzzah put forth his hand to steady it and was immediately struck dead. In great fear, David exclaimed, “How can the Ark of the Lord come to me?” So, David took the Ark to the house of a man called Obed-Edom; and there it remained three months. 

But when David learned that contrary to all expectations, far from being struck dead, Obed-Edom’s household was greatly blessed by the Ark’s presence, he went again and brought the Ark up to Jerusalem with great rejoicing and merrymaking. Finally, bringing the Ark into the city, David leaped and danced before the Lord with all his might.

Now, fast-forward about a thousand years. When the angel Gabriel appears to Mary in Nazareth and announces that she will give birth to the Messiah, her natural question is, “How shall this be, since I have no husband?” The angel answers: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most-High will overshadow you; therefore, the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.” “Overshadow” is exactly the same verb used to describe the cloud of the divine presence covering the Tent of Meeting when the Lord came down from heaven.

Then, in the Visitation story, the parallels multiply. The setting is once again the hill-country of Judah, where the Ark once resided. At Mary’s greeting, Elizabeth exclaims with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women! And blessed is the fruit of your womb!” This is the sole occurrence in the New Testament of the Greek verb translated as “exclaim”—but in the Greek version of the Old Testament, this same verb is used of David’s shouting in joy before the Ark on the way up to Jerusalem. Elizabeth’s question, “And why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” is almost a direct quote of David’s “How can the Ark of the Lord come to me?” 

Furthermore, the unborn John the Baptist leaping in his mother’s womb replays David leaping and dancing before the Lord with all his might. Mary’s three-month sojourn at the house of Elizabeth recalls the Ark’s three-month stay at the house of Obed-Edom. Finally, just as the Ark goes up to Jerusalem, and eventually ends up in Solomon’s Temple, so, forty days after the Nativity, Mary goes with Joseph up to Jerusalem to present Jesus in the same Temple, now rebuilt.

In all these ways, Luke symbolically indicates that the Blessed Virgin Mary is the Ark of a New Covenant. Just as the original Ark bore the Word of God inscribed on stone tablets, so Mary carries in her womb the Word-made-flesh. Just as the Ark held a jar of manna, the miraculous bread from heaven, so Mary carries within her womb the true Bread from heaven, who feeds us in the Holy Eucharist with his own Body and Blood. And just as the Ark held the rod of Aaron’s priesthood, so Mary carries in her womb the one true high priest, the final mediator between God and humanity.

The point is not that Mary “is like” the Ark of the Covenant. That gets it the wrong way round. Instead, the Ark was like Mary. That’s how biblical typology works. Although it had its own meaning and significance in its own time, the Ark nonetheless pointed beyond itself to the Mother of God, and he whom she brought into the world. Like so many other features of Old Testament religion, the Ark was a type and shadow of far greater things to come.

The message for us today is, I think, very simple. God’s coming among us is cause for great rejoicing. Who are we that the Son of God should come to us? David leaped and danced before the Ark with all his might. John the Baptist leaped for joy in his mother’s womb at the presence of the one coming after him. The Church invites us to join the celebration at our Christmas services this Friday and Saturday. Christ is coming into our midst. With great joy, then, we shall come out to meet Him.

THIRD SUNDAY OF ADVENT, YEAR C

December 12, 2021

St. Uriel’s, Sea Girt, N.J.

Zephaniah 3:14-20

Canticle 9

Philippians 4:4-7

Luke 3:7-18

From Saint Paul’s Letter to the Philippians: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again, I will say, Rejoice. Let all men know your forbearance. The Lord is at hand.” On account of these words, traditionally sung in the plainchant Introit (or Entrance Song) of today’s Mass, the Third Sunday of Advent is known as “Gaudete Sunday,” or “Rejoice Sunday.”

We encounter this motif of rejoicing in the Old Testament reading, from the prophet Zephaniah: “Sing aloud, O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem!” Then Canticle 9, taken from the twelfth chapter of Isaiah, takes up the theme: “Therefore you shall draw water with rejoicing, from the springs of salvation … Cry aloud, inhabitants of Zion, ring out your joy …” And the Gospel reading concludes on the joyful note: “So, with many other exhortations, [John the Baptist] preached good news to the people.”

In keeping with this theme of rejoicing, today we light a rose-colored candle on the Advent wreath; we wear rose vestments; and we decorate the altar with a rose frontal and pink roses.

These biblical references to rejoicing are not, however, without an element of paradox. When he exhorts the Philippians to rejoice always, Paul himself is a prisoner in chains: not a situation we normally associate with rejoicing. The reading from Zephaniah, exhorting Jerusalem to sing, exult, shout, and rejoice, is set in the context of a book containing prophetic warnings of impending judgment and doom. And John the Baptist’s preaching of good news to the people consists of solemn warnings to bear fruit befitting repentance, to avoid the wrath to come.

The phenomenon of Christian joy amidst suffering sometimes proves puzzling to outside observers. The fifth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles recounts an incident in which Peter and the other apostles are arrested by the Sanhedrin, questioned, beaten, and then released. There follows the curious comment: “Then they left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were found worthy to suffer dishonor for the name” (5:41).

Early Christian martyrs are reported to have gone to their deaths full of joy, singing hymns to Christ while the lions roared in nearby cages. Saint Francis of Assisi is well known for finding “perfect joy” in a life of itinerant homelessness and poverty. Such rejoicing in the face of hardship, rejection, persecution, suffering, and death has struck more than a few critics of Christianity as reflecting a fundamentally perverse and sick mindset.

We need to recognize, however, that the word “joy” has a special meaning in biblical and classical Christian usage. A great twentieth-century writer on the theme of Christian joy was C.S. Lewis. In his autobiography, Surprised by Joy, Lewis defines the term as a feeling of intense longing he first experienced as a child, and which recurred periodically as he was growing up and throughout his life.

Lewis insisted that this experience was completely distinct from either happiness or pleasure. He described it with the memorable phrase: “an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction.” In this sense, joy means something very different from the present fulfillment of natural human needs. It’s more like what we might call “anticipatory joy”—that is, the excitement of looking forward to something that has not yet happened but is expected at some point in the future.

We all know what this feels like. Imagine, a student from, say, the Midwest who’s been away from home for her first semester at university in the East. As much as she likes her new life, she nonetheless misses her family and her hometown friends intensely. At last, final exams are over and she’s on her way to the airport to catch her flight home for the Christmas break. For days, perhaps weeks, her excitement has been mounting at the prospect of being back home to celebrate Christmas with family and friends once again.

Again, think of some of the most joyous milestones in people’s lives. When a couple announces their engagement, a large part of our reaction to the news is the joy of anticipation. (Assuming, that is, that we approve of the match and think that they’re good for each other.) We rejoice not only at what their engagement means for them now, but also at the future prospect of their wedding and subsequent life together. The announcement is an occasion of joy precisely because it gives us something to look forward to. 

When my daughter-in-law announced one evening at a gathering of the extended family in a restaurant that she was pregnant, the expressions of rejoicing were boisterous and raucous. Again, when a child is born, we rejoice not only on account of who this little baby is now, but also on account of the person we hope he or she will become in the coming years of growth and maturation. The joy, in other words, is both in the present gift and the future promise.

When C. S. Lewis finally converted to Christianity after years of spiritual struggle, he realized that the final fulfillment of his longing—that unsatisfied desire, which he experienced as more desirable than any other satisfaction—was none other than Christ himself. As Christians we discover that Christ is available to us here and now as a present reality and not just as a future hope; knowing Christ affords greater joy than any earthly pleasure or happiness. Still, we also discover that in this life our joy in the Lord always retains something of this quality of unfulfilled longing and unrealized expectation. 

Theologians describe the Christian life as lived in the tension between the “already” and the “not yet.” When we receive the Blessed Sacrament in the Holy Eucharist, for example, we really and truly receive Christ himself here and now. Yet the sacred meal always points beyond itself as a foretaste of the heavenly banquet awaiting us in God’s Kingdom. In other words, our joy remains in large part the joy of anticipation rather than that of consummation and fulfillment. But, to quote C. S. Lewis again, even as unsatisfied desire it remains “more desirable than any other satisfaction.”

Advent is the season when we anticipate our future—the new life awaiting each of us after death, and awaiting all creation when Christ returns to inaugurate the Kingdom of God in its fullness. For this reason, Advent is rightly described as a season of longing, expectation, and hope. But this Rose Sunday also reminds us that Advent, and indeed the entire Christian life, is also a season of anticipatory joy. Even amidst our present difficulties and darknesses, we dare to rejoice in the future that God promises us in Christ.

SECOND SUNDAY OF ADVENT, YEAR C

Sunday 5 December 2021

St. Uriel’s, Sea Girt, N. J.

Luke 3:1-6

At the beginning of today’s Gospel, St. Luke introduces John the Baptist by carefully identifying the timing of his appearance according to a detailed chronology of who’s in power where: 

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberias Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Iturae´a and Trachoni´tis, and Lysa´nias tetrarch of Abile´ne, in the high priesthood of Annas and Ca´iaphas …

Here we get a geopolitical map of the ruling authorities of the biblical world: emperors, governors, tetrarchs, high priests. The fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberias Caesar can be dated with reasonable precision as the year 29 A.D.

Some commentators suggest that Luke is making the point that the story he’s about to tell is not a timeless myth or groundless legend but the record of events that really happened at a definite time and place in history. Others propose that Luke is hinting that the good news will be taken out from Jerusalem into the Empire ruled by Caesar and beyond, transforming the whole world and relativizing the authority of its ruling principalities and powers in the process.

The explosive force of Luke’s lead-in bursts upon us, however, in the contrast with what follows: “the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness …” Luke has just given us a grand tour of imperial palaces, governors’ mansions, kings’ fortresses, and the Jerusalem Temple. But the word of God comes to none of those high and mighty people in any of those geographical landmarks, but rather to “John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness.” A relative nobody in the middle of nowhere.

The word “wilderness,” as we know, can also be translated as “desert.” In the Bible, the wilderness or desert is the archetypal place of encounter with the divine. Of course, God is perfectly capable of revealing himself wherever, whenever, and to whomever he chooses. In many biblical stories, the word of God, or indeed the angel of God, comes to someone in the town or the city—such as the Blessed Virgin Mary herself at her home in Nazareth. 

Nonetheless, something about the desert, its wide-open spaces, its solitude and silence, disposes people to be receptive there to divine communication. Away from the distractions of constant chit-chat, the hustle and bustle of business and commerce, we find the space and the quiet we need to confront our own inner wilderness landscapes, our questions, conflicts, doubts, hopes, and fears. And sometimes, just sometimes, God speaks a word that changes everything, offering us a new horizon, a new sense of mission and purpose, a new vision.

Early in the seasons of both Advent and Lent, the lectionary readings take us into the desert. In all three years of the liturgical cycle, John the Baptist appears on the second Sunday of Advent, as “the voice of one crying in the wilderness.” And again, on the first Sunday of Lent, the Holy Spirit drives Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan following his baptism by that same John in the River Jordan.

It seems that the journey into the desert is an indispensable component of both seasons. Before we can truly experience the joy of either Christmas or Easter, we need to spend some time out in the wilderness.

Moreover, the Sundays of Advent always follow a specific sequence. The first Sunday of Advent announces the Lord’s return on the last day to judge the living and the dead. The second and third Sundays take us into the wilderness of Judea to hear John preaching his baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Then the fourth Sunday begins to unfold the fulfillment of God’s promises in the Annunciations to Mary and Joseph and, this year, in Mary’s Visitation to Elizabeth.

The point seems to be that the River Jordan is a necessary stopping place on our journey to Bethlehem. Before we can hear the angels singing “Glory to God in the highest,” we need to listen and respond to the Baptist’s call: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.”

The season of Advent originated as a time of fasting and prayer before Christmas. In the Eastern Churches, it’s known as the Nativity Fast, and is kept for forty days before Christmas, just as Lent is kept for the forty days before Easter. But in the Western Church, it became known as Advent, kept from the fourth Sunday before Christmas, and focused more on preparation for the two comings of Christ: the first, in weakness and vulnerability in Bethlehem; the second, in power and majesty on the Day of Judgment.

The Western Church’s liturgical reforms in the 1960s and 70s further de-emphasized Advent’s penitential character, highlighting instead themes of joyful hope, longing, and anticipation. All that’s well and good. Still, the second and third Sundays of Advent confront us with John the Baptist’s message. So, there remains this inescapably penitential dimension to the Advent season.

John administered a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. People received his baptism to ready themselves for the arrival of the messiah or Christ. And while John’s baptism was not the same thing as Christian baptism, it was not ineffective. Certain passages elsewhere in the Gospels indicate that those who received John’s baptism were those most likely to welcome and follow Jesus when he appeared, while those who rejected John’s baptism were those most likely to reject Jesus.

Today’s celebration invites us to find some extra time to be alone and quiet this Advent, even in the midst of all the pre-Christmas hubbub. In this way, we undertake our own spiritual journey into the wilderness to be attentive to God’s Word as John was. And we need to use some of that time – not necessarily all of it but some of it – to examine our consciences and identify the sins of which we need to repent at this particular stage in our lives. 

We can certainly always confess those sins directly to God, knowing that he hears and forgives in virtue of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. But our Anglo-Catholic tradition also affords us the unique privilege of being able to enlist the assistance of a priest in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Making our confession is a wonderful way to prepare ourselves in heart, mind, and soul for the Lord’s Nativity. And our celebration of Christmas becomes all the more joyous when we’ve been absolved and know that we’re forgiven.