Matthew 23:37-44
Dear Friends,
Advent has us look backward so we can look forward as we begin a new year. Both views call us to live in the present. Advent has a profound and inspiring message about the coming of the Lord. In fact, Advent urges us to celebrate three dimensions of the coming of the Lord. The readings of the first three Sundays focus on the second coming of Jesus in the end times. These scriptures teach us to be ready and to prepare the way for the Lord’s return in glory. Then, on December seventeenth, the focus becomes the saving recollection of Jesus’ entry into our human reality, revealed in the Bethlehem experience. Both comings of the Lord are an invitation to see Jesus’ constant coming in our daily experience. We unite all of these comings in the great prayer of Advent that addresses the deepest longing in the human heart: Come, Lord Jesus!
Isaiah is the featured Old Testament author of the Advent Season. The beauty of his poetry is filled with hope for deliverance and longing for the final expression of God’s saving power. He directs us to the true passage of peace, the elimination of all conflict and war and living in harmony with God’s designs.
In the meanwhile, today’s common theme in Isaiah, Paul and Matthew has a clear and simple message for us: live today in faithfulness to the Lord. Enter into our reality. Embrace life in all its expressions of good and evil. We do not know the future but we do know the present. We are called to live the Gospel with acts of mercy and forgiveness, with concern for justice and the constant struggle “to beat the swords into plowshares and the spears into pruning hooks” (Isaiah 2:4).
Matthew’s Advent message is based on the fundamental confidence flowing from the Christian message. A new day is coming. Matthew is emphatic: we need to be ready. Christ’s return in glory will reveal the fullness of redemption
This longing for the return of the Lord mirrors the passionate longing expressed in Isaiah. Yet it is incredibly enriched and supported by our gift of the Gospel reality. Paul tells us, “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the desires of the flesh” (Romans 13:14). We join together in our liturgies and in our lives to proclaim the Advent yearning: Come, Lord Jesus!
Advent challenges us to look at the lost opportunities, the time wasted and misdirected. We all have more than enough to account for. Advent calls us to gather ourselves together and live today, in the grace of the present moment, for tomorrow is in God’s hands. We indeed need to cry out, Come, Lord Jesus! But a life seeking to walk with Jesus right now makes our plea all the more real and focused.
God is very capable of keeping the schedule. He will do his job of finishing the program at the appropriate time. It is quite normal for us to use that familiar question of our youth, Are we there yet? God will let us know. In the meanwhile, our task is to be faithful to the Gospel message and express the hunger in our heart for a new day with the beautiful Advent prayer, Come, Lord Jesus!
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