3rd Sunday of Advent
December 12, 2010
10 AM Liturgy
J.A. Loftus, S.J.
One of my favorite musical recordings is a disk of Glen Gould playing
the first book of J.S. Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier. As I sat luxuriating in it
last week, my mind wandered to all the Advent readings in our liturgies this
month. There are remarkable similarities, it seems to me.
Most of the music of the high baroque period is contrapuntal. The
music bobs and weaves through different rhythms, different themes and
times, even different keys on occasion. And all this counterpoint rises to
astonishing completeness only toward the end. So, too, our Advent readings.
We keep shifting focus and times as well. Now it’s about Christ’s birth
at Bethlehem; now it’s about Christ’s second coming at the end of history.
And yet always, it is about Christ’s coming into our lives here and now in
everyday ways. The magical reign of the living God has come, is coming,
and will come again. And so we wait and watch “hoping that the salvation
promised us will be ours,” in the words of an Advent Preface.
Today’s counterpoint begins to bring the themes together in the first
resolution of the music. Two weeks from now, as we celebrate Christmas
together, another resolution will become apparent. But today we are back
with the most unlikely herald of the season, John the Baptizer.
In last week’s gospel, John was all spitfire. There was, and still is,
nothing at all subtle in him. Last week, rather than a “hello,” he shouted
into the faces of the religious authorities: “You brood of vipers!” Today, he
sits more forlorn and more tired in prison awaiting his sure death. And he
struggles with what sound like doubts. (Parenthetically, this might be
comfort for those of us who retain our own doubts about all this kingdom
stuff, all this reign of justice and peace and harmony that still has not yet
appeared in our own worlds.)
John wonders whether it all has been real. Whether it’s been worth it?
Whether his impending death will have made any difference? (That too
might sound familiar to some of us today.)
John has been looking for the signs of the coming reign of God all his
life. He got the repentance part. He got the baptizer part. He got the deep
conviction part. But signs are hard to read. One can never be completely
sure. So he sends friends to the “one whose sandals he knows he is not
worthy to carry.” John needs to know before he dies “is this the One”? Is
this Jesus really the sign?
Jesus quickly provides a counterpoint’s resolution. He deftly brings
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together past, present and future by quoting the prophet Isaiah. “Go and tell
John what you see!” The signs of the reign of God are the same as they
always have been and always will be. And those signs are not only the usual
signs of Christmas; they are not only about a tiny baby in a manger, not
about softly falling snow in a star-lit heaven (a highly unlikely scene in
Palestine at any time anyway). The signs of Christmas are not only about
singing angels, and sleepy shepherds, and visiting potentates from the East.
Jesus knows the real signs of God’s reign, the reign that dawns at
Christmas. The blind regain their sight. The lame walk. Lepers are
cleansed. The deaf hear. The dead are raised. And the poor have the good
news proclaimed to them. John has been right all along. The coming of
God’s reign into human history is hard work. It is not easy–even for God–to
make all things right in this world. Jesus then says to the crowd: What did
you expect the herald of the kingdom to look like? A soft, warm and fuzzy
preacher? No, John did have it right and “he is more than a prophet.” He
walked the walk.
Today’s liturgical oratorio gets an added chorus from James’ letter.
He tells us to be patient, yes. To wait! But he also tells us not to be passive.
Advent is an invitation. It is a challenge. And it comes with a warning too.
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This liturgy is a stark reminder that the Christmas we still wait for is not just
an invitation to savor the lights of the season. It is an invitation to actively
dispel the darkness. There is a difference. The invitation is to dispel the
darkness wherever we find it in our own hearts and in our own worlds.
Like Isaiah before us, and Jesus with us, and James in his own way, we
too will know the signs of the reign of God, that the Light of the World is
arriving, when we create and nourish and celebrate: that the blindness all
around us and in us is receding; that the crippled in our lives (whether
physically, emotionally, or spiritually crippled), are again stretching, standing
and even walking; when the lepers in our church and in our cultures are
welcomed to the table in graciousness and with warmth; when the dead and
dying in our midst see a glimmer of the Light. And we will know most
assuredly that Christmas is here when the poor, the poor in so many different
ways, hear nothing but good news because of us.
In the end, the beauty of a magnificent baroque masterpiece becomes a
real Christmas Oratorio. But it is only an invitation. The world still awaits
our response.
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