The Coming

1st Sunday of Advent - Year C (2 December 2018)

Jeremiah 33:14-16. Psalm 25:4-14. 1 Thessalonians 3:12 – 4:2. Luke 21:25–28, 34-36.

“They will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.”

Yesterday we ended the liturgical year, and today we begin a new one. But it is a bit strange. The first season is Advent: though it is a preparation for Christmas, we start with the Second Coming of our Lord. Interestingly, each church year ends with a vision of the Apocalypse, and the new one begins in Advent with the same vision of world-shattering events. We end and begin with the same tone. (If you observed, yesterday's gospel reading is just a part of today's reading.) Since birth and death both plunge us into territory we cannot anticipate, and rob us of the familiar, it makes sense that time itself begins and ends in chaos.

Caulfield, a chaplain at Seattle, Washington, has written a book in praise of the splendid chaos of life, the chaos that saves us from the fate of clones and robots, and opens our way to incredible futures. (Sean Caulfield, In Praise of Chaos.) Chaos is important. Too often it is used in a negative sense, as if chaos were something which should not exist. But chaos is the power and wisdom and freedom of God in our midst. We need it. Chaos means all those random, haphazard happenings: the unpredictable situations in life; the random chances, the rotten luck, the fortuitous events; the uncertainties, coincidences and confusion; the unforeseeable and the uncontrollable. They are the very stuff-of-life that complement the routine expectations of law and order.

There are no chances or accidents or coincidences in God's view. As opposed to the extremes of deterministic (mechanical) and fatalistic points of view, the Christian faith believes in a God who is in control of the universe, who is in charge of history. Even if we see some events that hinder us as sins and errors on our parts (of course, they are), they are beautifully and mercifully used by our Lord as part of His eternal plan. As St Paul would say, "We know that in everything, God works for the good of those who love Him, whom He has called, according to His plan" (Romans 8:28). God even uses our freedom to eventually achieve His purpose. Paradoxically, there is nothing fixed, but all progress towards the same goal in their own time and pace.

Prophet Jeremiah in today's first reading predicts the coming of safety and security, a time of justice and right. Though he writes to a people doomed by exile, he affirms God’s promise to lift them up. The just shoot of David, we understand, will be the descendant of David we anticipate in this season. Jeremiah’s prophecy is pronounced six centuries before the birth of Jesus. In our time, we await the day of justice and right when the kingdom of God is established in our midst.

In the second reading, Paul's instruction to the Christians of Thessalonica is very optimistic. He commends them on many levels, instructs them briefly and blesses them heartily. But he also calls for conversion, which is an ongoing work of the Christian. You and I must continue to grow in our fidelity to the Gospel, in our knowledge of God’s word, and in the challenge to be people of justice and compassion. No one of us has “arrived” to the fullness of faith. Conversion, or better translated transformation, is something we have to be humble enough to embrace.

The terrifying words of coming tribulation in today's gospel reading seem out of sync with the season of “Deck the Halls” and Christmas shopping. While all the world is preparing for a family holiday, a big feast, a babe in a manger, the church wants us to prepare for the end of the world. It's no rocket science to say that the Birth of Jesus (after 2000+ years) is only a memorial, and the church calendar reminds us that, in the midst of our daily routines, our fixed cycles of Monday through Sunday, season and plans, God has an eternal plan that is also in motion.

Beyond the cycle of ordinary history is salvation history. Beyond the babe in the manger is the coming of the kingdom. Watch! Be on guard! Look up! This world is passing, gradually, minutely. And much more swiftly, we are passing through it. To be too indulged with worldly desires and cares is to rearrange the deck chairs on the sinking Titanic. Why spend your life in pursuit of what will pass away?

As our journey begins from Him and ends with Him, it makes perfect sense that life between the beginning and the end should be an attentive one to Him with a big dose of prayerfulness.