Word to the Wise
Sunday, December 3, 2017 - 1st Sunday of Advent - B
[Isa 63:16b-17, 19b; 64:2-7; 1 Cor 1:3-9; Mark 13:33-37]"Watch, therefore; you do not know when the lord of the house is coming, whether in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or in the morning. May he not come suddenly and find you sleeping. What I say to you, I say to all: "Watch!" [Mark]
Today marks the beginning of a new liturgical year. We go from watching for the second coming of Jesus to watching for the first coming! We begin to tell the story of God's plan of salvation all over again. The gospel, in Latin, is called "evangelium," which means "Good News!" The danger with both comings of Jesus is that we lose our edge and begin to say, "Yeah, yeah! We know! What else is new?" But I think we never have a surplus of hope, and the Good News needs to be proclaimed over and over again to keep hope alive.
The hope of Advent is different from the hope proclaimed last Sunday. The latter was a hope of a second coming to judge the world and establish righteousness. It was focused on the experience of Jesus. The hope of Advent goes back to the beginning when hope was expressed over centuries in the coming of a "messiah." Scripture scholars tell us that the "messianic hope" of Jesus' time was not something clear and unambiguous. Different strands of Judaism had different hopes. Life went on as usual when Jesus was born. It would be 30+ years later that he would begin his ministry. No wonder that his family and friends in Nazareth and Jews elsewhere found him unacceptable. A "messiah" had to be more than a carpenter's son from Nazareth.
As we begin to consider finding the manger scene to set it up, perhaps that action can awaken in us our own "hopes" for this season. The secular celebration leaves little to the imagination or to faith. The quiet arrival of Jesus in humble circumstances requires that we get louder if only in our own minds and hearts to remember "the reason for the season." Advent is a kind of wake-up call - a call to hope. AMEN