Advent is here! 

Advent is my favourite liturgical season with the profound poetry of Isaiah (mainly) which we Christians read as the coming and the Reign of God.  We see Isaiah’s words in the Gospel texts that tell us that these promises are enfleshed in Jesus and will come to fruition when the Parousia, the final day arrives when ‘Christ will be all in all’.

So, the liturgy talks about the coming of Christ in human flesh and the final fulfilment.

However, what happens in between?  What do we, God’s missionary disciples, the Body of Christ here and now make of them?

The promises

Until 16^th December, the texts of the first readings, both weekdays and Sundays, make great promises about this time:

Swords will be turned into ploughshares

No more training for war

We will walk in the light of the Lord

The wolf lives with the lamb

There will be no more weeping because God will hear our cry

Every tear will be wiped away

There will be an abundance of food

The deaf will hear and the lowly rejoice

Tyrants will be no more

We will be consoled because sin will be no more (p23)

 

The Anointed One and the Anointed Ones

When that first community read Isaiah in the light of the Incarnation, they saw the promises fulfilled in Jesus’ life summed up in Isaiah 11

A spirit of wisdom and insight,

A spirit of counsel and power

A spirit of knowledge and of fear of the Lord….

He does not judge be appearances,

He gives no verdict on hearsay,

But judges the wretched with integrity,

And with equity gives a verdict for the poor in the land.

His word is a rod that strikes the ruthless,

His sentences bring death to the wicked.

Integrity is the loincloth round his waist,

Faithfulness the belt about his hips.

 

However, for us, baptised into the Body of Christ, they are also the qualities of the missionary disciple for we are the living presence of Christ in whom the Reign of God is fulfilled.  This is our mission. This is our great dignity.  These great poems of Advent are also about our identity. 

We have been entrusted with peacemaking, justice doing, relief for the poor, freedom for captives….  Precisely because we are the living face of this Jesus, the Anointed one, Incarnate and Risen.

It may sound too large for us humans who often muddle along.  Too big for ordinary people.  Yet this high calling is grounded in our daily encounters.  Each time we treat someone with respect, recognise in another our sister or brother, forgive, speak for those voiceless, bring relief to those suffering no matter how small our ways, they send ripples out to who knows where.

As we live these gifts daily in the community of faith, we create places of fraternal friendship and welcome.  We transform the world.

Conversion

The texts of Advent call us to repentance, conversion – ‘If you had been alert to my commandments your happiness would have been like a river….’ (Is 48:17-19).  We are asked to turn to the Holy One and be saved.  From what? 

We cannot enter into the joy of the Holy unless we care for all those God asks us to care.  We shut ourselves out but the Holy One waits for us.

Personally, I think we need to turn from limitations of mind and heart to embrace the extraordinary dignity and mission God has gifted us with. Our prayer and our actions embrace both our neighbour and the world. The great Rabbi, Abraham Heschel wrote that we are the shape of God in human history.

If there is one thing this pandemic has brought home to me is that we survive only when we see our lives as a network of relationships with all humankind and all creation.  To wear a mask is not only to protect ourselves but it is an act of love for others – people we may never know.  We wash hands, keep distance and isolate ourselves, for those we love but also for those we may never know.  This is redeeming friendship.  What Pope Francis in Fratelli tutti calls ‘fraternal friendship’.

The contagion of the virus made me think about how close all our encounters are, whether they be human or with the rest of creation.  We share breath when we speak, we share DNA, we share the air we breathe.  We saw pollution levels drop and wildlife return to the cities. We most truly are related on a deep level of God’s creation. 

The conversion Advent asks of us is to be converted from exclusive individualism to community knowing ourselves to be sisters and brothers.  It asks us to expand our horizons to include the whole world; to expand the circle of love to people who are poor, hungry, alone, lost, despised, the stranger; to act with justice and honesty in all one’s interactions with people and all creation. 

This conversion of Advent is a daily movement to see as God sees, to love as the Holy One loves.  To see as the God of Jesus sees.  Our truth is that we live in a network of relationships with all creation.  The Triune God so loved the world that the Second Person entered into creation to be its glory, crown and redeemer. 

As the Holy One says, ‘with an excess of love I will take you back’ (Is 54:1-10). Daily, momentary conversion God embraces us.

Of course, this is all God’s doing, the Spirit inspiring us.  We have the promise, ‘…my love for you will never leave you and my covenant of peace with you will never be shaken says the Lord who takes pity on you. (Is 54:10). 

To answer my question, ‘what happens in between’? Christ comes to us to transform us into his likeness and in turn our faithful acts of love make this visible.

‘We have promised great things to God

and

God has promised even greater things to us’

St Francis of Assisi