Homily:
2nd Sunday of Advent – Cycle A
Friends, last week, if you
were here and heard my homily, you heard me say that what we celebrate in
Advent is really a continuation of our celebration of Christ the King, just
from a different perspective. I said that
while the Feast of Christ the King acknowledges and celebrates that the Divine
Son of God united himself with our human nature so as to establish God’s
definitive kingdom here on earth, the season of Advent spurs us to remember
that this very same king will one day return in all of his glory to take his
kingdom back unto himself. Jesus’
exhortation to “stay awake” because we will know neither the day nor the hour
on which he will return is our urgent Advent message: for Christ himself said
that on that day (the day of the coming of the Son of Man) “one will be taken,
and one will be left...” meaning, “one will be lifted up into glory and one
will be left to descend into eternal death.
Jesus gives no indication as to who will be lifted up and who will be
left except to imply this: that those who were prepared for that day will be
lifted into heaven, while those who failed to make preparations will be left
behind. I thus exhorted us to make our
Christmas preparations more about preparing for and hailing the coming of
Christ our King so that this day will not catch us unaware and, thus, left
behind.
This Sunday we continue to
focus on Christ the King. In the reading
from the book of the prophet Isaiah, we hear just what kind of king Christ will
be. The kings of the world would nearly
always rely on fighting wars and making a name for themselves by great military
victories and then would use their power and influence over others to take
advantage of them. And this was not just
for the wicked pagan kings. No, we need
look no farther than the great Israelite king, King David, to see that this
pattern holds. On the feast of Christ
the King, we heard how the Israelites acknowledged that David deserved to be
king because of the great victories that he won. Later we would see how he would use his power
and influence to take advantage of his people when he committed adultery with
Bathsheba and then compounded his sin by trying to cover it up: ultimately
making it so that Bathsheba’s husband Uriah was killed on the battlefield so
that David could take Bathsheba for his wife.
David, of course, humbled himself before God and sought forgiveness, but
it nonetheless illustrates the pattern that even the best worldly kings tend to
fall into.
Isaiah paints a different
picture of the king who is to come. This
king will be a king upon whom the spirit of the Lord will rest, making him wise
and just beyond any other king the world has seen. He will not use force to rule over peoples;
rather, the wise words that come from his mouth shall be the power by which he
will slay his enemies. Nor will he take
advantage of the people; rather, he will judge the poor with justice and do
right for all peoples throughout the land.
Under this king, there shall be unprecedented peace and harmony; and not
just among people, but throughout nature: for the wolf shall be the guest of
the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid... In other words, this is the king who will
restore right order to the universe, the king who will lead us back to the
Garden of Eden.
We see that Christ, indeed, is
this king by his ministry recorded for us in the Gospels. How many times did he confound the scribes
and the Pharisees by disarming the traps they had set for him by his wise
responses? And how about the Roman
rulers, too? John’s gospel records how
Jesus’ words confounded Pontius Pilate and left him literally washing his hands
of Jesus because he could not withstand the power of his words. And how many times did his disciples seek to
retaliate with violence only to have Jesus rebuke them for seeking to use
worldly means of gaining power? Jesus
was just in his public ministry, treating everyone equally and favoring no
one. And his miracles—especially his
miracles of healing—show that he came to restore right order to the universe so
as to lead us back into Eden: that is, the kingdom of God.
Friends, this is the
Christ—the great King—whose first coming we are preparing to celebrate and
whose imminent return we are called to anticipate. Both of these demand that we listen to John
the Baptist who calls us today to prepare through repentance. Why repentance? Because when the King comes he will look to
have his kingdom in order, with his subjects doing the work he gave them in the
manner that he instructed them to do it.
Now I know that, as persons who live in a free society—one that was
founded in response to throwing off the rule of a monarch—it may be difficult
for us to live as subjects of a king who has absolute authority over us. Nonetheless, that is what we are called to do
and that is what Jesus expects of us when he returns.
Remember, however, that his is
not the king/queen of England, but rather the great king who the prophet Isaiah
foretold would come, and so we should not be afraid to make ourselves subjects
of this king. In fact, we should have a
healthy fear of not submitting ourselves to this king and his order, because,
as John the Baptist relates, He is coming with his winnowing fan in his hand to
clear his threshing floor; gathering his wheat into his barn and throwing the
chaff into an unquenchable fire. The
wheat are those who have subjected themselves to his authority and the chaff
are those who haven’t. The wheat,
therefore, will be taken up into glory on the last day and the chaff will be
left to descend into everlasting death.
Our task of preparation,
therefore, is one in which we examine ourselves—soberly, yet seriously—and ask
ourselves, “In what ways am I denying to be a faithful subject of my
king?” The answers to these questions
are what we call “sins”: ways in which we have denied to act as faithful
subjects of our king. Then, having
identified those things, we must make a positive decision to turn from those
ways and subject ourselves to him with our whole hearts, minds, bodies, and
strength once again. This starts with a
good sacramental confession and continues through changed behaviors and
attitudes. The former is simple enough
to complete (there are many opportunities for one to make a confession every
week). The latter, however, will take a
good amount of work. You’ll know that
you’ve done it, however, when you’ve detached yourselves from your wants and
desires and seek rather to know and to do what God wants: which is to spread
the good news of Jesus and to relieve suffering wherever you are able. My friends, this is true repentance, and this
is the way that we are called to prepare for the coming of Christ our King.
Last week I warned you all
about a specter
running around called “The Christmas Spirit” that convinces people to believe
in a domesticated Christmas: a Christmas that’s all about family reunions,
meals, and shared gifts. This, I argued,
is a false spirit, because the true Spirit of Christmas is the one that leads
us to prepare for and to hail the coming of Christ our King. This week, we see clearly who is this king
for whom we are preparing and the way for us to prepare for him to come. My brothers and sisters let us earnestly take
up this work of repentance with great hope in our hearts: for Christ our King
loves us and longs for the day when he will return to take us up into his
glory. This Eucharist, in which his
advent is made present to us even now, is the guarantee of this truth. Let us, then, not be afraid: for his kingdom
of justice and peace awaits us.
Given at Saint Mary’s Cathedral: Lafayette, IN – December 8th,
2019
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