John the Baptist Preaching
Rodin, Auguste, 1840-1917
December 7, 2014
and there is a strange mood upon us, upon our church, upon our land.
Our deepest longings and most profound yearnings still tug at our hearts, unfulfilled in the past and uncertain in the future.
What can this Advent celebration teach us about those longings and yearnings?
Throughout this season, in the readings from the prophets of old, deserts bloom, exiles return home, mountains run with wine, the deaf hear,
the blind see, virgins conceive, barren women give birth, lambs graze with lions and children play with snakes.
The Advent scriptures turn the world as we know it inside out and upside down.
But in the midst of the splendor of these images and the fullness of the promises, we must remember who are the Advent people to whom the prophets preach, who are the Advent people who hear the prophets.
For instance, in today's first reading, Isaiah proclaims comfort and care to people in exile.
To the sorrowing, confused and frustrated refugees, the prophet proclaims a straight road, a highway in the desert.
In today's gospel, John the Baptizer proclaims forgiveness to the sinner, healing to the sick, the gift of God in wind and fire to a people sorrowing, confused and frustrated by foreign oppression and political hopelessness.
Throughout Advent, the message of the coming of our God is proclaimed to a broken people .
Why preach God's splendor and promise to such people?
I think it is because the broken know their powerlessness.
They have faced the disappointment of their deepest longings but they cry out for fulfillment.
The prophets promise God's fullness to people who know their emptiness, the depth of their hunger.
Where does that leave us?
Today's scriptures (indeed, all of Advents readings) call us to encounter our broken-ness.
God summons us to that tender place within us where our deepest longings reside.
Embrace your yearnings, says the Lord, and reach out for more.
Be an Advent people.
Dare to face the sorrow you experience in the way your family lets you down, in the way your parents do not understand you,
in the way your brothers or sisters or children move on without a thought for you.
The readings call us to face our powerlessness and to find there the presence of God manifest in our hope for more.
Today's scriptures call us to confront the frustration we experience because we never seem to make enough money, to have enough things, to find satisfaction in our work.
They call us to confront the emptiness we feel in the midst of so many things and invite us to find in the emptiness itself the presence of God manifest in our will to reach toward more.
Today's scriptures call us to engage the confusion we experience because our spouse lets us down, our friends do not seem to care, our associates are concerned more with themselves.
They call us to face our need and our hunger and to find in the hunger itself the presence of God manifest in our longing for more.
The Advent message is strong and clear:
Only in the encounter with our broken-ness will we be open to God.
Only in that encounter will we discover that God alone can save.
The Advent scriptures challenge us:
Can we dare to face our sorrow, confront our frustration, engage our confusion?
If we can, we will come to see that only God can fulfill our longing, only God can give us more.
We can be an Advent people open to God and to God's power to save.
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