First Sunday of Advent-A December 1, 2013 NOW It is ironic that for us to move towards the future, we ought to go back to the past, in as much as it teaches us how to go. There, we find very good lessons about the present, as well as the future. The readings for the beginning of the liturgical year/season invite us to a happy celebration in God on Mount Zion. It was sort of a dream, and its fulfillment at the same time, for Israel to reunite with God in his holy dwelling—a time for gathering “all nations (who) shall stream toward it,” climbing the Lord’s mountain to the house of the God of Jacob (cf. Isa. 2:3). It promises the end of what really oppresses people—the constant preoccupation with wars and armaments—and the beginning, the climax and the perpetuity of true and lasting peace. It says, “They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; one nation shall not raise a sword against another nor shall they train for war again” (Isa. 2: 4). The sense by which the first reading tells it connotes the fact that only God has the power to make it happen, and he alone can bring to fruition all human labors about peace. In a real sense, it places God at the center of all the longings of humanity the fulfillment of which we cannot possibly render unto ourselves, with our human solutions and ingenuities. Jerusalem stands as the utopia, the promised land, which draws all believers in God. Now this (chronological) past of longing for Zion sets us on the course towards a future fulfillment, which in our faith, already happens although in an inchoate way. St. Paul gives a wonderful analogy of our “now” and why this remains a project. He says: “For our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is advanced, the day is at hand” (Rom. 13:11). This is the idea of one moving, inch by inch, towards salvation, towards Mount Zion, and in fact one, by believing, has progressed veritably. This “now” is a better place compared to the past because it is “nearer” to salvation than ever before. We have to believe, that in spite of the tragedies that may seem to forestall our downfall, we are coming closer to God. Discouragement is the biggest thorn in our flesh, and can give us many excuses for sliding back. But between the now and the time of setting foot on Mount Zion seems to be an arduous journey for us, even if it does not necessarily mean chronological time. The only assurance that, whether we chose to remain where we are or to advance towards the future, is found is the Scriptures itself: “So too, you also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come” (Matt. 24:22). Without any shadow of doubt, the time when God assumes complete jurisdiction over creation will happen just as it is ordained by divine wisdom. In view of God’s finality, the Apostle gave us the corresponding ethos, when he said, “Let us then throw off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; let us conduct ourselves properly as in the day…”(Rom. 12: 13). The concept of “day” is always the image of Christian faith as opposed to “night,” which is distance away from the light of divine revelation. Our here and now, is a preparatory phase, moving us from belief to a more profound faith, towards the destiny being given to us, only if we know where we are exactly laboring at. This is the opening salvo of Advent. Recalling the many other forms of God’s arrival in our world: the incarnation, the Eucharist, the Sacraments, even our encounter with one another, and strangely, as had been shown to us, even in our tragedies, we are called to examine the “now”. Not so much in a misplaced confidence in our abilities, in progress, in human excitement, but really in looking at the bigger picture, which makes the details of our daily enjoyments and successes far too small and insignificant if they were set against the grandeur of divine plans, that we ought to look at our “now.” So much pettiness and the “victimization” of the small worldly niceties were seen in the time of Noah. The Lord made a valid observation saying, “… they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day that Noah entered the ark” (Matt. 24: 38). Why did they not see what was imminent? But might not their time be like our time, and ours, theirs? Advent is also recognizing that “now” we may have wasted the same opportunities for recognition of (again) the bigger puzzle, the sounder logic of God and our future to which our God has destined us. That which we consider “big time” may not necessarily fit into the frame within which God has set this world. Our Advent begins in the future, by looking at our past, so that we can ably “walk in the light of the Lord” now (Isa. 2:5). We can, then, concede to our God who engineers our small steps towards him. Of course, God never makes us victims of his grand designs. Neither does he ignore the many forms of happiness. We never subscribe to the idea of never questioning “why?” We do not refrain from asking the reasons for the persistence of oppression. I guess, we cannot just arrive at a synthesis of faith without the anti-thesis of disbelief. But what we know is to be truly human we often walk in the valley of darkness, not knowing “why” we ought to be there in the first place, if our God is a shepherd who leads us to greener pastures. Looking at this misery we also know that we are never alone here. God seemed to have “victimized” his Son, too, for the greater logic of redemption. Yet, finding God to good to do that to His Son, and to us, we just hope that our eyes are open wide enough to see the vagueness that makes speechless. Sometime this speechlessness is the best starting point of faith in God, who puts himself in an awkward position by the concealment of his power and goodness from our eyes. I think here is where we all lay down everything: in the desire to see the true face of God (and his reasons!) in the expected future whose proximity is measured by the breadth of the love that waits for us at the other end of the track. Of course, human as we are, we cannot but speak of the future only in vague terms. Its haze covers our eyes that we cannot possibly see beyond it. However, it does not prevent from, but rather occasions, clinching faith, and unfathomable hope that there, beyond the fogginess of life, God awaits. Advent firmly promises this as our future; the better we see it now, the more we shall see how everything has a logic that innately leads to God himself; for everything streams toward him; That includes us, if we still allow the power of God to draw closer to Mount Zion.
Posted on: Sun, 01 Dec 2013 10:23:20 +0000
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