In the meantime, things were kind of cold and quiet back at the stable.
Advent is a season charged with a heavy load to deliver.
It is not simply a nice liturgical preparation for Christmas. It also expresses the desire of humanity for peace on earth, good will towards men, and all that. It purposely stirs up in us the desire that Christ might come again, this time in glory, to make all things right from one end of the cosmos to the other.
While Lent is designed to encourage us to do works of self-denial, prayer, and charity so that we might die to self and live (more) for Christ, Advent simply longs that Christ come again to make all things glorious and to remove all evil from our midst, once and for all.
“Come, Lord Jesus!” we cry. “Come to all those places dried up in us and without charity to spare for our neighbor or prayer to spend on our enemies. Come and set us free at last!”
Having opened oneself up a bit to this kind of longing and this kind of beseeching, we are led again into the painful awareness of just how far we have yet to go if we are even to touch the hem of this mystery.
We are tempted either to give up on bearing such aspirations, or to drown them in the dozen or so Christmas parties that take place before we even get to Christmas. Christmas itself becomes a welcome respite from the worries of life, and we try not to think too much on how folks are doing in Gaza, the Sudan, Lebanon, Ukraine, and so forth.
No doubt these “problem areas” will be awaiting our attention after Christmas, so in the meantime, we praise God for coming to save us, and we turn our attention to the feast days that mark this season. For who can fast when the Bridegroom is with us?
Or is he? Maybe he removes himself from our comfort zones to identify with those poor people “over there”. After all, when he came the first time as a baby, he didn’t come with a lot of hoopla. True, there were angels brightly singing for a time, but they soon went back to heaven so that the shepherds could get on with going to see and worship the Child.
In the meantime, things were kind of cold and quiet back at the stable. When the shepherds arrived and told their tale of angels and angelic choruses to Joseph and Mary, they were astonished, since it was almost eerily still at the stable.
One must think the Lord wanted it that way, so as to identify more with how most children come into this world — without fanfare, without international acclaim or erudite seminars studying what the Incarnation of God means for us.
Here, we are brought back to the issues raised at the beginning of this article: we would like Christ, now that he is visibly incarnate, to bring his floods of grace and to proclaim his Lordship.
Yes, there is the Cross yet to be endured, but since by now we all know that he has conquered sin and death on that same cross, should not now be the time of glory, victory of God, and some invigorating halleluiahs? The suffering of our world has gone on for so long, and we are bone-dead weary of the uncertainty of it all. So cannot this Christmas be the one we’ve all been longing for, praying for, dreaming of?
Here we are approaching the stable again this year! Babies are nice, but what about all these adult problems and quagmires we’ve gotten ourselves into? Who can pull us out of this malaise but you, O Lord?!
I told you at the beginning of this article that Advent is charged with a heavy load to carry! For these promises of great things to be accomplished by God have a kind of crescendo as Advent progresses.
Suddenly, it’s a week or so before Christmas and the liturgy suddenly switches focus and contents itself with contemplating the birth of Christ and showing how he fulfills the Old Testament prophecies — O Wisdom, O Lord, O Key of David, O Dawn, O Emmanuel, and so forth.
We hear, for example, of a wisdom that orders all things sweetly from one end of the world to the other, but my mind immediately leaps ahead to St. Paul’s description of a wisdom that is foolishness to the world:
For since in the wisdom of God the world did not come to know God through wisdom, it was the will of God through the foolishness of the proclamation to save those who have faith. For Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are called, Jews and Greeks alike, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength (1 Corinthians 1: 21-25).
Of course, the wisdom that governs all things sweetly across the vast cosmos is the same wisdom that was born in a stable and then died on a cross. And until we learn the lesson of the stable and of the cross, we are lacking in that one thing needed to be an instrument of peace in this world. That one thing is the wisdom of God revealed in Jesus Christ.
His humility alone can heal the arrogance of this world’s kingdoms. His meekness is what is required to put an end to hatred and war. Only his boldness in speaking the truth and living it in a human life can expose the lies and illusions of the times in which we live. His smile alone can assure us that despite appearances to the contrary, all shall be well.
People often ask me how I am, given that I have Parkinson’s to deal with. I generally say, “Fine!” And then I add, “Outside — struggling day by day. Inside — all is well.”
If that is an exaggeration some days, well, some of those Old Testament prophets weren’t above a certain poetic license when describing the work that God would soon do. No doubt he is carrying out that plan of his, so great in scope that no exaggeration would really be an exaggeration.
Which takes us back to the beginning of this reflection that, in these days, we long for the Lord to accomplish his wonders, even the wonder that I surrender a bit more to his plan, however mysterious his wisdom is to fools like me!
