Fr. John O’Callaghan OSB
Stand erect, hold your heads high, your liberation is near at hand’. This is the key message of today’s gospel for Christians and all people of good will.
This message is delivered to us on the first Sunday of Advent when we are invited to reflect on the end of the world, that is the Second coming of Christ. On future Sundays we will reflect on Christs’ birth in Nazareth and the lead up to it but now, we look at the destination of human history. The apocalyptic images of the clamour of the ocean and its waves; people dying of fear as they await what menaces the world”, true enough even in these times, might fill us with dread. But the gospel is clear: hold your heads high, your liberation is near. This means that the Second coming is not a cataclysm for Christians but something to welcome, to rejoice in, despite all the conflict surrounding it. This applies to us today too, as we negotiate our way through various crises. That is why we read it. And it is saying something very reassuring about God.
In former times, in the Middle Ages, the end of time was known as ‘dies irea, dies illa”, the day of wrath. That didn’t calm spirits. It was seen as fearsome because, as the creed says ‘Christ will come again to judge the living and the dead’. Christianity was being reduced to moralism, robbing it of that hope and joy which is its breath of life. It seemed to forget that it is not simply God, the Infinite and Eternal One, who judges but, on the contrary, that He has handed judgement over to one who, as a man, is our brother. Our judge will not be a stranger to us but one whom we have known in faith. He will advance to meet us, not as the entirely Other, but as one of us, who knows human existence from the inside and who also has suffered. The Christian will recognise he to whom ‘all authority in heaven and on earth has been given’ was his or her companion in faith while on earth’. And it was this Jesus Christ who said to his disciples on Lake Gennesaret ‘Fear not, it is I’. That is reason to hold your head high. The first Christian community did and cried out ‘Mar an atha, Come Lord Jesus! ‘
But let us remember that today’s gospel does have another message: ‘Stay awake!’…. We are not relieved of responsibilities in the time between the first and second coming. ‘We are called’, as St Augustine says, ‘to do what we hope for.’ Every day brings its opportunities in the forcefield of good and evil, in little ways and large.
Daily we learn in the media of the delicate equilibrium of our human habitat. Every household has its subtle influence on the environment.
Daily the gospel calls us to integrity and generosity in our relationships. May we do what we hope for.
The challenges of life under Covid might frighten us but for the Christian hope is stronger than despair and is not even overcome by death. And, in Jesus, we know that we do not suffer alone, but with God as a fellow-sufferer.
Finally, today’s gospel reminds us to ‘Pray at all times’. Pray to stay open to our great destiny.
St Augustine also said ‘Tell me your hopes and I’ll tell you who you are.’ Christians have the most audacious hope and a divine promise of victory. May we be ambassadors of that hope in Advent. So that we can confidently cry out Mar an atha! Come, Lord Jesus!