THIRD SUNDAY OF ADVENT, December 11, 2023
(Isaiah 35:1-6.10; James 5:7-10; Matthew 11:2-11)
We should take advantage of this opportunity during both the
World Cup competition and the Advent season to ask ourselves a question. It
will be the same question that the disciples of John the Baptist propose to
Jesus in the gospel today: "Are you the one who is to come or do we have
to wait for another?" That is, is Jesus the one we are waiting for or
should we look to the other to fulfill our deepest desires?
Of course, the answer has to do with what we seek in life.
Some yearn for little more than the excitement that comes when their nation's
team wins the championship. Jesus may have been a gifted athlete, but nowhere
in the gospels does it say that he beat anyone in sports. Those of us who want
the World Cup will have to wait for another.
In the first century many Jews awaited the coming of a
political messiah who could deliver their people from Roman hegemony. It is
possible that Juan thought so. Still, many today want a political leader who
can reshape society in the way that suits them. The liberal types would like a
mandate that defends the so-called “procreative rights” and immigration rights.
Likewise, conservatives would have a leader who keeps the traditional culture
intact. However, people with this kind of hope will be disappointed in Jesus.
He sternly rejected the idea that he was a political messiah.
Still others see salvation in the person who can meet all of
their intimate needs. They want a rich man or woman with good looks and fine
sensibilities. Jesus will not fulfill this scheme either because his mission is
for the whole world.
Jesus does not fulfill any of these desires. He has come, as
he declares to the disciples of John, so that the blind may see and the lame
walk, so that the dead may be raised and the poor receive the good news. So, he
doesn't come for the middle class or the healthy, people like most of us, it that
not right? No, it isn't. There is a
statistic, certainly true, given by a famous psychologist: "One of each of
us is suffering." One of each of us has felt abandoned, exhausted, or
hurt, at one time or another with repercussions that persist to the present
moment. Truly Jesus has come to care for all of us.
Are we not spiritually blind when we think that if God
exists, He will forgive my sins whether I confess them or not? One look at the
gospel will open our eyes. In it Jesus shows us not only that God exists but
also that he has so much love for us that we always want to please him. Are we
not spiritually deaf when we do not want to hear the sorrows and sorrows of
other people? Again, the gospel presents Jesus welcoming everyone into his
company and asking us to do the same. Are we not spiritually dead when we
always seek our own pleasure and not the good, the true and the eternal? A man
spent many fall weekends hunting. He liked to sit in a hide waiting for a deer.
One Saturday the man was in the field with his rifle. It occurred to him that
his life was missing something necessary: a relationship with the One who
created the earth and all that it holds. The hunter got up and returned to his
parish to confess. He now lives happily as a committed layman.
This man along with all of us awaits the return of the Lord
Jesus. Let us not doubt that he will arrive because he has promised it. As James
says in the second reading, we need to wait with the patience of farmers expecting
the harvest. In the meantime, it is up to us to prepare the earth for the
Kingdom of God. We break up the clods with prayer and sow the seeds of kindness
and love. Among all we sow seeds of kindness and love.
