Dai­ly Reflec­tion
Decem­ber 6, 2009

PRE-PRAYER­ING
There are once-in-a-life-time events, and many once-a-year events such as the com­ing of the East­er Bun­ny or San­ta him­self. Mighty are the prepa­ra­tions for those child-cen­tered delights. The “Lit­tle-Ones” must be ready, watch­ful, eager or it might all be missed.

It is the sea­son for the adult-cen­tered, day-by-day, moment-by-moment offer­ing, pre­sent­ing, reveal­ing of God. The ques­tion for us “Old­er-Ones” will always be about just how ready and pre­pared do we have to be to receive, accept, and be blest by God’s arrivings.

We have time. We have Holy Scrip­ture. We have many voic­es call­ing to us. Many oth­er scrip­tures which invite us con­stant­ly to find life in its attrac­tions and pages. We are invit­ed to pre­pare for the cel­e­bra­tion of the birth of Jesus by lis­ten­ing intent­ly - yes I say “intent­ly”- to the adver­tise­ments which announce var­i­ous ways to expe­ri­ence “real” life. Read the scrip­tur­al adver­tise­ments of the “new-and-improved” won­ders. We can take time to pray with them in a reflec­tive way. What are they promis­ing? What have been your expe­ri­ences of buy­ing in?

Advent Hints:
Smile and enjoy the attempts to bend your minds and imag­i­na­tions around images of peace, har­mo­ny, rela­tion­ships, and iden­ti­ty which come to us through the mail, store win­dows, TV and news­pa­pers. Pre­pare to expe­ri­ence your being insult­ed by how eas­i­ly seduced they think we are, and smile at how vul­ner­a­ble we real­ly are to these allurements.

We pre­pare for the Eucharist in the same man­ner with which we pre­pare for Jesus’ first com­ing, with open­ness, sim­plic­i­ty and truth. We need a Sav­ior and that Sav­ior comes now-and-now-and-now again. The empti­ness of our out-stretched hand when approach­ing our recep­tion of the Eucharist is an Advent-Ges­ture of hope and fulfillment. 

REFLEC­TION

Dur­ing the litur­gi­cal year, we do not hear much from the prophet Baruch. As a mes­sen­ger and poet of God, he has accom­pa­nied the Jew­ish peo­ple into exile and cap­tiv­i­ty. Jerusalem is their City of Iden­ti­ty, but only in mem­o­ry and prayer.

The Israelites have been con­front­ed with their infi­deli­ties and long to return to their home­land and their rela­tion­ship with the God Who brought them out of the first exile in Egypt. What we hear is a new song from the prophet. There is hope and Jerusalem is the cen­ter or image of recov­ery and restora­tion. The great city, remem­bered by those now in cap­tiv­i­ty as beau­ti­ful, but in real­i­ty reduced to destruc­tion, is pic­tured with new glo­ri­ous dressing.

There is return to Jerusalem promised and also the return of God’s faith­ful love for all God’s holy and redeemed peo­ple. They have been remem­bered by God. The way will be made clear as will the mer­cy and jus­tice of God.

The prophet might have been stand­ing in the sun too long or under the influ­ence of some strange spir­it. There he is in the midst of exile and he begins, like a cheer­leader to expand what sounds like a dream. In real­i­ty it is the Word of God meant to begin the return. The prophet’s words are an advance-adver­tis­ing alert­ing the peo­ple for the com­ing of sal­va­tion and the rebuild­ing of the Great City. The ques­tion would arise about whether the peo­ple will believe in the midst of their shame and gloom.

The main Advent char­ac­ter arrives on stage in today’s Gospel. After quite a lengthy his­tor­i­cal set­ting, Luke presents John as appear­ing prophet­i­cal­ly announc­ing the com­ing of “the sal­va­tion of God.” He, as did Baruch, speaks of val­leys and hills being made lev­el and the windy roads made straight.

John is preach­ing a bap­tism of repen­tance. Bap­tism itself is a purifi­ca­tion rit­u­al and John is invit­ing peo­ple to be puri­fied from the unholy hang­ing-ons in their lives. In his way he is ask­ing the peo­ple to check out what they are hold­ing onto for their iden­ti­ties, their secu­ri­ties. In short he is announc­ing that they will be asked to let go of the old and stale forms of relat­ing with God and pre­pare for some­thing, a Some One Who is com­ing to be held onto. The famil­iar is so com­fort­ing and the Bap­tist is pro­claim­ing the lat­est sur­prise in a long his­to­ry of unusu­al revelations.

Jesus is not on stage yet, but the dra­mat­ic ten­sion is ris­ing. The peo­ple, and we as well, are called to trust the off-sta­ge­ness of the Promised One. The peo­ple in exile, the peo­ple lis­ten­ing to the Bap­tist, we who are lis­ten­ing to both, all are called to repent or, in oth­er words, return to our being held by the ever-lov­ing and faith­ful God. 

Our hearts have hands in a way and we tend to reshape gifts into lit­tle gods and those hands can grasp these gods for some des­per­ate life-sup­port. This is a won­der­ful time of year, of prepar­ing to give gifts and receive as well. The peo­ple of Israel were in exile, because they had for­got­ten the gift of their being God’s holy peo­ple and their city a holy place of God’s presence.

We need Advent to remem­ber what’s what and what’s not. The “off-stage” voice of the One Who is to come is what will get things straight, will fill in the emp­ty val­leys and lev­el our moun­tains of defen­sive fear. To allow this, we trust the call, the unusu­al, and the new­ness of Jesus’ com­ing. We need these Advent moments to check out our lit­tle heart-hands and see if there is any room in those hands for our receiv­ing the new Sur­prise. The hands of the “Old­ers” often are cal­loused by unre­al­ized promis­es with result­ing frus­tra­tions. These days of Advent can be a time for soft­en­ing of hearts and hands so that trust and hope will fill in the val­leys of disappointment. 

“The Lord has done great things for us; we are filled with joy.” Ps. 126