Christmas 1C
(Is 61:10-62:3; Ps 147:13-21; Gal 3:23-25, 4:4-7; Jn 1:1-18) As we’re still in the midst of Christmas season, today’s gospel lesson proclaims the true identity of Jesus as Christ. Who really is Jesus? St John the Baptizer’s identity seems to confuse some people. They wonder if John is the Messiah. Their messages are pretty much identical that they both talk about the coming of God’s kingdom and the radical change of heart. Yet, not only St John the Baptizer himself but also St John the Evangelist deny one thing that this John, Jesus’s cousin is not the Christ, the Anointed One. John’s role is strictly to prepare the way of Jesus that he is coming. If one considers John as the Messiah, it’s like believing the finger that points at the moon to be the moon. Both Johns would say, “Don’t look at me, but who I am pointing at!” I think today’s gospel lesson can make us look at a wrong tree. What wrong tree is this? It’s this rather puzzling Greek term ‘logos’ or simply ‘word’ in English. We just heard in the gospel lesson, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.” What kind of word is this? John refers this Word to be the Word of God. And the Word of God that became human is Jesus. Now this still sounds confusing. I think it’s easier to make sense to say that God just became human because it is somewhat imaginable, though we can never fully grasp what it is. So, what is the Word of God John is so preoccupied in our gospel lesson? We can get some idea from the very first chapter of the first book of the Hebrew Bible. There aretwo things we want to look at. The first thing is that they both start their first line of the first chapter with “In the beginning when God created…” It’s not too hard to imagine that John seems to mimic this opening line of Genesis 1. The second thing, which is our interest here, is this word. It is not exactly the same that the author of Genesis 1 uses this term ‘word’ but how God creates this world is by God’s word. When God creates something, it is rather simple. It begins with “God said.” So for example, God said, “Let there be light.” God said, “Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” God said, “Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” God said, “Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it.” John almost seems to say, “In the beginning when God created, God said.” This can actually mean “In the beginning was the Word…” presupposing that it is the Word that creates this world. And this Word of God incarnate is Jesus. Now, we might theologically and biblically get a sense of how we Christians understand Jesus’s identity. Still there’s a question that remains. What does this Word became flesh create now in our time? Why does this Word matter to me, you, and all of us? I feel like John knew that someone was actually going to ask this kind of question in the future. In his depiction of Jesus’s true identity as Christ, John says later in chapter 3, which I believe we are quite familiar with, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son...” (3:16a) Let’s connect some dots. It’s like a spiritual puzzle. The first piece is “God said.” The second piece is “Word.” The third piece is “God so loved.” And the last piece is “God’s only Son Jesus.” Both “God said” and “Word” are really about the language of God. Jesus, God’s only Son is the manifestation of God’s love for the world. If I make sense of all these keywords, it’s something like this: “Jesus is the love language of God.” For us Christians, if we want to see what God’s love looks like, we look at Jesus. He is not a doctrine or a theory we subscribe to. Before any doctrinal statements developed, he was a person. He is God’s love that became human. He is God’s human language speaking and communicating the unconditional love to us. Not only do we look at what he says and teaches, what he does, and how he behaves to perceive and experience God’s love, but we also pay attention to where Jesus is, where he suffers on the cross with those who are also suffering. At times, we avoid looking at Jesus in suffering as if he will never show up or thinking he never cares. But I can assure you he is with us. He is God Emmanuel, God with us in the manger, on the cross, yet no longer in the tomb. I like to share this reflection of Anthony De Mello, a Jesuit priest which may be helpful and encouraging for us to see Jesus in suffering. (The Song of the Bird, Anthony De Mello, pp.113-4) The title of his short reflection is “The Look of Jesus”: In the Gospel according to Luke we read: “But Peter said, ‘Man, I do not know what you are talking about.’ At that moment, while he was still speaking, a cock crew; and the Lord turned and looked straight at Peter...and Peter went outside and wept bitterly.” I had a fairly good relationship with the Lord. I would ask him for things, converse with him, praise him, thank him… But always I had this uncomfortable feeling that he wanted me to look at him. And I would not. I would talk, but look away when I sensed he was looking at me. I was afraid. I should find an accusation there of some unrepented sin. I thought I should find a demand there; there would be something he wanted from me. One day I finally summoned up courage and looked! There was no accusation. There was no demand. The eyes just said, ‘I love you.’ And I walked out, and like Peter, I wept. The look of Jesus doesn’t say much but one thing only, “I love you.” And this is the true nature of who Jesus is. This is God who speaks through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God’s love language. And as Christians, we are to speak this language of love. The only thing that is supported and permitted by Jesus for us to cross any kind of boundaries among people is love. It is this love that serves for the good of the other and helps the other to flourish. It desires union between the lover and the beloved. Jesus in whom God’s unconditional love became flesh crosses all kinds of human boundaries in the name of love. He becomes friends with the most despicable people in his time. He sets them free from judgment, guilt, and shame. He wants them to flourish as God’s beloved. Jesus is God’s incarnate desire to be in union with us. He sacramentally gives his whole body and blood by which we become one. Thus, we are in communion with him. In this Christmastide, may the Holy Spirit grant you the courage to look at Jesus who looks at you and says, “I love you.” And may the Holy Spirit grant you the courage to spread that love without measure. And how do we do that? Let me end this homily with the words of Howard Thurman, a philosopher, theologian, educator, and civil rights leader : “When the song of angels stilled, when the star in the sky is gone, when the kings and princes are home, when the shepherds are back with their flock, the work of Christmas begins: to find the lost, to heal the broken, to feed the hungry, to release the prisoner, to rebuild the nation, to bring peace among the brothers and sisters, to make music in the heart.” In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. You might have had no choice but to come and join our Christmas service for the peace of your family. Perhaps in order to have a family Christmas dinner, which would happen right after this service, you really couldn’t skip this part. I’m quite curious how many of you have been somewhat forced to come here by our wonderful and faithful members of Saint Agnes Church! I am not going to ask you to raise your hands if you are here because of family pressure. I’m kind of guilty of that. My son, for example, had no choice. Sitting here and singing Christmas carols might feel like torture to some. Who led you to this suffering!? Well, I can make my sermon short and sweet to lessen your suffering, but I would like you to remember that in whatever suffering, the real suffering you’re in, that is where God comes and is. And Jesus whose birth we celebrate today is that very presence of God in the midst of suffering.
The Christian faith is unique and strange in the sense that we believe in this God who is far from power, wealth, and security. This God who shows himself to us and to the world leaves behind everything that we think God (or we?) should have. It’s like this God doesn’t really help us become powerful, successful, glorious, or be in control of things happening in our lives. Instead, this God gives up what we consider most valuable and worthy in order to show us something else. That is the way of love. What’s most important in our lives, in our community, and in the whole world, what matters to you and me, all of us is this love that God reveals in Jesus of Nazareth. The birth story of Jesus we heard this evening should shock us. We encounter God, not in a beautiful and magnificent castle which represents power and glory in this world, not even a decent looking hotel room, but in a manger. We celebrate the one born of the virgin teenage girl, not yet registered or maybe undocumented, now lying in this unsanitized, filthy, grubby manger. St Luke tells us what situation God got himself into, “...there was no place for them in the inn.” God has no place for himself to be in this world he created. Of course, God does have a place, but chooses to be where he is most unlikely thought to be present. The story doesn’t get any better, that even the glory of this God, this news of God becoming flesh becomes first available to the shepherds who also have no place to live or sleep but stay in the fields to keep watch over their flock all the time. The first people who pay a visit to this God are not of noble background but of working class in St Luke’s version of the story. This birth story of Jesus then takes us to the death story of Jesus. In his death story, we encounter God who is far from being enthroned but is hung on the cross, naked and wounded. We hear the crying voice, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” He’s betrayed by his best friends and persecuted, mocked, killed by the power that be. The ones who are around him are two criminals hung on the cross and his mother, Mary with his friend John standing next to him. The God who is revealed in Jesus of Nazareth comes from the manger to the cross. The mystery of the incarnation lies in the manger, and the resurrection is born out of the cross. What this divine journey from the manger to the cross shows us is God’s love to be always ever present in life’s suffering. The image of this God in Jesus is much closer to the divine firefighter who is running into the fire of your suffering than some kind of superhero who can stop or prevent all the accidents. At this point, some of us might be disappointed with this picture of God in Jesus. This God seems too weak, helpless, and even useless. What good is it to believe in this God who cannot take you out of suffering? Why does God let us suffer if God is love? No theologians until now have a definite answer to this, but what God looks like he’s doing is that he joins in life’s suffering. If we want a kind of god who can simply remove all our suffering, then what this tells us is we fear suffering more than anything else. We might be living in this life driven by fear and anxiety, constantly trying to run away from danger. This kind of deity may be useful yet limited that its purpose is only to get you out of suffering. This god clearly can neither acknowledge nor feel the pain you have in your suffering. This god might be what Karl Marx refers as ‘the opium of the people.’ One of the most unbearable and challenging emotions that humans can experience is this feeling of being helpless or powerless. Especially, when we see our loved ones suffering, this feeling of powerlessness and helplessness intensifies, which itself becomes a different type of suffering. We want to do something for that person we love, and there’s nothing much to do but to stay with them. As a hospital chaplain whose training is to bear and stick with that experience of being helpless, useless, or powerless, I can tell you that this act of sitting in the midst of your loved one’s suffering may be the most powerful expression of love you have for that person. And into that very suffering that we cannot join, God jumps in, sits with, suffers with, bleeds with, cries with, and loves those suffering in isolation no matter what. I see lots of family reunions in our gathering. One of the things that family does for one another is to care for one another, especially when one member of the family suffers whether physically, financially, emotionally, or spiritually. For our family members we love and care, we never turn our eyes away from their suffering. It is because deep down in our hearts, we know very well that your family is not replaceable. This is so, not simply because you’re biologically tied to each other, but because you know them, share your life with them, and love them. When we know someone in a deeper level to the point where we start caring about, that person becomes irreplaceable. And in Jesus, you are never replaceable. A lot of corporates like to say something like “We are one family in this company.” This is actually not true because families don’t fire each other. We don’t lay off our family members. This evening, we are gathered to celebrate the coming of God in Jesus of Nazareth. Let’s look at where God comes in. Into the teenage girl’s womb, in the manger, on the cross, in the tomb, into all your sufferings. In the midst of suffering, he dies with you and rises with you. This is the way of love that Jesus shows us, and we are called to find Jesus in our suffering and let others meet Jesus as we are present to their suffering. And as we are irreplaceable in God’s household, those suffering become irreplaceable in our lives. Let us look at the manger where Baby Jesus lies. Let us look at the cross where Jesus is hung. Let us not turn our eyes away from suffering where Jesus is. This call to face suffering where Jesus is born into doesn’t justify human suffering or any kind of suffering. What we believe and see in Jesus, however, is that out of that suffering, the joy and hope of the resurrection arises. Only because of the one who we see in suffering, it becomes bearable, promising there’s something beyond that suffering. And we see that it is Jesus who picks us up, resurrects us, and sends us back to those suffering with the hope that Jesus has brought. In this holy season of Christmas, may God grant you the courage and faith to look at your own suffering and that of others to see Jesus who loves you until death and raises you from death. And may you find the divine joy of meeting Jesus in you and others in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Mary who shows up in today’s gospel lesson has several nicknames or official titles. She’s often referred as Our Lady which is a title of honor, respect, and veneration. You’ve probably heard of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Our Lady of Walsingham, or Our Lady of Lourdes. In our town, we have a Roman Catholic parish called “Our Lady of the Holy Angels.” This Mary, the mother of Jesus does have the official title for her. It’s never mentioned anywhere in the Bible, but the Third Ecumenical Council in Ephesus in 431 reflected on Elizabeth’s saying in today’s gospel lesson, “...why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me?” (Luke 1:43) and gave Mary the title, “Mother of God.” In Greek, it is ‘Theotokos” which literally means, “God-bearer.”
This official title of Mary is more about Jesus than Mary herself. It is to emphasize Jesus’s divinity and humanity. Let’s think about God having a mother, God being conceived in the virgin’s womb, totally depending God’s life on her. To capture this mystery we traditionally call “incarnation,” the title that the Church came up with is Mary the Mother of God. On the contrary, there was another group of Christians who couldn't accept this paradoxical nature of Jesus as being fully human and fully divine. The term they came up with is much easier to understand, which is “Mother of Christ.” This term sounds more logical and more reasonable because Mary is indeed the mother of Jesus who is called the Messiah or the Christ. But this doesn't capture the mystery of the incarnation at all. This is just like saying my mom, Sara being called “mother of a priest.” Which doesn’t mean much to anyone. While the Church’s official title, “Theotokos,’ ‘God-bearer,’ or ‘Mother of God’ only belongs to Mary. ‘Mother of Christ’ doesn’t. It actually applies to all of us. I might sound a bit off to suggest this since some of us cannot be physiologically mothers but yes, all of us are called to be mothers of Christ. I’m actually introducing the 15 centuries old theological idea that the Church Fathers like St Augustine or St Francis talked about. So this isn’t something completely new. It’s just rarely talked about, and it is something that I would like all of us to take away while we’re still in this holy season of Advent. Let us look at the collect for today in which we can find this rich theological symbol of us being mothers of Christ. “Purify our conscience, Almighty God, by your daily visitation, that your Son Jesus Christ, at his coming, may find in us a mansion prepared for himself.” God’s daily visitation purifies our conscience. And there’s a reason for this, that Jesus at his coming may find in us a mansion, a room prepared for himself. In other words, this prayer invites us to become an innkeeper who gets to make a decision whether to take Jesus in or not. I want us to go deeper than being an innkeeper that whether we want to conceive Jesus in us and give birth to Jesus. Having a mansion in us or a room in us for Jesus is to conceive Jesus in our spiritual womb, the deepest place of the soul. I believe this maternal language speaks more to some of you who have been mothers, yet this spiritual vocation to be mothers of Christ is open to all. The 3rd century theologian, Origen of Alexandria makes a remark on us being mothers of Christ, “What use would it be to me that Christ was born once of Mary in Bethlehem if he were not born of faith in my soul too?” (Mary: Mirror of the Church, Raniero Cantalamessa, p. 68) The 7th century Eastern Church Father, St Maximus the Confessor also says something similar, “Christ is always mystically born in the soul by taking flesh from those who are saved and making the soul a virgin mother.” (Ibid., p. 69) So if I rephrase the collect for today based on this rich image of us being called to be mothers of Christ, it’s something like “Purify our conscience, Almighty God, by your daily visitation, that your Son Jesus Christ, at his coming, may find in our souls the spiritual womb prepared for himself.” In this sense, we are imitating Mary. Like Mary, we conceive Jesus and bring him forth though not exactly in the same way she did but rather analogically, neither completely identical nor absolutely incomparable. And in this Advent season which will end in about two days, we want to join Mary’s joy over having God in her womb as mothers of Christ. Let’s listen to her song, which is known as the Magnificat. This time, let’s listen to the Prayer Book version on page 65, which seems to be a better translation: “My soul doth magnify the Lord, * and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior. For he hath regarded * the lowliness of his handmaiden. For behold from henceforth * all generations shall call me blessed. For he that is mighty hath magnified me, * and holy is his Name. And his mercy is on them that fear him * throughout all generations. He hath showed strength with his arm; * he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He hath put down the mighty from their seat, * and hath exalted the humble and meek. He hath filled the hungry with good things, * and the rich he hath sent empty away. He remembering his mercy hath holpen his servant Israel, * as he promised to our forefathers, Abraham and his seed for ever.” In this Song of Mary, the word “magnify” comes up twice. And how it is used is two-way. Mary’s soul magnifies the Lord, and the Lord who is might magnifies her. What this two-way, mutual magnifying of each other tells us is that Mary’s conception of Jesus is consensual. She could’ve said no to God coming into her womb, yet she said yes with her deep faith in God and courage. So Mary’s joy that we want to join begins with the question whether you really want to conceive Jesus and give birth to him. If you do consent to this, your soul magnifies, enlarges, and feeds Jesus in you as well as Jesus magnifies, enlarges, and feeds you. Your belly will get bigger as Jesus in you will grow bigger. And just like Elizabeth, you will feel Christ in you as your spiritual womb leaps for joy! Now this becoming of mothers of Christ might sound very metaphorical. But this is the image of ourselves that we would like to have, especially in this season of Advent. This magnifying mutual work of God and mothers of Christ is really about being compassionate to one another in this darkest season of the year. Conceiving Christ in our spiritual womb is our commitment to be with those who suffer. Bringing forth Christ is our act of love for them. The Hebrew word for a womb is rechem. When it becomes plural, rahamim, its meaning changes to mercy or compassion. When all of us devote ourselves to be mothers of Christ, bringing together our spiritual wombs for Christ, we bring forth compassion to the world. My friends, on the first Sunday of Advent, we focused on being attentive to Jesus who walks into our lives, especially through the Holy Eucharist, his body and blood, planting the seed in our souls. On the second Sunday of Advent, we talked about facing and recognizing what’s scarce, high, crooked, and rough in our hearts. On the third Sunday of Advent, we heard Jesus as the true source of our joy who clears what is clogged, burns what needs to be gone, and heals and restores what is wounded in your hearts. Today on this last Sunday of Advent, we are to conceive Jesus in our spiritual wombs and wait to bring him forth in the place where suffering seems to prevail. And we sing, “Blessed art thou amongst women. Blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.” In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. If you happen to go to New York City via the Lincoln Tunnel, you will be able to see a huge sign on the right side before entering the tunnel. The sign says “JOY” with no other decorations around it. I’m usually asleep on the bus by the time I get into the tunnel, but this time, I was awake enough to see that sign. For some reason, I was quite surprised to see the word “JOY.” I feel like this word is something that we often don’t use in our everyday lives. We usually ask, “Are you happy?”, not “Are you joyful?” We tend to talk more about happiness than joy. It may be because joy has more of a religious nuance than happiness.
When I run a spirituality group with patients in the hospital, happiness is never a good topic. First, these patients of mine aren’t so happy at the moment. Nobody wants to be in the hospital even though everyone knows it is for their benefit. But, joy is always the topic I would like to talk about with patients. I have a couple of reasons why I go with joy, not with happiness. First, if I ask my patients where they find happiness, they would most likely tell me, “outside the hospital, not here,” or where they find unhappiness. Just to begin with, they are quite unhappy. This is more of a practical reason why I avoid talking about happiness. The real reason is that this project of the pursuit of happiness is rather misleading as if this feeling of happiness is the only driving force of life. Joy, however, suggests something deeper and more essential. Joy is not simply an emotion but something that creates happiness even in the midst of our struggles. Not so much about the pursuit of happiness, but really about the pursuit of joy that matters more. So, I ask my patients, “Where do you find joy in your life?” And I would like to ask all of us gathered here, celebrating today as Gaudete Sunday or Rejoice Sunday with the rose candle lit in the Advent wreath, “Where do you find joy in your life?” There are no ready-made answers to this question. We can all think of what brings us joy in our lives. I had this patient whose answer was “spending time with my granddaughter gives me joy.” It can be your pet or someone who is dear to you. Now, let’s think about the source of that joy. What is the source of your joy? What or who creates that sense of joy? While everyone can have this sense of joy, for us Christians, this joy means something much more profound. For example, let’s think about this well-known Christmas carol, ‘Joy to the world.’ Isaac Watts wrote its lyrics in 1719. I will read you some parts of the carol: Joy to the World, the Lord is come! Let earth receive her King; Let every heart prepare Him room, Joy to the World, the Savior reigns! No more let sins and sorrows grow. Nor thorns infest the ground; He comes to make His blessings flow far as the curse is found. He rules the world with truth and grace, and makes the nations prove the glories of His righteousness, and wonders of His love… It’s not too hard to see that this joy to whom Isaac Watts refers is Jesus. He brings joy to the world. He himself is the divine joy becoming human. He is the joy of God the Father. And he is the source of our joy. And today the Church bids us to rejoice as we are longing for the coming of Jesus the source of our joy during this holy season of Advent. St Paul urges us in our second lesson, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice...The Lord is near.” Having said that Jesus is the true source of our joy and we are called to rejoice, what is that we are rejoicing about? Are we simply rejoicing that Jesus is coming? If so, what joy does Jesus bring to us? Or how do we find joy in him? Saint John the Baptizer in today’s gospel lesson actually points us to the place where we can discover this joy that Jesus brings to us. In his rebuking voice to the crowds who are coming out for baptism, he basically tells them to prepare themselves to encounter the divine joy. The crowds come to Saint John to save themselves from God’s judgment. They know they have done something wrong in the eyes of God, which is why Saint John calls them, “You brood of vipers!” They come to him with no intention of repentance. In other words, they have no interest in facing and changing their self-serving lifestyles. They have no interest in admitting their wrong doings and changing their hearts. When they finally ask Saint John what to do about it, his response is quite simple. Change. Look at what you’ve been doing. Get out of yourself. Look out. Look who’s around you. All the advice that Saint John gives to the crowds, tax collectors, and soldiers are about caring for others, not taking advantage of others, and doing the right thing for others. So, if you’re looking for joy or pursuing joy in your life, look outside first. Get out of yourself. Look who’s around you. When you share yourself with others, there’s something so hardened inside your heart, now cracked open through which the Holy Spirit comes. In the faces of those you share yourself with, you see the face of Jesus who is the source of our joy. In the faces of those vulnerable, suffering, and oppressed, Jesus reveals his face to us. He shows his joy in their faces. It is us who might not see it, dismiss, and avoid it because its surroundings where it is found is too dark. But the divine joy has come to overcome darkness. Opening ourselves up to others by sharing ourselves, joy fills our hearts. In that joy, our eyes are mysteriously transformed to see the face of Jesus in others’ faces. Saint John’s teaching of looking outside oneself and looking at those suffering, on the other hand, calls us to look inside ourselves and look at our own suffering where we meet Jesus the divine joy. We don’t like to think about the dark moments of our lives. We would rather like to gloss over, cover up, and conceal as if there’s no darkness in us. Well, we know that doesn’t really work. It leaks. That darkness we so want to hide leaks time to time. This holy season of Advent in a way calls us to face that darkness. And in that darkness, Jesus comes. Saint John proclaims, “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” Jesus clears what is clogged, burns what needs to be gone, and heals and restores what is wounded in your hearts. This is how Jesus brings joy to us. In this healing and restoring work of Jesus, we encounter and experience the divine joy. And this is the baptismal life you’re invited to live and rejoice. My friend, Our joy, God’s joy, the source of joy, Jesus of Nazareth is coming, not somewhere already bright but dark places where hope seems impossible. So look outside and inside. Look at yourself and others. May you find Jesus our joy with you, before you, behind you, in you, beneath you, above you, on your right, on your left, when you lie down, when you sit down, when you arise, in the heart of everyone who thinks of you, in the mouth of everyone who speaks of you, in every eye that sees you, in every ear that hears you. (paraphrased Saint Patrick’s blessing) In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. I should’ve asked this question two weeks ago, but how was your Thanksgiving preparation this year? Busy as usual or easy as take-out? Whenever something eventful comes up, we need some time to prepare ourselves. Prep time is usually not fun. It can be time consuming. It usually takes up more time to prepare than to celebrate whatever it is. For example, let’s think about weddings. Weddings itself, the ceremony and reception would be quite enjoyable, but to get to that point, to make it all happen, it requires time, money, and support from people. Lots of prep time for that life changing event! What this tells us is that prep time is as important as an actual event.
As we understand, Advent is the season of preparation with genuine desire to change and deep longing and anticipation for the coming of God in Jesus of Nazareth. In today’s gospel lesson, we hear the voice of Saint John the Baptizer out in the wilderness, “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” Then what does it really mean for us to prepare ourselves for the coming of Jesus? How do we actually do that? I believe it is a bit easier when we say we prepare ourselves for Lent. We are quite used to the conversation of what to give up, what to abstain from. But for Advent, we are not encouraged to give up on anything at least in our Western Christian tradition. It isn’t so clear even though the nature of preparing our hearts for Jesus’s coming in the mystery of the incarnation and of the resurrection isn’t too different. It’s penitential and redemptive, sorrowful and joyful. So what does it mean for us to prepare in this season of Advent? If we listen carefully to Saint John the Baptizer this morning, we can get some idea of what it is to prepare for Advent. First, he shouts, “Prepare the way of the Lord.” What we’re preparing for is the way. It’s the way through God’s own creature, Blessed Mary’s womb with her consent, that God walks into this world and into the deepest of our hearts. For us personally, the way that we prepare is the path Jesus walks into our hearts. So, Saint John continues, “make his paths straight.” Making his paths straight does sound like getting our acts together or like clearing all the obstacles near fire exit doors. So this can very much sound like “Fix your behavior. Get yourself together. Do better. Make sure you’re good.” But I am not so sure if this is a theologically correct way of preparing the way and making the path straight. It’s almost like we have to do more than Jesus does when his coming is really about setting us free, bringing salvation to everyone on earth here and now as well as all who died. This prep work is almost like our attempt to save ourselves on our own. I wonder if we are taking away what Jesus is supposed to do for us that we don’t really need him. Let’s listen to what Saint John has to say next to find how and what we need to prepare. He depicts what happens when Jesus walks into the world, into our lives. “Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” This is the vision Saint John tells us upon the coming of God in Jesus of Nazareth. What is scarce will be made abundant. What is too high to reach from below will be made low. What is crooked will be made straight. What is rough will be made smooth. This is what God’s salvation in Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection looks like. This is what happens when Jesus enters the way we prepare. Then, it seems quite clear to figure out how we prepare ourselves for Advent. Our job, during this prep time, isn’t so much about filling every valley, lowering every mountain and hill, straightening what’s crooked, or smoothing out what’s rough. Our way of preparing ourselves for Advent is to see where that scarce valley is, which mountain and hill is too high, what is crooked, and what is rough. Face what is scarce, what is high, what is crooked, and what is rough rather than avoiding them naively. What are they? We can talk about this in two ways. One external, and the other internal. First, we can look for all absences of God’s grace and love in our American society. We look outside. If we talk about what is scarce, we can tackle inequality and inequity of wealth and basic human benefits among people. If we think about what is crooked, we can discuss corruptions in our politics. If we imagine what is rough, we see how this roughness hurts immigrants and undocumented in our country. And wherever Jesus is present, however, what is scarce, high, or crooked will be transformed. This transformation is always at work through the Holy Spirit, in which we participate. The other way to see what’s absent of God’s grace and love starts within us. We look deep inside our hearts to recognize what’s scarce, high, crooked, and rough. Seeing them first with our eyes, with our own conscience is the way to prepare the way of the Lord. It’s not so much about cleaning up or getting our acts together, which is crucial, but this comes only after we know to clean. The essence of the preparation for Jesus’ coming is about seeing and acknowledging obstacles that are getting in the way of Jesus in our hearts. Where in your valley of the heart is so scarce that you feel so dry and empty? Is your valley like a desert? When was the last time you felt so moved and touched by the Holy Spirit? Any tears of repentance and gratitude? How high is your mountain? How tall is your hill? What mountain and hill are you building up so high that you can hide from yourself, others, and God? When is it built? How crooked is your perspective on others and your own perception of yourself? Are you being kind to yourself and others, or rough like sandpaper, hurting and attacking yourself and others? Do you see hostility, indifference, apathy, or shame in your heart? Seeing what they are and owning them is the very first step to prepare ourselves during this Advent season. We tend to “do things first” to prepare. If we want to cook something, we first need to know what we have. Do we have enough butter, enough salt, enough sugar, and lots of chocolate to bake something!? See what we have. See what they are. The second step would be to allow Jesus to fill dry valleys of apathy, to lower high mountains and hills of pride and fear, to straighten crooked lenses of judgment through we see ourselves and others, and to smooth rough hands of hostility. Jesus heals and restores all the vices in our hearts. When he makes everything straight, what we’re left with is the open space of hope for our new being. We stand before God through Jesus in this open space. This is the sacred place of hope, love, joy, embrace, acceptance, restoration, and resurrection. My friends, see what’s in your hearts. Ask the Holy Spirit to show you what’s scarce and absent, what’s prideful and fearful, what’s crooked and rough in your hearts. This is not intended to make you feel horrible about yourself, but to see the salvation of God restoring, healing, and resurrecting your souls in deep faith and trust in God’s forgiveness and acceptance of us as we are. So in this season of Advent, let us prepare ourselves by seeing what’s in us, longing and anticipating all the salvific work Jesus does in our lives. The prophet Baruch in the first lesson tells us, “Take off the garment of your sorrow and affliction, and put on forever the beauty of the glory from God.” See what you’re wearing. Take off that garment of sorrow and affliction. Let Jesus put on forever the beauty of the glory from God. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Signs of the holiday season are all over the place. If you listen to the radio, Christmas carols are playing as well as all those holiday sale discounts are tempting us. You can easily see holiday decorations in downtown, wrapping trees and street poles. All these signs have one function, which is to inform us that the holiday season is on the way.
I read somewhere that in the times when battles were frequent, picking up a good day to fight was crucial. Often the one who attacked would prefer rainy weather so that they could be less visible to their opponent. Since there was no weather forecasting system back in the days, how would they know when it was going to rain? One of the ways to predict weather was arthritis. A couple of people with arthritis could tell whether it would rain or not, depending on their joint pain level. This is actually scientifically proven that we can predict our joint pain level based on the local weather. Low barometric pressure, low temperatures, and rain or snow can increase pain. All these examples of holiday music and decorations as well as the use of joint pain in a battle are about signs. When we attentively perceive all these signs, we know what’s coming to us. This is what Jesus is telling us in today’s gospel lesson. He says, “There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth, distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves.” He also gives us an example of a fig tree and says, “Look at the fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. So also, when you see these things (such as the powers of the heavens being shaken and the roaring of the sea and the waves) taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near.” It seems the point of today’s gospel lesson is about being attentive to all these signs in the world because the kingdom of God is near. During this season of Advent, this is about being attentive to the coming of Jesus. And God’s kingdom and the coming of Jesus are not two separate things in nature. The coming of God’s kingdom incarnate is the coming of Jesus. If we sort of take Jesus’ words in a literalistic sense, then we definitely see all the signs that he mentions. There were two deadly earthquakes in August and September in Indonesia where about 2,700 people died. What about California’s deadliest wildfire? What about the flooding in our town? We might want to say that it’s about time that the kingdom of God comes in our time, that Jesus comes back here and now. But here’s another perspective. There have been worse disasters in the past. We might want to ask ourselves, “Why now? Why not in the past?” I’m not raising all these questions to say something like “the kingdom of God will not come” or “Jesus will never come back and hasn’t come back for the past 2,000 years” or “Christians get this coming of God’s kingdom completely wrong.” While all these remarks might be reasonable in its own right, they actually ask us, “What is the kingdom of God that is coming to us? What do know about it? Who is Jesus who is coming to us?” We cannot possibly think of the kingdom of God in relation to all those Hollywood movies about the end of the world. I think all these movies take the biblical images of the end times too literally. Jesus makes clear that no one knows when this fundamental reality of God’s kingdom and his coming again will take place. He himself doesn’t know, but only God the Father. The ultimate reality that will transform the entire universe will arrive. And it just is not up to us to know when. What we’re up to is to be attentive to the coming of Jesus in every moment of our lives. So there’s this ultimate reality of Jesus’s coming which will bring the entire universe together. (In the Eucharist, we experience that glimpse of the ultimate reality of the Kingdom of God, which completes our baptism.) And there’s another reality of ours in which Jesus comes again and again to us and reveals God the Father through the Holy Spirit. Reflecting on our personal lives, Jesus’ teaching about all these signs of the end times does apply to us in a deeper way. Think about those moments in your lives when your entire world felt so shaken. Our experience of losing our loved ones or facing our own struggle or that of our loved ones can sound very much like “the roaring of the seas and waves.” It’s like our ground being shaken by a large earthquake and rain pouring down over us. All these emotional and spiritual disasters do happen to us when we go through the dark night of our souls. This is something every human being experiences and goes through in common. Perhaps one more than others, if you think about the case of Job in the Hebrew Bible. In these dark moments of our lives, Jesus walks into our reality. And Jesus tells us this morning on this first day of Advent, “Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” Basically, he urges us, “Do not lose heart. You might feel down and even hopeless, standing at the edge of the unknown or encountering a bottomless pit of despair. Stand up and raise your heads. Your redemption, that is Jesus of Nazareth is drawing near.” Now I would like us to reflect on the following questions: Don’t we too easily get disappointed with ourselves or others when things don't go in the way we want? Don’t we too easily give up on things out of fear that we might fail? How frequently do we hold ourselves back from going further and moving forward out of fear and anxiety? Don’t we turn our eyes away from our own suffering because it is too painful to bear and let it rot? Don’t we avoid looking at the suffering of others and simply bypass? Jesus says otherwise, “Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day catch you unexpectedly, like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man." If I shorten this saying of Jesus, it’s something like what Samuel Beckett, an Irish novelist and poet, once said, “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” And I add, “Jesus will raise you up and stand before you. His words of love and compassion will never ever pass away and will carry you always forever and ever.” So what do you seek in your life, especially in moments you’re struggling? What do you desire during this season of Advent? I would like all of us to seek Jesus particularly in your prayer life. When you close your eyes to pray, ask the Holy Spirit that you see Jesus who looks straight in your eyes with his long loving and compassionate look, never judging or blaming but forgiving and embracing, constantly transforming you. And this morning when you’re about to eat his Body and drink his Blood, welcome him into your body, into your soul, into your entire being. Jesus is coming. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. |
Paul"...life up your love to that cloud [of unknowing]...let God draw your love up to that cloud...through the help of his grace, to forget every other thing." Archives
January 2025
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