The Word Of Peace
Homiletic Reflections On Peacemaking

Deacon Robert M. Pallotti

First Sunday in Advent

Nov. 29, 1998

"A teacher introduced a sentence to his students and asked them what they thought of it. The sentence was "Wait for the light." Some thought it was beautiful, others thought it was a god spiritual maxim to live by. Finally, he told them where he had read it: on the corner of an intersection that flashed the warning: "Wait for the light"

Isn't this what Advent is about ? It is time of waiting, and it is a time of preparing. It is a time when we focus not so much on the first time that Jesus came into the world, rather it is a time in which we focus on when he will return with the fullness of the Father's reign. A often I have wondered just what that means. We are told in Isaiah that it will be a time when nations and people will no longer be able to be violent to one another, That will be because there is no more fear of the other. But in what conditions is that possible?

If we go back to the first coming of Jesus we remember that he came as a completely vulnerable baby, in poverty and simplicity. We see in Jesus' death that same vulnerable love on the cross. The second coming then must have something to do with God's absolute and vulnerable love so real and penetrating in all things and people, that only vulnerable love for others, oneself, the world and God is the only response anyone can conceive of in responding to the others. But until that day we wait, but in hope ! We wait in a life of active preparation.

Our Lord tells us, that in waiting for that day to be vigilant. That is, we might characterize our "waiting" as a active waiting that anticipates the light. This anticipating the light of God's reign of absolute love coming in its fullness, will fill hearts, minds and bodies in Christian attitudes and actions that makes present glimpses of the light. 

This is among the busiest times of the year. We run to and fro to prepare for Christmas. It can become frantic and stressful. Yet in all of this is a level of fun and anticipation. We will give gifts and get them--and that is part of the excitement of the season. It is often said that it is better to give than to receive--I have no quarrel with this ! But it is also important to know how to receive a gift, how to be grateful to the one who spent time looking for it and preparing it. A gift can say to us that we are valued, we were thought of this time as someone special. Our only response to such a gift is, thank you for thinking of me! Such a response is a gift itself!

We are preparing for the great gift to be given to us in Christ. Christ wants to be born again in this world, in our hearts, minds and bodies. Christ wants to take flesh in a Church that gives the world glimpses of the light. This advent anticipates that final advent of our personal lives, the life of the Church, the human family and the life of all creation. It awaits the new gift that is promised from God by living as though it were already here. That is what advent does. It generates that hope, that tension of anticipation that begins to live the promised fullness of God's reign in part now ! Advent tells us that God is coming to us, God's Christ will be born again with the fullness of God absolute love.

God will come to us this advent and each day of life in numerous ways, but the we are reminded that, just like the vulnerable Christ child, sought out to be destroyed by the powers of the day; God will comes to us in the vulnerable. God comes to us in the form of those caught us in the throes of violence, to poor, the terminally ill, the strangers, the family member and ourselves offering and seeking a gift. Christ comes to us as gift and asks us to make a gift back. One writer put it this way:

"Jesus stands at the door and knocks, in complete reality. He asks you for your help inthe form of the beggar, in the form of a ruined human being in torn clothing. He confronts us in every person that you meet. He walks on the earth as the One through whom God calls us, speaks to us makes demands. This is the greatest seriousness and the greatest blessedness of the Advent message. Christ stands at the door. He lives in the forms of the person in our midst. Will we keep the door of our hearts,minds , our whole being locked or open to him?

Deacon Robert M. Pallotti, D. Min.
Uploaded January 14, 2000