FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT
1 December 2024, St. Mary, Dell
Rapids
Jer 33:14-16
1 Thes 3:12-4:2
Lk
21:25-28, 34-36
To you
I lift up my soul, O my God. That’s how we prayed in the Entrance
Antiphon for this First Sunday of Advent. Today with the beginning of a new
church year, we set our hearts anew upon the Lord. He is the one for Whom we
long. To you I lift up my soul, O my God.
Yes, Advent! It’s
a word we tie together with Christmas and the coming of our Lord and Savior
born in a stable at Bethlehem. In Advent we think of Christ’s coming back in
the time of the reign of the Roman emperor Caesar Augustus. He came as a tiny
baby and in abject poverty to save us from our sins.
Advent, however, as is evident from
our readings for Mass today, is more than just the annual remembrance of the
birth of the Savior. The season of Advent also helps us focus on the Last
Judgment Day, on preparing for the Risen and Glorious Lord Jesus Who will come
again at the end of time to establish justice once and for all, justice for
everyone whether we be still living at the time of His coming or long dead. The
Fathers of the Church also speak of Advent in terms of a third coming of Christ
here and now to dwell in our hearts by grace. Some of our most beloved old church
hymns are Advent hymns in which we pray for the Lord to come again. “Come
thou long expected Jesus, born to set Thy people free. From our fears and sins
release us, let us find our rest in Thee.”
The people of the
Old Testament obviously did not know the Messiah’s name. They had lived before
Christ and as God’s chosen people they hoped in His promise. We need but think
of the Prophet Jeremiah in our first reading: “The days are coming, says the
Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and Judah…
I will raise up for David a just shoot; he shall do what is right and just… Judah
shall be safe, and Jerusalem shall dwell secure… The Lord our justice.”
Longing for justice
upon the earth, for justice and security in our lives and in society generally seems
to be much more relevant these days. It is something we need even more urgently
that in the past, as things seem to be more messed up these days. I say that
fairly sure that it can’t be that in the past we contented ourselves with less than
now. Maybe we were less sophisticated or just plain naïve forty or more years
ago. For my part I can remember back as a young man reading stories about Communist
dictatorships and being very anxious for those unfortunate people living under those
regimes where average folks were basically defenseless, where the powerful and wicked
lorded it over ordinary people, where truth and justice, the rule of law really
did not have much meaning. We thought about those people as suffering from oppression,
as being denied their God-given human dignity by people whose atheism put a
small minority of oligarchs on top of the heap and generally stole purpose and
basic happiness from the rest of the world. Sad to say, but our country today seems
almost as bad as any cold war country behind the iron curtain. “Come thou long expected Jesus, born to set
Thy people free. From our fears and sins release us, let us find our rest in
Thee.”
O, come Emanuel,
God with us! On our own without the Lord, we cannot get it handled. Advent is a
powerful, unequivocal statement about how things work in the world, about how
they can be better than now, about how things can truly be right and just.
In Advent then we have three reflections about
how the Lord comes to deliver His people. Once in history we acclaim and thank
the Lord for His faithfulness to His promise to Israel. A second time we beg
Him to come into our hearts and lives for the sake of our own salvation and for
the sake of the life of the world. And so binding our hearts and lives to Him
Who fills us with His grace and power, we stand tall and strong.
“For that day
will assault everyone who lives on the face of the earth. Be vigilant at all
times and pray that you have the strength to escape the tribulations that are
imminent and to stand before the Son of Man.”
To you I lift up my soul, O my God.
PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI
