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True Meaning of Advent
Today is the first Sunday of Advent, year A. The term Advent comes from two Latin words Ad-ventus, which simply means “to arrive” or Ad-venire, meaning “to come.” For us Christians, and Catholics in particular, it means expecting the Lord’s coming. Advent marks the beginning of the Church’s new liturgical calendar and is a four-week preparation period leading up to Christmas. We all have our hopes and aspirations for Christmas. These four weeks of Advent are our annual season of waiting in hope for Christ. This season of Advent, waiting reminds us that everything is not quite right with our world. Our world is somewhat broken and needs fixing. The world is broken because it does not pay attention to Christ or put Jesus first. The only way to fix our broken world is to mend and repair it with Christ. Christ is the solution to our broken world.
The prophet Jeremiah, whose writing we read in the first reading today (Jer 33:14-16), was also living in a broken world. In fact, he lived in pretty desperate times. He witnessed the Babylonians putting Jerusalem under siege for eighteen months (588-587 BC), and finally burning and destroying it. He escaped with some of his fellow people down to Egypt. Yet despite all this destruction and chaos, he was hopeful. In the first reading today, Jeremiah proclaimed to his fellow Jews that the Lord would fulfill the promise he had made through the prophet Isaiah 11:1.
This means Jeremiah believes God will fulfill his promise to provide offspring for King David. But David had been king centuries before Jeremiah and Jeremiah, in his own time, saw the monarchy coming to an end right before his eyes when Jerusalem was destroyed and there was never again a king in Jerusalem. So, what could Jeremiah possibly mean that God would fulfill his promise to provide an offspring for King David? Jeremiah was talking about Jesus. David was of the tribe of Judah and Jesus also was of the tribe of Judah. Jesus would be the answer to all the Jewish hopes of the Old Testament. Not only did Jeremiah foresee that God’s promise of Jesus would be fulfilled, but as we heard in the reading, Jeremiah also said the city of Jerusalem would be called, “The Lord is our justice.” Very often the prophets refer to a future glorious Jerusalem and
they mean the Church of the New Testament. (In Rev 21:2 the Church is described as the New Jerusalem). So even though the city was attacked Jeremiah said God will send Jesus, and instead of this destroyed city being our home, our future home will be the Church. Jeremiah saw that the answer to the chaos of his time was Jesus and that our future home would be the Church.
In the Gospel, Jesus says we are to stay awake and pray, we are to prepare to meet him. So, during this Advent, we are to prepare not only for Santa Claus coming to town but above all we are to prepare for Jesus coming to town, to our home and our hearts. Jesus says to stay awake and pray. There is really only one gift at Christmas and that gift is Jesus coming to us. We can make a return gift to Jesus, a return gift of our lives pleasing to him. Preparations for Christmas often involve putting up decorations, purchasing gifts, and making food. But these are not the only things we need to do to prepare for the coming of Jesus Christ. We need to prepare our hearts also.
The gospel tells us that we must think ahead. Eating and celebrating and being with families are not bad things. But if our hearts are not turned toward God, then we have missed the point. So, as we prepare our homes and our hearts for Christmas, we must remember that the Lord is in our midst. He is in the child who doesn’t have any Christmas presents. He is in the homeless man who has nowhere to go for Christmas. To prepare for Christ, we need to make preparations for him in all of the places where we will encounter him during this holy season.
Fr Tom Kunnel, C.O.