Ready for big or little things?

Homily for the 1st Sunday of Advent
29 November 2009
St. Lawrence Chapel
Year for Priests

For daily readings, click here

Last year for the first Sunday in Advent I used as a metaphor Todd Reesing's 4th down touchdown pass to Kerry Meier to beat Missouri. Man was it a great and timely metaphor for being alert. Being ready for the moment. This year, I had just as much fun at the game, but the last three minutes stunk. So no Advent metaphor this year. Rats.

So today in the new liturgical year for us. Happy New Year! The first Sunday of Advent. Many options for the homilist, including the regular warnings of not celebrating Christmas too early, of not getting so caught up in doing things that we miss being present to the mystery of Christmas that truly makes all things new. Ostensibly, we begin today four weeks of getting ready to celebrate the birth of a child, that with the birth of Jesus Christ in Bethlehem the truth that God is with us takes on an entirely new meaning. With the Incarnation, Christ is as present to us as we are to ourselves. He is among us as a human person, one like us in every way but sin.

It strikes me as ironic that the Church asks us to prepare for something as small and quiet as the birth of Christ in Bethlehem by telling us in tonight's Scriptures to be ready for the Big Bang! We are asked squarely if we are ready for the fireworks that will inaugurate the end of time, but isn't this odd since we are supposed to be getting ready not for things that will frighten us, but for something that is not frightening at all . . . the appearance of a baby! How does the apocalypse ready us for the birth of Jesus?

Maybe the two are related in this way. If we are not ready for the big things, we will easily miss the small things. It is one thing to be ready for a forest fire if one comes our way, but another thing to know how a forest fire starts, with just a spark. Knowing about the possibilty of a forest fire that changes everything it touches makes us more intensely interested in how and why the fire got started. The apocalypse and Bethlehem are perhaps related in this way. If we assume that nothing big is going on around us, we will not look for the little ways in which big things get started. The birth of a baby in Bethlehem changed the world more than any human birth ever has. Beginning with this birth, the heavens were opened and the destiny of man was forever changed, and who was able to recognize it? A humble young girl and her husband Joseph, and a few shepherds and three astronomers. The rest of the world was asleep.

Advent is a four week reminder that as much as we would like to be awake to all that is happening around us, we are all asleep. All of us! It would be quite arrogant for us to assume that in the Christmas story we are Mary or Joseph or the shepherds or the wise men. No, we are probably the rest of the world. We are asleep to most everything going on around us, especially the most important things. Advent is about trying to be present to the most important thing, the coming of God among us.

The apocalypse reminds us that big things are happening. Big things are happening all around us. This Christ who comes among us at Bethlehem is not dead, but living. He is still acting, changing the redeeming the world and mankind in powerful and awesome ways. Through Him, incredible change is not only possible, but is constantly among us, especially among those of us who have the supernatural gift of hope and who know that with Christ we are living right now in the fullness of time. With Christ entering into time, every moment on earth is fraught with deeper meaning. With Christ coming among us, He through whom all things were made, all things are possible. Advent challenges us to wake up to not just the possibility, but the reality of new things and big things happening all around us. Advent wakes us to the reality that what we do today will alter the course of history forever. Every action, no matter how small, can have the enormous impact that the ordinary and small and quiet coming of a baby in Bethlehem had. So we Christians watch. We wait. We ready ourselves for big things, and look for the seeds of a new tomorrow in the coming of Jesus Christ yesterday, today and forever.

Only a couple of people recognized the Messiah's coming. God's plan to do great things will begin very close to us. We will probably miss it. But let's try not to. We begin by welcoming and recognizing Christ now, as he comes among us in the Eucharist even more humbly and readily than he did on that quiet night in Bethlehem. We could not all be in Bethlehem on that silent night. But we can all be here, where Christ comes again in humility and in the silence of the Eucharist to help us to hope in great things!