Who really wants a Savior?

Homily

1st Sunday of Advent B

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

3 December 2023

AMDG

Who really wants a Savior?

This pivotal question is easy - it's hostages!

Can you imagine for one second being a hostage?  Being held against your will, with no means of escape, with your only hope being if someone can negotiate your freedom or miraculously rescue you?  It's the most hopeless of circumstances, one in need of a Christmas miracle, a terrible reality that some people are in right now.

Can you imagine praying as a hostage for anything other than a Savior?  Can you imagine praying instead - don't come rescue me, I'll figure this out on my own?  

Yet this is how most of us approach Advent.  Lord, don't rescue me - at least not yet.  I'll solve this problem by myself.  Don't worry about me.  I don't want to bother you or ask for help.

Such a prayer is sheer madness, isn't it?  Especially for those of us who are hostages.  If I am honest about my human condition, I am a hostage.  Life is hard for everyone, and we are all enslaved to something.  I'm kidding myself if I pretend any differently, that I can solve my deepest problem through self-reliance.

Yet believe it or not, it's good news to be a hostage. If I was ok and able to rescue myself, I wouldn't need you, much less would I need God.  Being limited to what I can fix myself is a boring story. A great story is being rescued from my hostage situation, against all odds.  Great stories need not do-it-yourselfers, but heroic miracles. What's my prayer gonna be this Advent?

The Good News is that the One who alone can rescue me is near.  I need only admit that I'm a hostage. Who screams at God to come closer, and to come sooner, and actually means it?  That's right, only hostages do, and only hostages dare the real prayer of Advent.  

What's holding me hostage?  It's the same old thing for me. I still think there's a way to have it all. It's all I know and trust, and I'm helpless to change it, but it's never worked.  As my spiritual director tells me all the time, to try to choose everything is to choose nothing.  I'm addicted to trying to have it all, but I won't be free until I am able to choose one thing.  

What's holding you hostage?  In answering this question, I dare you to have the guts to have a real Advent.  Do not repeat what has not worked in the past!  Do not ask God for more time, more distance, more privacy or more control.  Tell God instead this Advent that you need Him.  Tell Him you're a hostage.  He has promised to be motivated by your prayer, and come to your rescue.  It begins with my facing what's holding me hostage.  Only then will I dare God to come closer, and to come sooner, and actually mean it.