It is such a wonderful thing to watch a baby. Their eyes are so bright and so intense! They are very busy responding to the people and sounds around them. Yet they must depend so completely on others to take care of them. If there is one in my sight in any room, he or she is a magnet for my attention.
I have heard the saying, “A baby is God’s opinion the world should go on.” There is serious truth in that statement. Perhaps, even truer is the sentence, “In every baby, God and the world hope to be born anew.”
And so, today, we begin to prepare for our celebration of the Incarnation—of God wanting so much for the world to go on and to be born anew that God came Himself as a baby. We begin today to prepare for Christmas…and another year in the life of the Church and our little corner of the world.
Mother Church does nothing abruptly. Today’s readings retain a strong flavor of last Sunday’s focus on the end of time when God will come again “to judge the living and the dead,” as the Apostles Creed says. Let’s look at them.
Reading the Scriptures for Year A
There are three year-long cycles of Sunday readings in the Catholic Church. We have been in the third cycle. Today we begin Cycle A. The Gospel in Cycle A is Matthew. The Hebrew Scripture reading is frequently from Isaiah. The Epistle reading is mostly from Romans. If you are thinking of asking for a Bible commentary for Christmas, ask for Matthew, Isaiah, or Romans.
In a Scripture class I took this fall at St. Meinrad, Fr. Harry impressed upon us, “It is good to look at commentaries, but only if they help you understand what is on the Scripture page.” Better helping you understand what is on the page is my “New Year’s resolution” for A Catholic Moment. To do that, I will mostly start by looking at the Scriptures of the day as they were intended for the people to whom they were written. I will put them in the context of the author’s situation and how they fit within the Bible, then give a question or thought of how we might apply them today.
Isaiah 2:1-5
Isaiah is one book in our Bibles, but it was written across about 150 years. There is what scholars call “1st Isaiah” written before Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians in 587 BCE, 2nd Isaiah written during the exile in Babylon, and 3rd Isaiah written after the people’s return to the Holy Land. Today’s reading comes from 1st Isaiah. Its intended audience was the people of Jerusalem whose faith was often more cultural than personal and who lived with the ongoing threat of invasion by other nations.
Isaiah with its 66 chapters is a summary of Hebrew faith, struggles, and hopes for a Messiah. God is presented in Isaiah as all-powerful AND intensely personal.
Today’s reading comes from the beginning. In Chapter One, Isaiah describes Judah’s sinfulness and predicts that as a nation dedicated to and claimed by God, this cannot be. Now, as Chapter Two begins, he gives a picture of the greatness to which the Hebrew people are called.
As we have walked with Jesus since last summer from Jericho to Jerusalem in Luke’s Gospel, we were climbing “God’s Holy Mountain” with Jesus. God’s Holy Mountain was Jerusalem.
Some of the words today are famous words, “They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks,” but perhaps more important are these:
“Come, let us climb the LORD’s mountain,
to the house of the God of Jacob,
that he may instruct us in his ways,
and we may walk in his paths.”
For from Zion shall go forth instruction,
and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
As we look toward the Incarnation at Christmas, we seek Jesus to “instruct us in his ways that we may walk in his paths.”
What do you want Jesus to instruct you on this Advent?
Matthew 24:37-44
Even though we are beginning our study of Matthew, today’s reading is from the end. Jesus speaks today’s Gospel a day or two before he died. It is Holy Week. He is talking with his disciples. In this chapter of Matthew, Jesus predicts the destruction of the Jerusalem temple which we heard a couple of weeks ago from Luke (Matthew 24:1-2, Luke 21:5-19). He describes coming signs of the end of time, then speaks of the necessity of watchfulness—today’s reading.
It is very interesting how each of the Gospels record the events of Holy Week up to the crucifixion. Matthew includes five parables which were directed to the disciples. All of those parables elaborate on the theme of today’s reading: be faithful, do not be intimidated by events, keep watch, keep busy building the work of the Kingdom. He is saying in effect, “Keep your eyes on the prize.”
As you read Matthew today and think about the next month, how can you keep your eyes on the prize? Indeed, what is the prize of Christmas for you? How can you be faithful and attentive to God and to necessary responsibilities in this busy season?
Romans 13:11-14
Romans is a powerful book of basic Christian theology. Paul wrote it, most likely from Corinth while he was on his third missionary journey. At the time of writing, Paul had not been with the Roman Christian community. He did not personally know them. They were a thriving mixture of Jews and Greeks who were trying to live as Christians in a pagan world.
The over-arching theme of Romans is that sinful people are incapable of saving themselves, but Jesus Christ has done it for them. Their job is to “put on the armor of light,” as Paul admonishes today.
Christians in the Roman community came to faith out of the not-Christian culture around them. They came into the Christian community with blatant sinful practices: participating in orgies, drunkenness, promiscuity, lust, rivalry, and jealousy.
Paul tells them to stop. Paul does not tell them to “get out” of the community. He names what they are doing and encourages repentance.
I wonder how the Romans received Paul’s message today. I wonder how the leaders of the Roman community accepted Paul’s naming the sins of their parish. Did they grow stronger in their own proclamations of what it is to live as a Christian in an unchristian world? Did they work with patience with those involved in such unchristian practices to help them make radical changes?
Paul’s proclamation gives a clear demonstration of “call out the sin; AND call in the sinner.” He encourages the Christians at Rome to “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provisions for the flesh.”
In my life, in your life, how have we done that? What might we do this Advent to better walk in the light of Christ?
Prayer:
Come Lord, come Lord Jesus, bring Your people Light. Help us to be born anew this Advent. Be born anew in us. Be born anew in our world through us. Come Lord, come Lord Jesus.
