The Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him: a Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, A Spirit of counsel and of strength, a Spirit of knowledge and of fear of the LORD, and his delight shall be the fear of the LORD.
Wisdom and understanding. Counsel and strength. Knowledge and awe. From the beginning, humans have sought these qualities. In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve gave into the temptation that if they ate the fruit, they would be all knowing and wise, full of strength and awe-inspiring – just like God. They thought they themselves could be these very things, that they could be like God rather than rely on God for these very things. Well, we know the rest of the story…
The thing is, we still have not learned our lesson. Time after time, humanity tries to be like God. We want to know the things that God knows, do the things that God does, and control our own lives as if we were God. Time after time, we fail. We fail as nations, we fail as communities, and most often, we fail as individuals. As humans, we tend to overthink things. We push the limits of science beyond what is ethical and moral, we preach freedom in the name of equality and fairness, to the point where our “rights” affect our very freedom. And even as Catholics, we scrutinize our faith to the point where we pick and choose what we want to believe and take seriously, discarding those precepts and teachings that may not fall in line with what we want to believe. In other words, we try to be God in that we attempt to control the world around us and within us.
Time after time, humanity tried to gain this control, this wisdom and knowledge – and every time we failed. Isaiah told the Jewish people that a way was coming where would could gain these qualities, where we could experience the wisdom, strength, knowledge and understanding of God, but it was in nothing that we as men and women could do. It was only through God and The One he would send – the Messiah. God was going to send a savior to do a little show and tell on how we could gain all of these qualities, not on our own, but through Him! But again, we didn’t listen.
We continue to struggle to attain this knowledge and wisdom through our own means and understanding, and this road is so much more difficult – because we fail to see the big picture. We battle this world and each other for simple truths that we may never fully realize, because we can never see beyond what is in front of us. God gave us a way to do this, to see the bigger picture, to be happy and seek His truth, all while giving us the grace to endure the struggles of our daily lives. God chose to reveal His knowledge and wisdom and awe through His son. In order to attain he understanding and strength we seek, we simply need to seek this through Jesus, as He said:
“I give you praise, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike. Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.”
How do we gain this understanding? Not as we might expect. We have to be like children. Not that we have to act like a child, but we have to have the purity of a child. Children have yet to be scarred by this world. They still look at this world with awe, and others with a pure innocence. Children live in the moment and play with other kids. They don’t care about where they come from, how much money their parents make, or who has what. Children look at this world with a level of awe and joy that adults do not, and they are totally dependent upon their parents. Children look to their parents for everything in their life, and they could not survive without them. To experience the world as Christ and His Apostles did, and to experience the wisdom and strength of God, we need to have the heart of a child. Only then will God reveal that which we seek.
If we follow Christ’s Gospel, we are truly blessed, in ways that we cannot imagine. If we approach life with the openness of a child, God will reveal a level of understanding, wisdom, knowledge and strength that was previously hidden from us. This is hard to do. We as adults have years of scars and hardness that the world has affixed to us. It’s hard for us to look at one another, especially those who have hurt us over and over, with the love and tenderness of a child. But what is the alternative?
We can look at the last 5000 years, or the last 5 minutes, and we will see the failure of humanity to control our destiny and our respective lives. If we seek to judge one another, yet fail to uphold oneself to the same standard, we lose sight of the wisdom and understanding we all seek. If we try to be God, rather than to know God, we will forever be out of control, rather than have the control we want. This cycle has to stop.
We need to keep it simple. If we want true balance in our lives and we want to truly experience Christ for who he is, we must open our hearts like a child and let go of our selfish pride. Use this Advent to become more childlike in our faith and experience the true awe of Christ this Christmas, and we will be blessed with a new understanding.
