A Dwelling for God - 4th Sunday in Advent Year B

There is the story of a poor fisherman, his wife, and a talking fish. One day the fisherman finds the talking fish and the wife insists on having the husband ask the fish to grant them a wish, whereupon the wife asks for a nice house instead of their hut. The fish grants the wish. As the story progresses the wife asks for grander dwellings, and at each request the sea gets more violent. The wife's final wish is to be lord of the sun and moon, at which point the couple is returned to their poor hut. The point of the story is that the poor couple had all they needed in their simple life, and that the desire for greater dwellings led to the loss of their spirit. The readings for today's liturgy provide us with a similar lesson.

In the first reading we find King David pledging to build God a magnificent dwelling for him. After all, David had built a glorious palace for himself while God's presence in the Ark f the Covenant continued to remain in a simple tent. The desire seems just on David's part, but God does not want David to build the Temple. God was content to have his presence remain in the simple dwelling of the tent. Eventually David's son, Solomon, would build the great Temple of Jerusalem, only to have king after king defile the presence of God therein with the worship of false idols and the various injustices allowed to exist throughout the kingdom of Israel.

God's desire to dwell within the lowliest of things finds its way into the Gospel for today. The angel Gabriel announces God's intention to have Mary be the mother of Jesus the Lord. Mary was not from the upper classes; she lived in Nazareth of Galilee, one of the poorest areas of the northern regions of Judea. And yet God chose her to have the Lord Jesus reside within her and to enter human existence through her womb. Just as God preferred the humble tent of the desert for his presence to dwell among the people of Israel, so God preferred the lowly handmaiden of Nazareth to be the God bearer.

The readings point us to the real point of the Advent and Christmas seasons: God neither desires nor prefers the grand buildings built by human beings for his dwelling, even though the presence of Jesus in the Eucharist is housed in such places. It is God's preference to dwell within the heart and soul of each human being he has created. All of us have been chosen to be God bearers and to bring God's presence into the world through our words and deeds - deeds of justice and love. The buildings we create are fine enough, but just as the Temple of Jerusalem has been destroyed, rebuilt, and destroyed once again, so our buildings bear the same fate. Buildings do not have an eternal destiny, human beings do. We must build a suitable dwelling for God within our own hearts and souls in order for Christmas to mean anything at all.

Martin Sheen played the lead role in a movie called "The Fourth Wise Man." Sheen's character is the fabled fourth wise man who was to accompany the others to bring additional gifts to the Christ child - gifts of three precious jewels. The man gets separated from the others and lost along the way. He desperately searches for the Lord Jesus over many years in order to bring him these jewels. However, over the years he comes across people in need who require his assistance: a sick child, a slave under harsh conditions and separated from his family, and a widow in dire need. The man uses the jewels to save these people from their plights, and he wanders the streets of Jerusalem penniless and heartbroken that he was unable to give these gifts to the Lord Jesus.

The final scene has the wise man sitting along the side of a road in Jerusalem, and Jesus walks by carrying the cross to Calvary. Jesus stops to talk with the wise man, who apologizes for not having brought him the jewels. Jesus replies, "For as often as you did it to one of these least ones, you did it to me." We ended the liturgical year with that line from the final judgment of Matthew 25, and so it becomes the central message for Advent and Christmas. We make a fitting dwelling for God by caring for the least among us. We make the best preparation for the coming of Jesus by deeds of justice and love.

As we make ready for and celebrate together the coming of the Lord Jesus, let us ask for the grace we need to make our lives a fitting dwelling for him. "Let us pray as Advent draws to a close for the faith that opens our lives to the Spirit of God. Father, all powerful God, your eternal Word took flesh on our earth when the Virgin Mary placed her life at the service of your plan. Lift our minds in watchful hope to hear the voice which announces his glory and open our minds to receive the Spirit who prepartes us for his coming. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen."

Test Everything - 3rd Sunday of Advent Year B

In the past few weeks my eight year old son has begun questioning the cherished legend of Santa Claus. He has barraged us with a flurry of probing questions that expose the incredulity of many aspects of the Santa Claus story: how can Santa deliver all these presents to every child in the world in one night? How can reindeer fly? Why does the Santa at Zona Rosa look different than the Santa at our school holiday pageant? Sooner or later he will arrive at the truth behind the Santa Claus legend, and healthy questioning will lead him to discover the real identity of Santa. Today's readings provide us with a template to follow in our own discovery of the identity of Jesus.

Paul encourages us in the second reading to test everything - to retain what is good and reject what is evil. While such advice seems tautalogical, the spirit in which we engage in this testing is what we must strive to achieve. Paul exhorts us to rejoice always, to pray without ceasing, and in all things to give thanks. Very often our testing in the world is done with a great deal of cynicism, skepticism, and negativity. And yet Paul provides us with a model of testing that does not seek the personal destruction of individuals or groups of people, but instead we should seek joy and gratitude in a spirit of prayer that seeks the truth of our identities and that of Jesus Christ.

In the Gospel text we see a group of people searching for the identity of John the Baptist. Indirectly this searching for John's identity is linked to the search for Jesus' identity that comes to dominate the Gospel of John. If John is the precursor, the one sent to prepare for the coming Messiah, then the identity of Jesus becomes clear. However, this group searching for John the Baptist's identity cannot arrive at a definitive decision. John's answers confuse them because they have a faulty notion of the identity of the long awaited Messiah. They hoped for a political savior who would liberate Israel from Rome and to restore the nation of Israel. Jesus, however, is not that messiah.

The identity of the Messiah that the Christian community adopts is found in the first reading from the prophet Isaiah. The anointed one (i.e. Messiah) is to bring glad tidings to the poor, heal the brokenhearted, proclaim liberty to captives, release to prisoners, and to bring a year of favor from the Lord. The messiah would be wrapped not in garments of fine cloth or jeweled robes, but rather in deeds of justice that bring salvation to all nations. This image of the Messiah becomes the criteria for testing everything related to the identity of Jesus. In the end it is Isaiah' description of the Messiah that is the authentic understanding of the role and identity of the Messiah of God. The Lord Jesus fits that description and through his life and ministry we come to salvation.

In our own lives we must test ourselves against this mission of the Messiah, for in becoming followers of Jesus we take on that identity and mission for our own lives. Fundamentally, then, our lives must be centered on acts of justice and charity. Advent is a time of preparation for the coming of the Lord Jesus in the same way Lent prepares us to celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus. In addition to repentance for our sins and penitential practices, we have many opportunities to perform acts of justice and charity during Advent as we prepare for the coming of Jesus.

Christmas is the celebration of the Incarnation of Jesus among us. Advent prepares us to have Jesus become incarnate in our lives through our words and deeds while at the same time preparing for the second coming of the Lord Jesus. As we continue our preparateion, we pray together for the help necessary to be a fitting crib for the Lord: "Let us pray this Advent for joy and hope in the coming Lord. Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, ever faithful to your promises and ever close to your Church; the earth rejoices in hope of the Savior's coming and looks forward with longing to his return at the end of time. Prepare our hearts and remove the sadness that hinders us from feeling the joy and hope that his presence will bestow, for he is Lord forever and ever. Amen."