Gospel Reflection - Third Week of Advent

We are well into the season of Advent – a time of preparation and waiting. In the world around us, we have the distractions of shopping, Christmas parties, end of the year school events, and the need for a good rest. Advent is indeed a time of waiting. We wait in lines in order to purchase our groceries at the super markets. We wait at stop signs and traffic signals. We wait for flowers to grow and bloom; for babies to be born; for wounds to heal; for bread to rise and cheese to age; for children to mature; for friends to call; for love to deepen. And so waiting involves patience.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, the great novelist said, the three worst things in life; to lie in bed and not to sleep; to try and please and not be able; and to wait for someone who does not come. Today’s second reading is all about patience. Saint James says, “Be patient, brothers and sisters, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains.” Christianity, in a certain sense is a religion of fulfilment. The Lord has come. The incarnation, redemption have taken place. It’s happened. But in another sense, Christianity is permanently a religion of waiting because we wait in joyful hope for the second coming of the Lord. We wait until this salvation has been fulfilled. So we see a permanent Advent quality to Christian life. I believe a lot of us like Advent, we resonate with it because it speaks of our whole life waiting for the Lord. We even say it liturgically when we say that we wait in joyful hope for the coming of our saviour. But it’s hard to wait and we need this virtue of patience.

I believe Saint James refers to the virtue of patience as a requirement when seeking worthwhile, great and beautiful things in life. And so the Christian life and this could be a great Advent theme; is like the cultivation of a plant. The cultivation of a seed. Jesus has come among us; the seed of divine life, the seed of grace has been planted in the earth. It’s been planted in time and history. It’s been planted in us in our own hearts. What must we do now? So we must with patience wait for the Christ life to develop in us. Jesus purpose is to christify the world. To turn it into his own body to christify us. To turn us into members of his body. With prayer and attention we therefore watch and wait.

The story of our lives is the story of this process of gestation by which the Christ life is developing and unfolding within us. How do we read now what happens to us? Our successes, our failures, the good, the bad, the suffering? Saint James says, “The farmer watches and waits as the winter and spring rains fall.” Let the winter rains fall on the soil of your heart, on the soil of your life and allow Christ’s seed to grow in you. Friends, the wonderful point of Advent season is that we should read our lives the way the patient farmer reads his filed, Christ coming to growth within us.

One quick look at the gospel for today; John the Baptist is in prison in this Gospel. There are three places where John is found in the Gospels. He is found in the womb of his mother. He is found in the desert and he is found in prison. He is found in all places of confinement. All places of expectation. Were we look for something new. The child in the womb looks for the life beyond. John in the desert predicts the coming of the Lord. John in prison looks for the Lord. All three of these three places are Advent places. We too are in a kind of womb, this life, a time of gestation. We wait and we watch. We too are in a kind of desert waiting for the full flowering of the Christ life. We too are in a kind of prison and we question and look and wait for the coming of the Lord. Move into the space of the Baptist and find there your Advent spirit, your Advent mood. And may God bless you this Advent season.