CLICK VIEW TO WATCH THE HOMILY. Then click “Watch on YOUTUBE,” scroll down and click “more…” if you want to find a specific part of the Liturgy of the Word to watch. Isaiah 35:1-6,10, James 5:7-10, Matthew 11:2-11
Americans are not very good at waiting. We eat fast food. We prepare instant oatmeal, instant potatoes and instant coffee. We use I-pass on the toll roads so we can maintain highway speed. We only pick up ten items so we can use the express lines at the grocery store. Have you noticed during a traffic jam how cars will maneuver in order to get just one car ahead? If a show doesn’t catch our attention in the first fifteen minutes we change channels. We want shipping that is absolutely, positively overnight. The instant pot and the microwave have replaced the slow cooker crock pot. As one wag put it, for people today the problem with instant gratification is that it takes too long. Maybe that is why we have a hard time with the season of Advent. We’ve already moved on to Christmas right after digesting the turkey. The season of Advent, which translates as the season of expectant waiting, goes against the grain. Yet, the best things in life come to those who wait. The epistle of St. James says, “Be patient. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth being patient with it. You too must be patient.” You plant a seed in the ground and then you wait. The flower will grow in its time. Getting anxious over the plant won’t make it grow any faster. When woman is pregnant, she must wait. You can’t rush the baby coming. A child is born when it is time and not before. We must wait for the biopsy results, for the examination grade to be posted, for the company to announce the new hires. Against what society calls the Christmas rush, the liturgy invites us to an Advent Hush. Advent tells us “But wait, there’s more to come.” Patience, grasshopper.
John the Baptist apparently was like us getting antsy while waiting. “Are you the one who is to come or should we look for another?” We’re all waiting for something – a sense of peace, a direction or purpose, a sign of hope, a new beginning, the pain to stop, a life worth living, someone to love. We come to church because of the promise that it is here that we will find what we are looking for. Jesus says, “Come to me all you who labor and are burdened.” As John the Baptist found, how Jesus is the answer is not always obvious. We look at the Bible for understanding. We find that Jesus, who is God with us, was born as one of us. He shares in our hopes and dreams, our joys and disappointments, our griefs and our happinesses. He too was tested, dealt with problems, didn’t like how things were going. He had friends and enemies, believers and doubters, people who loved him and people who hated him. Jesus had to hang in there with God when the going got rough. Yet through it all he showed us that God never fails, that love is stronger than death. Who Jesus was shows our possibilities. The Bible also talks about what will be, provides the blessed assurance about the future. God isn’t finished. All we need do is wait on the Lord and all will be well. Jesus has not left us orphans but will return bringing with him the fulness of life for which we yearn.
While the Bible tells us about the coming of Jesus in the past and the coming of Jesus in the future we want to know about how Jesus comes to us today. Like John the Baptist we ask, are you the one I’ve been looking for? Where can we find you in the present tense? Jesus’ answer to John works for us: look for me where the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed the deaf hear, the dead are raised and the poor have good news. As Jesus said in another place, whatsoever you do for the least, you do unto me. The answers that we seek, the peace that we yearn for, come as a package dewal when we embrace those who are hurting, kind of a bogo, buy one get one free. When we involve ourselves in the lives of others then we recognize the face of God. The irony is that once we stop trying to make something of ourselves and instead do for others, only then do we find ourselves. Help someone to see their worth and value, show someone how to walk the right path, enable someone to clean up their act, speak a word of hope to the grieving, lift up the depressed, be generous with those in need — then you find what you’ve been waiting for.
When you think about it, the coming of Jesus means that we are all in this together. We easily divide ourselves into different nations or races or languages or ethnicities, into the haves and the have nots. We build barriers, borders, barricades and blockades against THOSE people. But since Jesus is the elder brother to us all we belong together. We are one family, the family of God. We seek communion, community, connection, commonality with all people. Once we find that what unites us is stronger and more wonderful than what divides us, the yearnings of our hearts will blossom with hope.
Truth to tell, Jesus provided us something of what we are waiting for in the gift of the Eucharist. The poets call it a foretaste of the heavenly banquet. While we cannot yet sup fully at the bounty of the Lord in this world of strife, we are given an appetizer of what it is like as we gather around the table of the Lord. Here we are given medicine for the sick, provision for the journey, satisfaction for the starving, sweetness for the saddened. We have in the Eucharist what we are looking for – a sacred heart inviting us into the fullness of love and joy. Who could ask for anything more.
