Advent II 2009

Advent II 2009

Heaven and Earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.

St. Luke 21:33

As we have said, Advent means “coming.” And so during this season we prayerfully meditate upon the coming of Christ. Christ comes to us in Advent as one who prepares us for another coming at Christmas. Last week Christ Jesus came to awaken us out of spiritual sleep, and to cleanse the soul. You will remember that he entered the Great Temple of Jerusalem to purge it of ungodly commerce and worldly transactions. So he came into our church here, to purge it and cleanse it of the same. Most significantly, we prayed that the Lord Jesus would come into our souls, in order to cast out of them the works of darkness, would come to take us into the real presence of his humility, and would come to put upon us the armour of light. We prayed that we might open up to the released uncreated energy of God’s Grace. St. John of the Cross puts the spiritual disposition nicely. The soul has… to walk with loving heedfulness and attention to God, without making specific acts, but conducting itself, as we have said, passively, and making no efforts of its own, but preserving this simple, pure and loving heedfulness, like one that opens his eyes with the attention of love. Last week our desire was to awaken to find ourselves living in the quiet presence of Christ’s humility, who alone, having emptied himself, would, expressing tough love, purge and cleanse the interior temples of our souls. Remember our hope is that he comes to dwell in us, that we might dwell in him. But not before he comes to prepare us. We are living in the “not yet there” phase of unity with Jesus.

This week Christ comes to us in another way. We have been awakened, and hopefully we are humbly prepared and ready to welcome Christ’s coming to us again. I know, you have already erected and decorated your trees. You have been to that great Italian restaurant in Asheville, whose pianist is playing secular Christmas tunes in the oh-so-romantic ambiance of candlelight. Candlelight, Cannolis, and Christmas. Lovely. But not yet. Please, let us just leave that aside for now. Christ comes to us in a different manner this week. There is no aesthetic hint of candlelit dimness or amorous piano music. No.

This week Jesus Christ comes to us, to invite us to put off the “passing world,” and to embrace the “enduring Word.” In the Gospel lesson for today we read of Christ’s prophesy of the end times, the second and last coming, when he shall judge both the quick and the dead. At that time the “heavens and the earth shall pass away,” while all souls will encounter the coming of that which never passes away but endures. My Words shall not pass away. And while this coming is inevitable, Christ does not speak about it to generate despair and fear into the souls of his hearers and us who have faith in him for the future. To be sure, there will be those who, at that time, will be assaulted by alarm, terror and horror at what is confronting or challenging them. More than likely many will be surprised and taken off guard because they did not believe in God and Jesus Christ. And others, who do believe, will be fearful because they have hesitated in responding to the coming of the Lord. So the non-believers, the slothful believers and the distracted believers alike could find themselves in utter trepidation and fear. Men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. But the message is for all of us today. Everyone of us pays too little attention to the Enduring Word of God. As Canon Crouse has put it, “For each one of us individually, this world, and the things of this world must pass away, not just in some vague, remote and unimaginable future, but right now. They are passing things; that is their very nature. They are passing things, and they are passing away even as we grasp them in our hands. No cleverness, no wishful thinking, no advanced technology can make them anything other than transitory things. What folly it is to focus our hopes and expectations upon such things! What foolishness to set our hearts upon them!”

Christ came then to his hearers and comes to us today as one who comes with hope for the future which must be based on the nature of our living today! In fact, he invites us to live in the permanence of his enduring life, beginning now. He comes to call us today into his Body, as those who can dwell within it, to draw from it all his spiritual nourishing, strengthening and healing. We can look to the second and final coming, because today He comes to take us into himself, and to make us familiar and at home in the Body of his being. Man is caught between the glistening light of passing things and the Illuminative Sun of the Enduring Word. Jesus calls us out of ourselves and into himself, into the life of his Enduring Word. His coming to call us into himself, and our response and reaction to it will determine who and where we will be at his final coming. If we choose to be within his Body, we desire and will to be corrected, changed and made fit for the final redemption, when we shall behold God face to face in the unchanging and permanent presence of his love. And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh. We hope for this final coming, and so we hope for his coming now.

The Enduring Word of God has never ceased to come to men, or to express his desire for their salvation. The Permanent and Unchanging Word of God has been spoken and expressed to throughout the course of history and is recorded in the Holy Scripture. It has addressed itself to priests and prophets and kings in the Old Testament. The Ever-Present God speaks his Enduring Word. The Word corrects and punishes. The word promises the coming of a Saviour. He is never absent but always present.We know this from the Holy Scriptures. St. Paul reminds us today that the words found in Holy Scripture were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope. Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be likeminded one toward another according to Christ Jesus: That ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Holy Scriptures speak of the new Body formed and obeying one Mind and one Mouth. In other words, it concludes with the fact that the Enduring Word continues to address human beings, within the new and maturing Body of Christ. The Enduring Word endures through the ages in the life of Jesus Christ’s Body and the through the power of the Holy Spirit.

The Bible tells of the Eternal Enduring Word and of its relationship to human beings in past times. And it is given to us for our learning now, says St. Paul. Thus, if we “hear it” as the Word of God spoken to us, if we “read it” as God’s Word written to be remembered, if we “mark it” as we respond to its address to us, if we “learn it” or take it in as the communication and speaking of God to us and for us, and finally if we “inwardly digest it” as bringing us into the salvific presence of the Enduring Word made flesh, then we shall have the means with which to hope and embrace that patience and comfort which it affords us on our journey to heaven.

St. Paul also tells us that Christ Jesus, the Enduring Word made Flesh, has come to us to receive us back into the presence of God the Father. God’s steadfast determination and encouragement for all men is found in the life of Jesus Christ. He is God’s intention to save us made flesh. Through the life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, man and God can be reconciled. The Jesus of history is taken into eternity. Man is taken with him, if he will live in the transforming power of his eternal forgiveness and Grace. He invites us today into the life of himself, the Permanent and enduring Word made Flesh, now in us if we breathe in the Holy Spirit of his Body.

Our positive response to Christ’s coming now, our acceptance of his invitation to live within his Body, our willingness to leave behind the passing things of this world, will all better enable us to know and feel the endurance of his first coming at Bethlehem, and the unchanging promise of his second coming at the end times. And so today we pray that by God’s Grace, by the Holy Spirit, we may even, as Paul Claudel has put it, “feel within ourselves those lungs with which we may inhale the Father through the mouth of the Son.” Through the Enduring Word made flesh, through Jesus Christ and his words which come to us by the Holy Spirit, we begin to spiritually inhale the will of the Father for us. Christ Jesus the Word comes to us, and gives us the words that root and ground us in his life, and in his Body. Jesus Christ is the Enduring Word of God made flesh. He is seated at the right hand of the Father, and shall come again to judge both the living and the dead. But he is our Head, and we members of his Body. And our living in Him, and He is us, is the ground for our present patience, comfort and hope. Our aim is to live with the Father. Let us close with Fr. Maloney’s exhortation to achieve that end:

“The more you can do by exercising your faith in God’s loving and working presence in your life and through your activities to fashion the Body of Christ, by striving with greater purity of heart and fidelity to God’s uncreated energies of love, the more alive you will become.” Abiding in the Indwelling Trinity Yes, the more we shall become faithful by acknowledging that we derive our life from the Goodness of God, the more we shall live. The more we shall receive our hope from the Enduring Word of God made Flesh, Jesus Christ with us and for us, even now, the more we shall live. And if we begin to live in Christ Jesus now, we have already begun to exist as members of the Permanent Reality of God’s eternally active love, beauty, truth, wisdom, and most of all friendship. Amen.