FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT – YEAR C
Commentary by Fr. Fernando Armellini
A good Sunday for all at the beginning of Advent.
The gospel text we will hear shortly was pronounced by Jesus in the temple in the last week of his life. Luke adds that after spending the day in the temple where he taught, he retired to the Mount of Olives at dusk and spent the night in the open air. The temple was one of the world’s wonders and one of the most famous and beautiful constructions. This temple was the glory of Israel. And, one day, while he was in the square of the women, someone invited Jesus to contemplate this wonder. Naturally, Jesus was expected to share the joy of the people in contemplating this wonder that was the temple of Herod. But Jesus' response surprised everyone. "Of all this, there will be no stone on stone."
For the disciples, the destruction of the temple meant the end of all their hopes, of all their certainties, including religious ones, because the presence of the Lord was in the temple, the God of Israel who was invincible, who had destroyed the army of Egypt... therefore, the temple could not collapse.
And so, faced with the affirmation of Jesus, they were disconcerted. What are our hopes for if no more stone is left on the temple? These words of Jesus produced a surprised reaction from his disciples because Jesus introduced a surprising announcement: that a world is about to end… It must end, but we must be happy, not sad because a world will be born like the one God wanted. A force capable of destroying and eliminating that negative germ will enter the world that has led to that sad world full of injustices in which we are living.
Listen to this announcement:
“There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on earth, nations will be in dismay, perplexed by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will die of fright in anticipation of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.”
We are preparing for the celebration of Christmas, and all should talk about joy, celebration, songs, peace, and love… but instead, the words we have just heard from Jesus seem to induce fear, which is, therefore, not suitable for the liturgical season that we are preparing to live. If we get scared, it's because we have not understood the language used by Jesus. Jesus introduced his message using the apocalyptic language. An ‘apocalyptic’ language does not mean ‘catastrophic’ even if the images suggest a catastrophe.
'Apocalyptic' means 'reveal,' removing the veil on a mystery in the world. What is this mystery? As always… the mystery of grief, because of the injustices, because of the wars, because of the violence on the weakest, abuses, the oppression, the misery due to the excessive use of things, uncontrolled waste… And I think, sometimes, we ask ourselves… But God has done well with this world?
Indeed, God has done it well, and this mysterious situation that leads us to these questions, God has not created it. But will this world that is moved by an opposing force last forever? What leads to these unbearable situations? This is the question that was asked in the time of Jesus and that we also put it today: Is this world going to last forever, or is it destined to disappear and leave its place for a world completely new, the world that God has wanted since the first moment of its creation?
The words of Jesus want to remove this veil. Jesus uses apocalyptic language that we will now try to decode. First of all, he speaks of signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars. The peoples of the Ancient Middle East contemplated the firmament more than we do today, and they organized their lives by observing the course of the stars and regularly monitoring the seasons. They looked up 'to heaven' more than we do today. We looked at it more from our cell phone, but they watched the firmament. And, for them and us, if there is something that we imagine that is stable and immutable, it is the regular movement of the stars and the planets of the firmament.
It does not occur to any one of us that tomorrow the sun does not rise punctually in the East, so says the psalmist in Psalm 72 when composing his epithalamium (a song or a poem) for a sovereign on the day of his enthronement, what does it augur? "May your kingdom last like the sun," because the sun lasts forever; "Like the moon, for centuries." It will be a kingdom of peace until the moon gets turned off. It will never be extinguished because the stars of the firmament are stable and immutable.
So, what does Jesus mean by using these images? “There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars?” The prophets have effectively described the world we all desire to end. They have spoken of a world made of wars, of injustice of violence against the weakest. A world governed by a social order that is disorder. We also think today that this world is stable and immovable ... how often have we felt saying, ‘Nothing will change,’ or ‘The powers of evil are very strong.’ Think of the economy, the advertisement that sells lies, ‘fake news,’ and they do it in a thousand ways, with all the digital instruments, to communicate their lies. And it makes us want to drop our arms. This world will not change.
This is the compelling image that Jesus introduces; what appears immutable, immovable, God will change it; he will cast it out because he will raise a force much more powerful than the forces of evil. It will be the end not only of social injustices but also the end of a religious structure that everyone thought would last forever because it was a holder of divine authority, a religion that instilled in the people a commercial relationship with God.
What was the religion in Jesus' time, which he condemns and says that this religion is over ... this way of relating to God? They went to the temple, offered sacrifices to the Lord, and expected their sacrifices to be favorable. They observed the commandments, so the Lord had to bless them. It was a commercial relationship with God. The face of the Father, announced by Jesus and reproduced perfectly on his face, absolutely does not want this relationship because Jesus came to speak to us to proclaim the joy of an unconditional love of God.
God does not want anything from us. We should only welcome his gifts, and if we receive them, we will be happy. The only thing that God wants from us is our joy. This is what Jesus announces: the decline of a susceptible, vindictive God who claims obedience that requires that he be apologized to if, by chance, someone does not follow his orders. Otherwise, he unleashes his punishments.
With the end of the ancient world image, Jesus says that a new force has entered the world: His Spirit—the Spirit of love that overcomes the opposing force of hatred and selfishness. The new world will no longer be regulated by these forces that have dominated until his coming. Then, after the signs of heaven, he mentions the signs of the earth… always with apocalyptic images. "Perplexed by the roaring of the sea and the waves.”
Do not panic. It is an announcement of great joy. The sea was the symbol of hostile forces. The monsters in the sea fought against life and the project of God's love. What does the sea do when this divine force arrives? It can only get agitated by resisting and perpetuating the ancient world. It will not be able to do it. This conflict between the forces of good and evil will generate anguish and fear, even among the righteous, because "People will die of fright in anticipation of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.”
We also have a little fear because we know that there is a huge conflict between the forces of the old world, which we know very well, and that new force, which is the Spirit, who acts in those who receive the proposal of a new world and a new man initiated by Jesus. It also gives us a little fear because we ask ourselves, 'Who will win.' And many times, we think that the forces of good will lose; they will be defeated.
With this image, Jesus wants to announce that the forces of good will prevail. He wants to avoid the danger, which is very current and concrete, that even those who have adhered to his proposal of man and a new world will drop their arms and resign. NO. The new world has begun, and there has been a passage between two epochs of history: the passage from the ancient world to the new world. The prophet Daniel announced the path from the inhuman world to the genuinely human world, and Jesus alludes to this prophecy by applying it to himself.
Let's listen:
"Then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. But when these signs begin to happen, stand erect and raise your heads because your redemption is at hand.”
In chapter 7, the prophet Daniel presents the old world as wild. The images are of the succession of the kingdoms, of the lion and leopard empires that shatter those before them and then establish a more beastly power.
In the book of the prophet Daniel, it is announced that the kingdom of the Son of Man will come at last. Son of man in Hebrew means simply 'man.’ A true man that fully realizes human identity. The selfish, violent, exploitative, dissolute man is inhuman, is bestial, and this is the old world whose end was already announced by the prophet Daniel. This is what Jesus announces: the triumph of the human over the inhuman. He says: "When all that starts happening..." We must be prepared to receive these signs of the new world because we have been frightened by the victories of the ancient world, of evil. We must be vigilant and know how to welcome the presence of the new world.
The question we ask ourselves is this: how can we place ourselves before this revelation made by Jesus? We can get involved in this story of God or stay on the sidelines. What does Jesus say we do?
The first: "Straighten up". The Greek verb is very important: 'Anakipto,' which means: you who bend your head, lean for shame, for fear, because you are crushed, 'straighten up.’ This verb has been used by the evangelist Luke when talking about the stooped woman, who walked always hunched, and that is the image of the woman that always, in history, has had to bow her head. Jesus says: The new world has begun; straighten up all the hunches; do not resign yourselves to the slavery to which you have been subjugated. The slavery that comes also from pagan cultures, traditions, and fashions ... NO. If you are slaves to these things, straighten up. Do not resign yourself to lower your head, perhaps because of some painful history, sin, fragility, and mistakes made. Do not resign yourself. Stand upright because God loves you just as you are.
The second thing you should do is "raise your head,” look up, think of the meaning of your existence, and do not duck your head on material realities that are important but are not absolute. 'Lift your head,' look at the meaning of your existence, "because the day of your liberation has arrived." When these things happen, get ready because you must be attentive to the signs of the new world and become part of this new reality. And now Jesus makes two recommendations.
Let's listen to it:
“Beware that your hearts do not become drowsy from carousing and drunkenness and the anxieties of daily life and that day catch you by surprise like a trap. Be vigilant at all times and pray that you have the strength to escape the tribulations that are imminent and to stand before the Son of Man.”
Listen to these recommendations made by Jesus in the waiting time and how we must make ourselves present in this new world that he has begun. The first of these recommendations is not to be attentive to the evil that others do. 'Be attentive to yourselves.' First, be vigilant about yourselves because some dangers and risks can happen.
The first of these risks is that your heart gets stunned and loses the religious and human sensitivity to Jesus's message. As we live in a worldly fashion, a logic that is not the gospel, we can slowly induce ourselves to do at least a little, as they all do. Jesus says: watch yourself. It will be a problem if we fully integrate into the present, in material things, to the point where we no longer have time to search for values and the meaning of life and end up sliding towards how everybody thinks and acts. Watch yourself and always keep in touch with my word.
The second danger is vice, drunkenness. What does this image mean? You are aware of all that provokes you, everything that makes you lose contact with reality ... the one who drinks, the one who gets drunk, lives in an imaginary world, not a real world. And this daze that comes from material things may even be a professional success because you no longer think of anything else, or they can be all the illusory, ephemeral realities in the midst of which we live. This image presents all this: everything that stuns us makes us drunk. And when you're drunk, it's better not to go shopping because you will be cheated. If we are shocked when making life choices, for example, by advertising, way of thinking, speeches, television advertisements, or junk programs ... we will also end up getting stunned and drunk by all this, and then we will make wrong choices.
Also: "the worries of life." It's not that material things are unimportant, but they are not the only concerns, for biological life cannot absorb all our interests. If one is bent on earthly realities as if they were the only ones, the absolute, then the fair value will not be given to the things of life.
Then Jesus continues by saying: Be attentive because you can get caught in a snare that will bind and prevent you from moving. Jesus warns us to be careful. We can be trapped by choices that do not let us think, act, and decide. Keep it in mind because, in the end, you can live and be chained to an imaginary world because the real world, the right choices, are not revealed immediately. The one who has chosen well in life sees it at the end. It is the invitation to wisdom, to be able to read the meaning of history, to welcome the goal, and to know the direction that must be taken today in life.
And the last recommendation is prayer. Prayer means to stay constantly in contact and in dialogue with the Lord to make all the choices according to what he suggests. This is the prayer, and Jesus concludes by saying that when the Lord comes into our lives with his word and light, he wants to find us standing before the Son of Man. The Son of Man is the proposal of man that Jesus makes. And we listen To the proclamation of the gospel standing, ready to receive his proposal and to follow it.
We are waiting for the coming of the Lord and preparing to receive him while standing, ready to follow what he tells us because, with him, we become builders of the new world, and he is the new man.
I wish everyone a good Sunday and a good week.
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