The advent of Jesus in our lives

This is my homily for today, the 2nd Sunday of Advent, Cycle C.  Today's readings are here.

Back in September of 1992, when my wife Therese and I were a young married couple, and before we had welcomed any kids into the world, she worked for Motorola in Schaumburg.  At that time, the president of the United States was George HW Bush – he was the first President Bush, the dad.  1992 was a presidential election year, and President Bush was running for re-election.  That September, he made a campaign appearance at Motorola’s Schaumburg location, which at that time was a sprawling, multi-building campus.  Thousands of workers worked there every day.  

The president arrived at the Motorola campus by helicopter – it landed right on the campus.  He was given a tour, and then he made a speech to the employees.  My wife Therese was among them.  Then the president reboarded his helicopter and flew off to his next campaign event.  

Therese described to me how the work routine at Motorola was disrupted that day.  There were secret service agents all over the campus, restricting where people could go.  And when it was time for the president’s speech, the workers walked away from their desks and their daily work and gathered in the place where the speech took place.  It wasn’t a typical workday.   

Our Gospel reading today is about preparing for the coming of a ruler into our midst.  That’s because we’re in the season of Advent now.  That word “advent” means “arrival”.  But the ruler whose arrival we’re awaiting isn’t the President of the United States.  Nor is it any of those rulers mentioned in the Gospel reading: Caesar, or an imperial governor like Pontius Pilate, or a high priest.  We’re awaiting the advent – the arrival – of a very different kind of ruler in our midst: Jesus, God’s son.

Of course, at this time of year, during this holiday time, when we think of Jesus’s arrival, the first thing that probably springs to mind is the arrival of the Christ Child, born in a stable and wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid down in a manger by his mother the Blessed Virgin Mary.  We call that arrival event the Nativity – the birth of Jesus. 

The Nativity certainly was a great event in faith history.  But that wasn’t the only arrival of Jesus that we celebrate during Advent.  In today’s Gospel reading, John the Baptist isn’t heralding the birth of a baby, but rather the imminent arrival of the adult Jesus, who was about to begin going among his people, teaching us, proclaiming the kingdom of God, and bringing us healing and forgiveness.  

But Advent celebrates even more arriving of Jesus: we also celebrate that Jesus will come again, too, to take us to heaven with him.   We don’t know when that will be – it could be tomorrow, or it could be in 10,000 years.

But even that isn’t all there is.  Advent is about still more arriving, because Jesus also is arriving right here, right now.  He comes to us when we’re gathered in his name, as we are now.  He comes to us spiritually when the Word of God is proclaimed.  And best of all, he comes to us sacramentally in the Eucharist.  In Holy Communion, he arrives and unites himself with us so closely that it’s as near to him as we’re able to draw, here in our earthly lives.

When the earthly ruler President George HW Bush came to Motorola, he didn’t stay very long.  He took a tour, made a brief speech, then left.  You can be sure the company executives wanted it that way; they were not paying Therese and her coworkers to listen to speeches.  So when the event ended, the workers returned to their buildings and their desks, and resumed their work.  Everything went back to normal.  It reverted to how it was before.  

But that’s not how it should be when Jesus arrives in our midst.  When Jesus comes in our lives, it’s not so we can stay the same.  He comes to us to change us.  And you can be sure that he changes us for the better.  When Jesus is in our lives, we feel a certain peace in our innermost being that can be hard to describe, but it is there.  And his grace gives us strength to persevere and bear up through difficult times.  His presence in our lives also gives us consolation when we are feeling the loss of loved ones.  And he provides spiritual healing to us when we have sinned.  

Our role during Advent is to cooperate with Jesus’s arrival.  Because it isn’t natural that we allow Jesus to come to us.  Our fallen instinct is to try to rebuff him, to keep him at arm’s length, out of our personal space.  It’s as if we tend to say, ‘Stop, Jesus, that’s close enough, don’t come any closer.’  Because there are parts of us that resist having to change.  As strange as it may sound, there are parts of us that don’t want to be loved as much as Jesus loves us.  And so we surround ourselves with barriers - mountains.  We dig moats and trenches – valleys.  We try to hide ourselves from him, such that we can only be found by following crooked paths. 

John the Baptist’s message to us today is: lower the mountains!  Fill in the valleys!  Make the paths straight for Jesus to come to us!  Throw down the barriers that try to keep him away from us.  Let Jesus bridge the gap that keeps us apart.  

Jesus is coming!  He’s arriving!  In a matter of moments, he’ll be with us sacramentally in the Eucharist.  Let us unlock the doors to our hearts that keep him out.  Let us open our hearts and let him in, to transform us.