November 27, 2009
Sunday Scripture
First Sunday of Advent
BY FATHER DONALD DILGER
The season of Advent is a time of preparation for the arrival or visitation of the Lord Jesus. It recalls how God’s people awaited the birth of a promised and awaited Messiah over two thousand years ago. It anticipates his expected return in glory to be our final judge. It invites us to a deeper experience of “God with us,” (Emmanu-el) in our time and circumstances. The themes of present, past and future are therefore woven into our Advent liturgy through the use of the Holy Scriptures. The gospel of the First Sunday of Advent emphasizes the future — anticipating the awaited and final Judge and judgment.
Today’s gospel is part of Luke’s version of Jesus’ discourse on the arrival of the Judge, the signs that will precede and accompany his arrival, and our preparation for that event. Luke writes of frightful changes in the sky, on the earth, and in the sea. In reaction to these catastrophic changes some people will die of sheer fright. Those who are alive will then see the Son of man (Jesus) approaching “in a cloud with power and great glory.” The rest of this reading is concerned with our preparation.
Luke’s narrative of Jesus’ return is not entirely original. Luke writes in the middle of the eighties of the first Christian century. He has before him an earlier gospel, the Gospel of Mark. Luke’s “signs” are an expansion of Mark’s “signs in the sky.” As to originality, Luke does give some original turns of phrase to the elements he takes from Mark. Both Mark and Luke rely heavily on Old Testament stock phrases used to express God’s disastrous intervention in favor of God’s people suffering from and in a wicked world.
The Old Testament prophets often referred to God’s intervention as “the Day of the Lord.” The “Lord” in their mind was God as Father and Judge. The New Testament writers evolved this ancient expected (and never arrived) Day of the Lord God into the “Day of the Lord Jesus.”
Some examples: Isaiah 10:13 speaks of the darkening of stars and sun. Joel 2:10 speaks of the shaking and quaking of sky and earth. Zephaniah 1:15 speaks of anguish, distress, darkness, wrath, trumpet blast and battle cry. The expression, “the roaring of the sea and the waves (waters),” is common in the Psalms and in Isaiah. Thus our creative gospel authors use the Scriptures with which they were completely saturated, (and that is difficult for most Catholic readers to imagine), to express whatever Jesus did say about his return as final judge. The “approach of the Son of man in a cloud with power and great glory” is an unabashed borrowing from Daniel 7:13-14.
To be kept in mind is the fact that in the Old Testament these expressions and the figure of the Son of man came from very different contexts and had different meanings than the context and meaning given to them by our gospels. The Old Testament expressions should not be understood as predictions for New Testament awaited events, but rather, that under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, these ancient expressions were given new and fuller meaning in reference to Jesus Christ. Our gospels and the other writings of the New Testament agree on very little in the circumstances of Jesus’ return. Therefore we do well to imitate the biblical writers and expand biblical texts into a new direction — taking their thoughts and directing them to our own private meeting with the Judge at the moment of our death. To that moment we direct Luke’s words in today’s gospel: “Be vigilant at all times and pray that you have the strength to stand before the Son of man.”
Jeremiah’s ministry in Jerusalem was from about 626-580 B.C. Times were very difficult religiously, economically and socially. Most of the kings, at least from the point of view of our biblical authors, were corrupt, some even idolatrous. Therefore the prophets says, “I will raise up for David a king of the Davidic line of kings, a righteous shoot,” that is, a new growth from the “stump of the tree of Jesse,” who was King David’s father. David’s reign was about 1000-960 B.C. Jeremiah anticipates a just king on the throne of Jerusalem, a worthy successor of David. It was not going to happen. A Christian interpretation applies this ancient hope of Jeremiah to Jesus as Messiah (a royal title). Thus our first reading directs us not to the future, but to the past, to the birth of Jesus some two thousand years ago.
This letter is the oldest Christian document we have, about 50 A.D. Anticipation of the Lord Jesus’ return was at fever pitch, made so by the preaching of Paul. He expected Jesus to return in power and glory in his own lifetime. Paul died in 64 A.D. He speaks much about Jesus’ anticipated arrival, but the selection which forms our second reading can be easily directed toward preparation for the moment of our meeting the great and final Judge — the moment of our death. Therefore Paul writes: “Be blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the approach of our Lord Jesus . . . .”