Epiphany, 2021

Matthew 2:1 - 12

So we finally get to use our wise men, who stay hidden in the sacristy until the Epiphany.  Then they will be out admiring the Christ Child for a week or so and back into their box until next Christmas.  It seems as though the story of the Magi is kind of a footnote to the story of Christmas.  And it seems almost like a myth; they came, probably from the Persian empire; they made their journey based on their understanding of astrology, which isn’t even a science; and they were led by a star and warned by an angel.  And we don’t even know what magi were.  Some authorities say they were advisers to the king of Persia; others say they were astrologers; still others say they were priests of the Zorastorian religion. Maybe they were all three, but after 2000 years we don’t know.  And we have three statues, but the bible doesn’t say how  many magi there were; and we have a camel, but nothing about camels in Matthew’s story.  

Human beings like to fill in the blanks.  Matthew says that the magi came from the east.  We say Persia, because east of Rome was the vast Persian empire, and of course magi is thought to be a Persian word.  But Persia was a big country, encompassing parts of Arabia and India, maybe even western China.  So the early tradition grew that Balthazar was a king from Arabia, Melchior from Persia proper, and Caspar from India.  Later, the three became associated with the known continents, Asia, Europe and Africa.  And another theme was that one was very young, one middle-aged, and one elderly.  Finally, legend had it that each of the magi gave a gift, although Matthew simply says they gave gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. In some eastern churches, tradition has it that each of the three magi became Christians and went out as missionaries; they are honored as saints.  

And there is one other thing to say about the story.  We don’t know if Matthew had the old testament in front of him when he wrote his gospel, but a lot of the early Church Fathers did.  They saw that Psalm 72 talked about “kings bowing down before him…” And Isaiah chapter 60 talks about dignitaries coming with camels and gifts of gold and frankincense.

If you are like me, you can’t unthink all the things you learned as a child about the wise men, the three kings, the magi.  There will always be three, they will be young, middle aged and old, they will be european, asian and african; and there will always be camels.  

But in fact, the story of the magi is sort of a summary of the themes of Matthew’s gospel; Jesus is rejected by his own people; the powers of the world oppose him and scheme against him; the Holy Spirit is inspiring the gentiles to seek God through their natural reason and observation of nature; and they are rewarded by being led to Jesus.  The gentiles will become the heirs of the promise made to Abraham and his descendents; and there is an implied promise that in the end Jews and Gentiles will be united in the Kingdom of Heaven.

So perhaps we can learn something from just considering the text as Matthew writes it.  He must have thought it important because it is part of the bracket around the story of Christ’s birth.  The first bracket is the genealogy of Jesus -- showing that he is a descendent of Abraham and of David, and implying that he is the heir of King David, the answer to the promise that David’s reign would last forever.  The first bracket also makes it clear that Jesus is identified with the history of Israel, and Matthew will go on to point this out explicitly in his gospel.  But the second bracket, the story of the Magi, tells us something equally important; not only is Jesus the promised king of the Jews, but he is also raised up by God to be the ruler of all the nations.  The fact that the magi bow down before him is significant; whether they are kings or delegates of kings or simply represent the rest of mankind, they represent what God wants for the world.  When all of mankind accepts the rule of God through Jesus his son, his kingdom will finally come.  

The magi teach us other things as well; they were not Jews, but sought the truth through their study of nature and history.  When they became convinced of what they had discovered, they did something about it.  When they arrived in Jerusalem and it seemed as though their quest had failed, they asked questions.  And they were given the grace to recognize God in the presence of a baby.  

Let us pray on this feast that we, who have been given our faith, who have the scriptures and the church to guide us, will be like the magi and set out to find Jesus in our own lives.  And let us pray that we will recognize the presence of God in each other.   

Feast of the Holy Family, 2020

Luke 2:22 - 40

When I was growing up I never thought of my family as holy, but it wasn’t unholy, either.  It was probably normal for the years in the middle of the last century.  My parents, like many couples in those days, married in the shadow of World War II, as my dad prepared to enlist in the armed services.  He chose to enlist because he wanted some choice in where he was sent.  This ploy worked because he spent the war training to be an army aviator, and just about when he completed his training the war ended.  

My dad was baptized Catholic. His mother was Catholic but a fairly liberal one for the time; his dad did not practice any faith.  But unlike many of his peers, he remained faithful all his life.  My mom had been raised in a German Catholic family where religion was taken very seriously indeed.  I think the common bond of religion played a role in their deciding to get married.  I know it was probably one thing that held them together during many very rough patches.  

Families don’t happen until a child comes along.  I was that child, and after my birth, my mother grudgingly accepted my paternal grandparents, whom she would probably have nothing to do with otherwise, as mother and father-in-law.  I think my mother’s dad always looked down at my dad, because he wasn’t German and wasn’t a farmer.  Her mom and my dad got along well.  And our little family became a part of two other families, sharing, in greater or less degree, vacations, celebrations, milestones of life, and helping each other out because, well, we were all family. 

Many years have gone by, and the family that I was a part of is gradually dying off.  But new families have been formed.  When I meet up with one of my cousins, we usually take up our conversation from where it left off the last time, even if many years ago; but my second cousins are just names on a family tree.  

So why the holy family?  Sometimes we think of the holiness of Jesus’ family as being all about Mary’s sinless perfection with Joseph a half-step behind.  The family is holy because the members were holy.  But Jesus’ holy family is not just Jesus, Mary and Joseph.  His holy family extends to his grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles, just like my family did.  And at least some of these were not particularly holy.  If you read the genealogies of Matthew, who names the ancestors of Joseph, or Luke, who names those of Mary, You meet a lot of average people, a few heroes and saints, and a few rogues as well.  And in a sense they are part of the holy family because Jesus is the Holy One.  You know, if I got a call from the son or daughter of one of my cousins, someone I know only because I’ve heard the name, and they needed something, I’d be more likely to ask a few questions and maybe help out if I could, than if that person were a perfect stranger.  Something about being part of a family, however tenuous the link is, lowers the natural barriers between strangers.  And I wonder if Jesus has a soft spot in his heart for his ancestor David who was responsible for the deaths of thousands, who committed adultery and then saw to it that the woman’s husband was killed in battle.  Or Tamar, who seduced her father-in-law, or Rahab, who made her living as a prostitute; or Solomon, who after a great start, ended up building shrines to the gods of his many wives. I like to think our Savior does.

But Jesus came into this world to form a new family, a holy family.  And he even defined that family when he said, “Whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.”

My mother used to say in reference to the Holy Family, “It was easy for them to be holy; they only had one child and he was God.”  But I think my mom and dad created a holy family, because despite all their difficulties, despite the times when they wouldn’t talk  to each other for sometimes weeks on end, despite the emergencies, the illnesses, the many disappointments they caused each other during their marriage, they always clung to Jesus and through him to each other.  And they passed the love of Christ and the desire to be part of his family along to their children, as we try to do to ours as much as we can.  

On the feast of the Holy Family it’s nice to look back at a little nuclear family in Palestine 2000 years ago and imagine them like so many pictures paint them, like so many Christmas hymns bring to mind.  But on the feast of the Holy Family let us remember that as often as we set out to do the will of the Father, we become part of that family of Jesus.  

Christmas 2020

John 1:1 - 18

I’ve held a lot of little babies in my life.  Six children, nineteen grandchildren, and about a hundred children I’ve baptized.  One of the things you notice about very young babies is that they are creatures made up largely of instinct.  They have a limited vocabulary -- their first expression is to cry when something makes them uncomfortable.  Gas pains can make them cry, but a dirty diaper is usually well tolerated.  And you, the parent, never know what the crying is about, so you go through a checklist until your child gets tired of crying or is relieved of the discomfort.  A very young baby is unlike any other very young mammal, fish, bird, or insect in that those other creatures are given instincts that kick in to help them cope with the world; a few minutes after a baby horse is born, he’s up on his feet nursing.  And a baby shark right after it’s born is off looking for food and trying to avoid being eaten.  

But think about a baby human.  Think about Mary and baby Jesus.  He was, after all, like us in all things but sin.  He was a tiny helpless creature largely made of instincts.  What happened? His mother happened, that’s what.   

Some people talk about the miracle of birth.  To me, that’s not the miracle; it looks quite uncomfortable and messy, and I was always grateful that I didn’t have to go through that.  But the real miracle is what happens afterward.  The baby is given to his mother, and she begins to talk to him.  And that’s the first few months -- talking, holding, gazing, more talking; and one day the baby focuses her eyes on her mother’s eyes; and another day the baby smiles back at his mother’s smile.  And then one day in response to her voice, she makes a conscious sound, not a cry, but a deliberate answer to mother’s voice.  And slowly, gradually, lovingly, the baby is drawn out of herself to engage with the rest of the world, by the mother’s voice, the mother’s words, the mother’s gaze, her touch.  And if you are a father, you have seen the miracle of how the person is sculpted from the unformed clay.  And we know that when a baby is deprived of this interaction, this voice, this mother’s word, he will never be successfully drawn out of himself.  

I was told that a local Imam said to his Catholic friend, “if we Muslims believed that God was truly present in our Mosque like you think he is present in your churches we would fall on our faces and never look up.  That’s why I don’t think you really believe what you say you believe.”  At first I thought the Imam had a point.  But then It seemed to me that his idea of God was very different from my own.  My God became human, told us that we were no longer servants, but friends; called himself the bread of life; the Son of Man, the Way, the Truth and the Life;  and he was always telling those around him to believe in him, to have faith.  

And Saint John calls Him the Word, the Word made flesh.  

The Church gives us four gospel readings for Christmas.  The vigil mass tells us about the angel telling Joseph to take Mary for his wife; Midnight Mass has the classic story about the manger, the shepherds and the angels; the Mass at Dawn is about the shepherds visiting the Christ child.  All very appropriate for Christmas.  But the last reading, for the Mass during the Day, is the beginning of the Gospel of John, about the Word that was with God from the beginning, that became flesh, that made his dwelling place with us.  

When human beings think about God, we think like the Muslims, like the writers of parts of the Old Testament, like most people who have by their own reason concluded that there is one God and he is all holy, all powerful, all knowing -- and all we can do is fall down and tremble; he is everything; we are nothing.

But when we hear that the Word was with God, the word was God, the Word became Flesh to make his dwelling with us, we think maybe God is more like that mother of a tiny baby, caring less about being worshipped, being feared and more and more about drawing us out of ourselves, looking at us until we turn our gaze upon him; holding us until we are aware that we are loved; and speaking to us until we speak back.  God through his Son, the Word, engages us all through our lives, forms us, shapes us, takes a creature who is always hungry for pleasure, for power, for wealth, for popularity, and turning him towards that which will truly satisfy his hunger -- God himself, who shows what he desires by giving himself as bread and wine and asking us to consume him, so that we can become what we have eaten. .  

A mother looking at her infant dreams about what he will become when he grows older.  God looks at you and I and dreams about what he wants for us -- to be in heaven with him for all eternity.  Our God is like a mother speaking his word to us until we respond and love Him back.  Our God wants nothing from us except that we allow him to give himself to us.  That’s what Christmas is about.  Look into his eyes, he is gazing at you; listen to his voice, he is speaking his word to you.  

Fourth Sunday of Adevent, cycle B

Luke 1:26 - 38

Suppose you are a woman in a society dominated by men; you are a Jew in an area ruled by Romans who sort of hate you; you are a teenager in a society where old people have a lot more authority than the young; and you are a peasant in a society where there really isn’t any hope for getting out of that class. And now a being who calls himself an angel tells you, doesn’t ask, tells you, that you will give birth to a son who will rule over his father David’s kingdom forever. The only thing keeping you from running out of the room screaming is that the angel has told you that you have found favor with God and that you shouldn’t be afraid.

One of our fellow parishioners told me that the phrase “Do not be afraid” occurs 115 times in the bible. I read another statistic that says this or some phrase like it, like “fear not” can be found exactly 365 times in the bible. Some translations use the phrase, “be not afraid” and one has 70 such instances. However you count, even though there are a lot of commandments we can find in the bible, this seems to be by far the most common.

God speaks directly or through his prophets throughout the Old Testament; he also sends angels there as well. “Don’t be afraid” or something like that, usually precedes a command to do something frightening or impossible; and is followed by the reassuring statement that God will be with the person. For example, in the book of Jeremiah the prophet is told to go out and preach to the people; when he balks because he is young and not prepared, the hears, “Do not be afraid of them for I am with you to deliver you says the Lord.”

God is always telling people not to be afraid, and is always promising in some way or another that He will be there to support them, to help them through the crisis, to make something good about a desperate situation.

So God through his messenger commands Mary not to be afraid. Usually being told not to be afraid is not all that helpful. But Mary, who was at first troubled, now demonstrates that she is not afraid. After being told the destiny of the child she is to bear, she doesn’t say, “That can't be. I’m not rich, Joseph is just a carpenter, what you are telling me seems highly unlikely, if not impossible.” She merely asks, “How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?” When the same angel went to Zachary, his was a response of fear: “How can this be? For I am an old man and my wife is barren.” Kind of like the answer Mary didn’t give, right? Zachary, a Jewish priest who has been praying for a child all his life, exhibits fear that his life will be changed. His answer to the angel is to put forward excuses. And in the context of the rest of the story, Zachary will have nothing more to say until the son is born.

And the angel answers Mary’s question. Her response is not one of skepticism; it’s total affirmation: “May it be done to me according to your word.” In other words, if this is what God wants, let’s get on with it. Maybe Joseph will desert her, maybe the people of the town will stone her, because that’s what you do to adulterers; certainly life would utterly change for her, and soon afterwards Mary visits Elizabeth and speaks those lines of the Magnificat, the longest speech in the bible by a woman, describing the kingdom her Son will bring about. If you ever wondered what the kingdom of heaven is all about, read the song of Mary.

Mary’s life did not magically change; in fact, she probably had more tragedy than most of us, especially those moments when she watched her son being executed in the most cruel way the Romans could think of. I think it’s interesting that nowhere in the bible does it say that Jesus appeared to his mother after his death. All the movies I’ve seen about the life of Christ have a scene where he appears to her, but I wonder if maybe he never did. Certainly he wouldn’t have to, because Mary probably needed nothing to make her faith stronger than it already was; she was still hearing the words, “Have no fear” and still saying in her heart, “Keep doing to me what you said you would do, because I trust you.”

I think that’s the lesson Mary would like us, her sons and daughters, to carry away on this fourth Sunday of advent. For some of us, one or more life-changing events have already happened. For others, they still might come. Through our baptisms you and I are assured that God is always with us -- that’s what Emmanuel means -- and Saint Paul reminds us that if God is with us who can be against us?” So in those moments that threaten to change your life, listen for your own angel, and obey the command, “Do not be afraid” and respond with Mary, “Do to me what you said you would do. I am yours to do with what you will.”

Third Sunday of Advent, cycle B

John 1:6-8; 19 - 28

It’s not easy to get into medical school, and once you get in, you find yourself in a very competitive environment. During the clinical training years, for example, there is something called “roundsmanship”. As you and your peers go around the hospital with your instructor learning from actual patients, there is pressure to come up with observations you make, or references to articles you’ve read, that the others haven’t. It’s a very competitive time. This sense of competition, of constantly trying to do better than the next guy or girl, is valuable, because a good physician is always trying to become better. But it’s not so good in other ways. When I was a young physician I was talking with a young low-level hospital administrator who worked in my department. I said, “I suppose one of these days you will be running a hospital.” He looked at me seriously and replied, “I’m not ambitious. I just want to make a decent living doing what I know I can do well. I don’t need to be noticed. I don’t need to be someone’s boss.” At that point in my life, this seemed to be a very alien way of thinking. But he had a point.

John the Baptist has much the same point today. “Are you the Christ?” they say; “Are you Elijah?” they ask. “Maybe you are one of the prophets?” And John answers no to each question. John, whom Jesus will describe as the greatest one born of woman up until this time, knows exactly who he is, what he is there for, what he can do well and what he can’t do. He’s under no illusions. He knows who he is, but knowing who you are requires that you know who you are not.

And that’s kind of a problem with the world today as well. From the time we are children we are encouraged to be the best we can be. So far, so good. But if you aren’t endowed with a great mind, athletic skills, a quick wit, today’s idea of beauty or handsomeness, you run the risk of getting an inferiority complex. And if you are really good at something, you run the risk of thinking you are good at everything, and you get ulcers trying to be what you can never be.

John was not a wimp. He was in your face, demanding that you repent. He called some people a “brood of vipers”. When tax collectors came to him asking, “what shall we do?” he told them, “Take only what is legal.” He told the soldiers “be content with your pay and stop extorting people and falsely accusing them.” Being the son of a priest, he could have had a decent home and a comfortable life -- but he chose to live in the desert. John knew that his actions would get him into trouble, but he kept on preaching, baptizing and calling the people to repentance, right up until Herod had had enough and had him thrown in prison.

A lot of us haven’t learned who we are not. If you are a serious member of the Catholic church, you know you are not the pope, not the bishop. Despite their human failings, they have been given teaching authority, and so we should at least know what they are teaching. If you are a serious Catholic, you appreciate the ordering of religious life conferred by the sacraments. If you are a serious Catholic, you have enough humility to follow the Church’s teachings rather than your own opinion, assuming it is different, because you are not the authority. It takes real strength and boldness to have enough humility to accept who you are not.

And John knew he was not the Christ who would be coming along to judge the world. When you read the passages in the gospels about John, he is always aware that he is not the Christ, but the Christ is in the midst of the people. He says, “Among you stands one whom you do not know”. And John knew he was the forerunner, the one who was to prepare the way. And he knew that when the Christ came, he was to step aside. He said, “He must increase and I must decrease”.

And on this third Sunday of Advent that should be our stance as well, because we are supposed to point to Christ, we are supposed to show him to others and then step aside.

And as you know, this is Guadete Sunday, the Sunday of rejoicing. That’s why we are wearing pink. Some of you remember Father Longe. He did not wear pink on Guadete Sunday or Laetare Sunday. He stuck with purple. But we lighten up the purple, we lift up our hearts. And maybe one reason for rejoicing is because we recognize what we are not -- we are not God. There is something in us that wants to be God, but what a relief that God is in charge and we are not. Let us resolve to seriously consider what we are not.

Second Sunday of Advent, cycle B

Mark 1:1 - 8

When I was growing up, Advent was like Lent, only shorter; and at the end of Advent instead of a chocolate Easter bunny, you got lots of presents.  So I preferred Advent.  

As you know, I”m a bible geek.  So I was excited when I read the readings for this second Sunday of advent.  If you were listening, you would have heard Isaiah saying: “A voice cries out:  ‘in the desert prepare the way of the Lord!’”  Now Mark quotes this passage slightly differently.  “A voice of one crying out in the desert, ‘prepare the way of the Lord.’”  So what gives here?  Well, it turns out that I’m not the first one who noticed this difference.  Reputable biblical scholars have two possible explanations.  One is that Mark is quoting from a Greek version of the Old Testament, and the original Hebrew was closer to the passage from Isaiah.  Another is that when Mark wrote his gospel, they didn’t use commas or periods or quotation marks; later scribes put in these things where they thought they should go.  And the earliest texts available have been through several scribal modifications.  

So maybe Mark is talking about John the Baptist as the voice in the desert; but Isaiah is saying “in the desert prepare the way of the Lord.”  What does that mean?  Because to the people of that time the desert was a place far from civilization, a place full of snakes and other dangerous beasts, a place where you were thrown back on your own resources -- there was no one to help you.  And Isaiah is saying, that's where you have to go to prepare for the Lord.

So what does the desert mean to you and I?  It’s a place we don’t want to be in, for one thing.  It’s a place where we realize that our resources are inadequate, that we are helpless and all we can do is wait for someone to rescue us.  We’ve probably all experienced this unwanted place -- the loss of a loved one, coming down with a serious illness, finding ourselves without a job -- even dealing with Covid.  As I can tell you from personal experience, whenever I reflect on the very real fact that I have a lot less life to live than I’ve already lived, and it will be downhill to the end, I am in that desert.

Second, in the desert you aren’t distracted by trees and flowers and city lights and newspapers and light shining from screens large and small.  In the desert it’s easier to be aware of your sins.  When we think of sins, if you are like me, you generally think of acts which are forbidden -- immoral acts, breaking the ten commandments, those kinds of things.  And if you have some of that old Catholic guilt, you imagine that God is offended by what you’ve done, or hurt, or angry, and unless you get right with God you will be punished.  But you can't really offend God, or hurt him, or even make him angry.  Sin is a problem because it harms us.  Think about a lie.  Once you lie to someone, you have to worry about that person learning the truth; you have changed your relationship with him for the worse; you have changed the way you see yourself -- You’ve made yourself a little less human with that lie -- and every sin is like that.  And if we confront our sins and confess them and receive a share of our Savior's redeeming passion, we experience relief and reconciliation. 

Lastly, in the desert we see what needs to be done.  Isaiah talks about every valley being filled up and every mountain laid low.  In the desert we can clearly see our own mountains and valleys, all the things that interfere with the relationship we want to have with God and with our neighbor.  And in the desert we can make a new start with the help of God/’s grace to become better people.  

The descendants of Abraham waited four hundred years, most of them as wanderers and even as slaves, for deliverance.  When God sent Moses to deliver them, they first had to pass through the purifying years in the desert.  When you read the story of their deliverance, you see that God was always there, shaping them, sometimes harshly, it seems.  And they didn’t want to be there.  They rebelled more than once.  They longed for the food and drink that was theirs when they were slaves.  They decided that the God who had promised to save them was untrustworthy, and they fashioned a god of their own out of gold.  But in the desert under God’s guiding hand they became a people set apart; a people special to God, a people who would be given a land of their own in which to become a great nation.

During Advent let us allow the Holy Spirit to drive us into the desert.  Let us ask Him to level the mountains that keep us from seeing what we need to see; let him fill the valleys in which we get lost; and then we can make straight the way of the Lord.  

First Sunday of Advent, cycle B

 

Mark 13:33 - 37

My father and his dad were avid fishermen. Any kind of fishing -- off of a rowboat on a lake, hip deep in a mountain stream, fly fishing, worm fishing, it didn’t matter, just so they were fishing. They would catch fish as well, and there were many Fridays we dined on rainbow trout. But I never got into fishing. I was about six when my dad decided to take me on a fishing trip. He bought a junior size fishing pole for me and bundled me into the car at 4:00 in the morning when it was still dark. We drove for what seemed like forever -- I fell asleep in the car -- and finally we reached the upper reaches of the Little Big Horn river, which at that point was about twenty feet from shore to shore. Dad helped me thread a worm on my hook and showed me how to cast the line -- and then told me he was going upstream and would be back later. I remember sitting with my back to a tree, imagining that there was a bear out there eyeing me hungrily. I prayed that I would not have to confront a fish. Hours and hours seemed to go by until Dad returned, his creel containing four nice - sized trout. I tried to avoid going fishing again, and eventually my Dad seemed to figure out that it wasn’t my thing.

So what does that have to do with Advent, you ask? If you listen to today’s first reading and the psalm, you hear the Jewish people crying out “Where are you, God? You were there for our ancestors, but now you have left us alone.” That’s a sentiment I think we can all relate to -- where is God these days? Why is Covid happening? Can we count on our elected leaders to make good decisions? When is BLM and antifa coming to Western Massachusetts? It seems like society is breaking down and nothing is predictable anymore. And all the clues we depended on to interact with other people are covered up by masks; and of course we move around trying to avoid interacting with each other. And that feeling of abandonment, of being left entirely alone, is what I felt for the first time as a six year old sitting on the bank of a river.

The Church begins it’s liturgical year today. During cycle B we will hear most of the Gospel of Mark. Like Isaiah, Mark lived in a time of great unrest, of persecution, but the difference was that the people for whom Mark was writing had a totally different outlook -- Jesus, who had risen from the dead, had answered the cry of their ancestors and having accomplished his purpose in dying and rising from the dead, was going to return any day now and bring with him the kingdom that he had promised. That’s the point of the gospel passage we just read. In a way, it’s a complement to the first reading. All we know is that He will come to shepherd his people -- and it’s crucial that we be ready.

My six year old self sitting on a river bank in Montana felt abandoned, but deep in my heart I knew that Dad would return for me sometime and take me home where there were no bears or threats of a fish taking my hook.

And I think that is what advent is for. It’s a time to recognize that all of our certainties are not really certain. It’s a time to remind ourselves that we are all getting older, and like every human being before us will gradually or maybe suddenly lose our strength, agility, even our ability to remember things. If I am free of physical pain now, that won’t be forever. And I will lose people I love -- and I already have. And sadly, the day will come when all my stuff that I’ve spent money on will be part of a yard sale or carted off to Savers.

And it is then, when we really reflect on those things, that we will understand those words of Isaiah -- “Oh, that you will rend the heavens and come down.” It is then that we know, deep in our bones, that we need a savior. And then we reflect on the promise of Saint Paul, that God is faithful. And the assurance of Jesus that while we don’t know when, the certainty is that the Master will come again, when we don’t expect it. But if we are vigilant and remain steadfast, his coming will fulfill our deepest hopes.

Advent is a time to remember that nothing we do can save us, nothing we have can protect us. No one we love can go through our pain, suffering and eventual death for us. But we look far off to that stable in Bethlehem and hear the cries of a newborn and with Mary and Joseph and the shepherds, we rejoice because God has been faithful, God has heard the cry of his people, God has sent us a savior.