Hope In A Messiah

Second Sunday of Advent

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 3:1-12.
John the Baptist appeared, preaching in the desert of Judea
(and) saying, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!"
It was of him that the prophet Isaiah had spoken when he said: "A voice of one crying out in the desert, 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.'"
John wore clothing made of camel's hair and had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey.
At that time Jerusalem, all Judea, and the whole region around the Jordan were going out to him
and were being baptized by him in the Jordan River as they acknowledged their sins.
When he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?
Produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance.
And do not presume to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' For I tell you, God can raise up children to Abraham from these stones.
Even now the ax lies at the root of the trees. Therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.
I am baptizing you with water, for repentance, but the one who is coming after me is mightier than I. I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the holy Spirit and fire.
His winnowing fan is in his hand. He will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire."
  
Reflection
We all believe in a higher power. When computers started to become prevalent we thought that technology could further advance our civilization. And it did. As digital technology became smaller and smaller and moved from the desktop to the mobile we believed it would revolutionize the way we communicated. And it did. We thought that somehow, the better our technologies become the better the world we live in would be. We were wrong.

New technology bring with it advancements. It makes lives easier and speeds up development. But it also brings with it a whole new set of problems. Before the internet, the question of privacy is limited to the size and transparency of the window. Today, privacy is a battleground between the netizens and the surveillance groups, be it the state or not. WiFi availability is now one attraction for public spaces. Bullying has spilled online. Technology like any human tool is amoral. It brings with it its own solutions and its own unique set of problems.

We have always believed in technology. This is an indication that we believe in some higher power, something to carry us forward through the daily grind and the rough conditions of human existence. For some, technology have become their messiah, their savior, to which they invest resources in order to solve human problems. Human history, however, has shown that human technology while propelling civilization forward cannot be the sole solution. Human problems remain human. They come from human beings, perpetrated by human beings, and is to be solved by human beings. No other part of creation could solve our own problems except collective human effort.

Pope Benedict would point this out when he describes how humanity today is building a "kingdom of man" rather than the Kingdom of God. It is a kingdom whose chief architect is man and designed to build a utopia where human problems are past. Down through history, civilizations and religions have sought out a higher power to save humanity from its misery. Israel too yearned for a messiah, a savior for which the Prophet Isaiah spoke God's promises of salvation. Justice shall flourish in his time, and fullness of peace forever.

John the Baptist would echo this with much urgency. A savior is indeed coming, a savior not made by man but coming from God. He is not to build an earthly kingdom, a kingdom of man, but a kingdom of heaven, a Kingdom of God. This savior will not just bring solutions but will strike at the very root of the problem - the sinfulness of man. John the Baptist's call then is justified: repent!

The world that this savior will usher forth is so incompatible with ours that they are mutually exclusive. For this world to conform itself to the Kingdom of God the Spirit is to be invoked. Thus this Savior will baptize with the Spirit who is fire that purifies and burns the impurities. It is the Spirit that transforms man to the real humanity that God envisioned in him.

Jesus is that Savior foretold by John. He alone was filled with the Spirit. In the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the work of the Son and the action of the Spirit is gloriously revealed to us as the two hands of the Father working through humanity. Even God knew that human problems are solved humanely and that is why He sent His Son to become man - the perfect and ideal man who could teach us how to be truly human. Jesus will baptize the man and the world with the Spirit that it may be transformed to what it should be, the Kingdom of God.

How is this Kingdom seen today? Where Christians work for peace and sow love; where Christians bear with one another and forgive to end the cycle of hatred and war; where Christians go beyond themselves to become Jesus to others today - this is the ushering in of the Kingdom of God, this is the cleansing movement of the baptism of the Spirit. And as John points out to the Pharisees and Sadducees, this change must come from within, must come first from a personal transformation.

There would always be problems in the world. Suffering it seems is a consequence of human brokenness that manifests in each one of us. Technology would help, certainly, but it can never be the savior for humankind. We cannot craft our own salvation. We need a higher power and this higher power will come down among us to teach us how to be human. And in becoming human, we become a Kingdom of God.

First Sunday of Advent

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 24:37-44.

Jesus said to his disciples: “As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 
In (those) days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day that Noah entered the ark.
They did not know until the flood came and carried them all away. So will it be (also) at the coming of the Son of Man. 
Two men will be out in the field; one will be taken, and one will be left.
Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken, and one will be left. 
Therefore, stay awake! For you do not know on which day your Lord will come.
Be sure of this: if the master of the house had known the hour of night when the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and not let his house be broken into. 
So too, you also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.
   

Reflection

We still find people lining outside Apple stores just to be one of the privileged ones to get their hands on an iPhone ahead of all creation. New technologies give us the craze these days. New features make us itch for the newest iteration of our gadgets. That Christmas is coming means many of us will be making our Christmas lists and fattening our wallets for the ultimate holiday shopping.

New things excite us because anything new brings with it hope. We want to be hopeful in this life. We want our lives to become a little better, a little bit lighter, a little bit easier. Sometimes we think that new technologies gives the solution to today's problems. But most of the time they bring with them their own new problems! But even so, we hope, we dream, and we strive.

The new liturgical season brings with it a new hope. This Sunday, the Church renews her cycle of worship synced with the life of Christ. It is the first Sunday of Advent and we are four weeks away from Christmas. Excitement is in the air. Rightly so, because Christmas is an event that brings with it great Hope. Advent prepares us to receive this Hope.

It is with a sense of mystery that the Gospel today speaks of the coming of the Son of Man. The title "Son of Man" is often used in the Old Testament, mostly in Daniel, to refer to the longed for savior of Israel, the Messiah. St. Matthew uses the title for Jesus. Here, Jesus speaks of his future coming at an hour we do not expect.

When we speak of hour we mean a time divinely set to fulfill something. Several hours have been set by God: our conception, our birth, and our death in the same way Jesus' hour of conception, birth, and death have been thought of by the Father before all the ages. The Church reminds us today of the threefold meaning of the hour of Jesus' coming.

The first hour was Jesus' birth which inaugurated His entrance into human history and with it the inauguration of our salvation won at the Cross. It has happened two thousand years ago and what we remember every Christmas. Yet it happened silently and peacefully without much fanfare. The second hour happens throughout our lives, when Jesus chooses to break through our lives. God surprises us with His Grace through events and people that lift us up and restores in us hope. Jesus lamented the fact that Jerusalem failed to recognize the hour of her visitation and He wept. The third hour is in an indeterminate future, in the final and definitive coming of Christ. No one really knows when despite the many claims of end-of-the-world that people have made.

The Gospel, however, does not speculate when these hours do happen. What it teaches us is to prepare because we do not know when the hour will come. We prepare for Christmas with the Advent season, preparing our hearts to receive Christ through repentance, going to Confession, and acts of charity. We prepare for Christ everyday by opening our lives to Jesus through a life of prayer and personal relationship with Him. And we prepare ourselves for our death and the future coming of Christ by living our lives well and holy.

This Advent season and Christmas shouldn't be something that happens every year in the same way it happened last year. Let us see our Christian lives in an ever closing spiral with Jesus at the center. As we go through His life throughout the year, from His birth, through ordinary life, together with His Passion, Death, and Resurrection, may we find ourselves getting closer and closer to Him every year.

A Different Kind of King

Solemnity of Christ the King

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 23:35-43.

The rulers sneered at Jesus and said, "He saved others, let him save himself if he is the chosen one, the Messiah of God." 
Even the soldiers jeered at him. As they approached to offer him wine 
they called out, "If you are King of the Jews, save yourself." 
Above him there was an inscription that read, "This is the King of the Jews." 
Now one of the criminals hanging there reviled Jesus, saying, "Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us."
The other, however, rebuking him, said in reply, "Have you no fear of God, for you are subject to the same condemnation? 
And indeed, we have been condemned justly, for the sentence we received corresponds to our crimes, but this man has done nothing criminal." 
Then he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." 
He replied to him, "Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise."
   

Reflection

The most self-contradicting element in the crucifixion is the inscription that reads "This is the King of the Jews". Wishing to shame the Jews, Pilate had it installed on the cross. Unknown to him he is prophesying on behalf of the one who is hanging on it.

The human understanding of kingship, of authority, and of power naturally revolves around the concept of being able to exert influence and to compel others to follow our will. Sometimes we honor our leaders, our kings, not because we truly honor the way they are but we do it out of fear. We always have the tendency to submit to someone who is more powerful than us.

The word "Jews" have been used in the Gospels in two ways: one, pejoratively, when it refers to that band of men who oppose the teachings of Jesus; and two, generally, when it refers to the ethnic group to which Jesus belongs and to whom He addressed the Gospel first. The Jewish people pride themselves of being descendants of Abraham and the patriarchs, of having been set apart by God as His "chosen people" before the world. Circumcision and the Law are the binding elements of Jewishness.

To put that label on the cross, for Pontius Pilate, was to mock the Jewish leaders. For him, here is a man who they say claimed to be king. Now, that king has just been meted out with capital punishment by the superior power of Rome. The Jews are not special. They are a people subjugated by the Roman empire.

Yet that is how Jesus Christ overturned human ways of thinking. He was there hanging seemingly powerless. The soldiers jeer at him and test him. The two thieves find a misguided consolation that they did not go punished alone. Someone, worse than them, someone who claimed to be Messiah, was also there dying with them. At least all they did was steal. This one claimed to be from God.

Loud as they were, the silence of Jesus was deafening. And the other thief noticed this calm submission was in fact a display of power - a different kind of power. Here before them is indeed a king, but a different kind of king. He is the King who wields not human power but godly power.

Obedience is the key to understanding the power to Jesus displayed on the cross. Through His obedience to the Father, that He must suffer and die, He willingly submitted Himself to the Cross. True, it would have been easy for Him to move heaven and earth to save Himself from death. But He forego of control in order to submit to the Father out of love. This is the true form of divine power, something that we too often do not understand considering our natural tendency to want control.

The second thief in Luke noticed this and he began to understand who Jesus really is. Jesus obedience must have been very perfect that the thief instinctively understood that Jesus did nothing to deserve such punishment. He did not see a make-believe king. He saw Jesus' humility. He perhaps saw in Jesus the Lamb silent as it is being slaughtered. He saw beyond the politics of Pilate. He saw beyond the narrowness of mind of the Jews. He saw the True King in Jesus.

In that moment of recognition Jesus did something that transcends His vulnerability on the cross. Jesus commanded. In that position of vulnerability and weakness, the True King pronounces a decree. He is not seated on a golden throne, he was hanging on the cross. But even in that dark hour, Jesus gave out a decree of mercy: "Amen. I say to you, you will be with me in paradise." In an atmosphere of blood and sadism, Jesus still was able to show mercy.

That is the King who we honor today.