Advent 1 - Far More Than We Bargained For

 

Homily for Advent 1 – Series On The Incarnation

December 1, 2024

Infinite Power In A Tiny Package

 

            How many stories have artifacts that are small in themselves but contain infinite power? Lord of the Rings has the “ring of power”; Avengers has the infinity stones; the Holy Grail and the Excalibur sword have enchanted people for centuries. These ordinary-looking items contain an unseen power that promises immortality, invincibility, power, and wealth.

            So it is with Jesus Christ. When He was born, He appeared to be no different than any other child – and yet the fulness of divinity dwelt within Him!

            We see an interesting contrast between the expectation of the first reading and its fulfillment in the Gospel. Jeremiah prophesies that God will raise up a savior for Israel, but he is speaking of a political savior who will restore Israel to its former glory. Remember, Jeremiah was writing during the difficult time of the Babylonian Exile, when Israel had all been deported to a foreign land. The Temple had been destroyed, and it seems as if their enemies had stolen God’s promises from them. So Jeremiah prophesies that a great leader will return the exiles and restore the greatness of the nation, much like God had raised up former leaders like Moses, Samuel, and David.

            But we got so much more than we ever imagined! The Gospel shows that Jesus is not just a fine politician or warrior, but the Judge of the Living and the Dead, the Savior of the Entire World, the Son of Man. This last title is often misunderstood – by calling Himself the Son of Man, Jesus isn’t just saying He’s human. It’s actually a powerful reference to Daniel 7, which we read last week. It’s worth re-reading:

            As the visions during the night continued, I saw

    one like a Son of man coming,

        on the clouds of heaven;

    when he reached the Ancient One

        and was presented before him,

    the one like a Son of man received dominion, glory, and kingship;

        all peoples, nations, and languages serve him.

    His dominion is an everlasting dominion

        that shall not be taken away,

        his kingship shall not be destroyed.

            So we expected a passing political leader to help one obscure nation, and instead we got the Alpha and Omega, the Lord of all Creation, the Incarnate God, Who would offer salvation to the entire human race for eternity. This blessing is beyond our wildest dreams – that God would actually become man!

            In fact, it’s so beyond our comprehension that some in the early Church struggled to understand it. In the early 320s, a priest named Arius began preaching that Jesus wasn’t actually divine, but that He was only a great man, adopted as a spiritual son of the Father. This heresy began to spread like wildfire – as St. Jerome put it, “The whole world groaned, and was astonished to find itself Arian.” More than half of the Bishops began to believe and teach that Jesus was not truly God. Clearly, this was a crisis of epic proportions. The Pope called a council in Nicaea in 325 where they debated this point with great fervor.

            As a humorous aside, St. Nicholas, the true saint who is the basis for Santa Claus, as the bishop of Myra in Turkey was invited to the council. The story has it that when he saw Arius walk into the council hall, he was so incensed by his heresy that he walked right up and punched Arius in the face. Not exactly a saintly reaction, but I do admire his desire to defend Christ’s divinity! St. Nicholas was expelled from the council for this action!

            The entire debate at the Council hinged on literally one letter. They tried to define if Jesus was homoousious (of the same substance as the Father) or if He is homoiousious (of a similar substance). Literally one letter separated the truth from a heresy! Thankfully, led by the Holy Spirit, the Council decided that Jesus is truly one-in-being with the Father. They developed the creed we will recite in a few minutes, declaring that Jesus is consubstantial with the Father.

            Jesus Christ is truly God and truly man. He’s not half and half, as if He were a centaur (which is a half-horse, half-human mythical creature). No, He is fully divine and fully human, without any mixture of the two but with perfect unity. That means He has both a divine mind and a human mind, and they are always united. He has both a divine will and a human will, and the two are never in opposition. We call this perfect unity the “hypostatic union” – the union of two natures (“hypostases” in Greek) in Jesus.

            There is literally nothing like in human history. When we combine two things, we either get a half-and-half or we get something completely new. So when a horse and donkey breed, they become something new: a mule. Or if we were to mix lemonade and iced tea, we get something new: an Arnold Palmer. But when we see Jesus, we see two completely separate but completely united realities: His divinity, hidden within His humanity.

            Well, I suppose there is one thing like it in history: the Eucharist. We see two completely separate but united realities: the appearances of bread, with the substance of God. Like in Jesus Christ, our eyes only see one reality, but the other one is only perceived in faith. If we ever struggle to believe in His Real Presence, remember that the people who saw the Infant Jesus in the manger probably had the same difficulty believing that the baby was God incarnate.

            But what’s our takeaway to this deep theology? Really, it’s faith. Believe in Jesus with your whole heart. Not merely an intellectual kind of “Yeah, I guess it’s true” but rather a whole-self “It IS true, and it changes everything.” If God could give us far more than we ever expected, how could we give Him any less?