Homily for Advent 3 - December 11, 2022

 

Homily for Advent 3

December 11, 2022

Waiting On the Lord

 

            We often hear that Advent is a time of waiting. Okay…waiting for what? I mean, Jesus already came two thousand years ago, so what are we waiting for?

            It’s very simple. Jesus came to begin the healing – but it isn’t completed yet. We still see sin, division, addictions, wars, oppression. We still experience depression and anxiety, sickness, and death. We talk about the victory, but we’re still fighting the battle.

            So we are waiting for the completion. We’re waiting for everything promised in the First Reading: for the desert to bloom, for the deaf to hear and the blind to see, for the joy that was promised by Christ to reach its full completion. Yes, we experience it in bits-and-pieces here (as St. Paul says, “the down payment”), while awaiting the rest of the riches of Christ.

            So, we wait for it. Our second reading urges us to be patient. Remember, James was writing to a church that was expecting Christ to come again in their own lifetime. When the years dragged on and the persecution intensified, when they saw Peter and Paul and the other Apostles killed for their Faith, they began to wonder – has God forgotten about us? Are His promises ever going to come true? James says, “Yes, they will…but we must be patient.”

            How can we be patient? Because we know that God is faithful. He made over 500 promises in the Old Testament that He has already fulfilled in Jesus Christ – will He not also fulfill His promises for the future, as well?

            On December 7, 1988, an 8.2 magnitude earthquake struck Armenia, killing more than 25,000 people. In the aftermath of the earthquake, one father dug for 38 hours in the rubble of his son’s elementary school, which had completely collapsed. Miraculously, he found his son and 13 other classmates alive. Eyewitnesses said that when the children were unearthed, all of the youngsters were calm and peaceful, and the son turned to his classmates and said, “See? Didn’t I tell you that my father would come for us?”

            That is patience, born of a firm confidence that God Who fulfilled His promises two thousand years ago will fulfill the promises that are yet to be fulfilled!

            So what do we do while waiting? Well, in English, waiting has a different meaning – someone who is a waiter or waitress will “wait on” customers. That means being attentive to their every need and desire. So as we wait for the Lord, we should also wait on the Lord – looking to Him for direction for every aspect of our lives.

            For example, we all know of the story of St. Maximilian Kolbe, the priest who was a martyr in Auschwitz when he gave up his life to save another man. But before that heroic act, he spent a couple years as a missionary in Japan. Upon arriving in Japan, he didn’t know the language very well, and was praying for guidance about how he could best minister in this very foreign culture. He felt like God was asking him to start a printing press to put out Catholic literature in the Japanese language. Although excited about the prospect, he asked God where he should build it, and he felt like God was asking him to put it on the far side of a mountain, far away from the town where they lived. Fr. Kolbe was initially incredulous, “Really, Lord? You want us to build it miles away from the city, on the other side of the mountain? How are we going to haul the ink and paper and materials up there?” But out of faith, he built the printing press and began a very successful ministry of publishing Catholic books and pamphlets.

            Fast-forward two years. Fr. Kolbe was now back in Poland, but the printing press he built was still doing good work, despite the fact that Japan was embroiled in World War II. In 1945, that town of Nagasaki was hit with the atomic bomb, destroying most of the city – but the printing press was saved because of its location, protected by the mountain. Maximillian Kolbe knew to “wait upon the Lord” – look for His guidance, wait for His leading, do His will.

            Recently a dear friend (Gonzalo Martinez) was telling me about waiting on the Lord. He was driving up to pick up his daughter for Thanksgiving from college in upstate Massachusetts, and had gotten his car filled up with gas for the trip. As he was coming back, he noticed his gas gauge reading empty. He thought this was very strange – there should have been enough gas to get him there and back with plenty to spare. He wondered if the Lord was up to something…so he prayed, “Lord, whatever this is, lead me.” He stopped to get gas and noticed a woman sitting in a car off to the side of the service station wiping her eyes. For some reason, he couldn’t take his eyes off of her. Finally after getting his gas he went up to the car saw she had been crying. He knocked on the window, asking, “Are you all right?” She told him that she was completely without gas and far from home, without a cell phone or money. My friend then knew exactly why he was called to be right there, right then – and helped her fill up her car, let her make a phone call, and got her on her way.

            But that’s a life of “waiting on the Lord”. We look to Him for our decisions each day. Certainly in the big ones: we ask the Lord what job to take, what college to attend, how to lead our family. But also the smaller ones: we say, “Lord, today, how do You want to use me? How can I best please You?”

            Advent, and indeed the whole Christian life, is a time of waiting – waiting for the final victory of Jesus Christ over sin and death and evil. So while we wait, we wait upon the Lord, as servants anxious to do His will.