Advent Reflection

Here is the reflection I gave at a prayer service earlier tonight. It's based on Matthew 11:2-11.

Matthew offers a lot to our advent prayer in this passage. To tap into the message of hope we hear in the Gospel, let’s work backwards through this narrative. Jesus’ words at the end of the passage praise John as a great prophet but place the least of the Kingdom of God above John. John was the last in a long line of prophets dating back through Moses and ancient Israel. The prophets brought God’s message to His Chosen People and are revered for the mediation that God entrusted to them. This all changed with Christ: He didn’t just bring God’s message and mediate on God’s behalf—Jesus brought God to humanity as a human. Through Himself, Jesus Christ brought the Kingdom into our midst, concluding the era of the Prophets and initiating the era of the Kingdom. John was the one to finish the prophets’ work, preparing the way for the Lord, and Christ came to renew His people and invite all of us into this Kingdom, where He offers the God who is Love to us in the most accessible way.

Earlier in the Gospel, the messengers from John the Baptist want to know if Jesus is this One who John is prophesying. Jesus points to the works he has wrought in His ministry: healing the blind, infirmed, leprous, and deaf; proclaiming the good news; and, raising the dead. Pretty impressive stuff. I’d say that’s a yes, Jesus is this guy John is talking about. Jesus also adds to his catalogue of credentials, “And blessed is the one who takes no offense at me.” Hmm…

Let’s backtrack to the start of the passage. John has to send messengers to check in on this other prophet because he himself is in jail—King Herod locks John away for his criticism of the king’s relations with his sister-in-law. John’s sentence is unjust, and he is eventually beheaded at the pleasure of the royal court. But let’s focus on the captivity in this passage. John cannot discern the identity of this Jesus character because he is behind bars. The struggles of life hold us back from taking no offense in Christ and our practiced faith.

What are the things that we do that prevent us from seeing Jesus first-hand? For most of us, a lot of it has to do with busy-ness. We don’t make our faith a high enough priority in the busy schedules of our lives. We might make time for Sunday mass or a weekly hour-long Emmaus meeting, but our hour-by-hour, minute-by-minute faith so often becomes virtually Christ-less. We are held captive by the hecticness of life.

What stops us from seeing Christ for ourselves? For me, I struggle to actively place Christ in the minute-by-minute. The place where I can see it most is in relationships and the way people interact. The love of Christ comes alive in the opportunities we have in our daily encounters with one another, and nothing invites another's love more than to take the initiative in loving. I think it’s interesting to consider John’s messengers here. They go seeking confirmation from Jesus but return with the Word as missionaries.

It is up to us to know when to lean on our friends and family and fellow Christians to be the messenger-missionaries that share their witness of Christ with us to nourish our spirits. Along with the liturgy and its Word and Eucharist, our fellow believers and us come together through prayer like this and faith-sharing groups like our Emmaus communities to continue deepening our faith as we wait in joyful hope for the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Advent is the time of preparatory waiting when we re-recognize the Incarnation, the coming of Christ, God becoming one of us. In this beautiful narrative of birth of a son to a compassionate carpenter and his mysteriously virgin wife, our hope is born in Christ. Let us appreciate the hope Christ brings and continue to explore the depth of mystery in His Word through our work together. May we take apart the prison bars holding us captive from fuller faith and look to the healing, good news, and resurrection—the hope—in Christ.