Advent , how time belongs to God

IT ONLY LOOKS LIKE LENT

Advent began in Fourth Century Gaul (now largely France) where Christians observed a second Lent, six weeks leading to the Epiphany, January 6. In those regions, catechumens prepared for baptism on the Epiphany, as well as at Easter. This was the era of many adult conversions from paganism to the faith of the newly legalised Church.

The observance of the season spread to Rome. But here it was regarded as preparation for Christmas. Pope St. Gregory the Great shortened the season to four weeks. In the prayers and readings of the Roman liturgy it lost its penitential tone and focused on the coming (adventus) of the Lord Jesus. This became the universal meaning of Advent. Since the Ninth Century, the Church Year has commenced on the first Sunday of Advent.

Even if the liturgical colour is purple and the mood is subdued and serious, Advent is not another Lent. However, the season does not merely lead to one day, Christmas; it prepares us for the "day of the Lord". It resounds with promise, expectation, a sense of waiting in hope and patiently learning that time is in God's hands.

THE DRAMA OF TIME

In Advent we are celebrating time. We are challenged to learn how our time has become God's time, how human history has become salvation history. We reflect on Christ's coming in terms of our human experience of time: past, present and future.

Christ has come. God Incarnate is Jesus of Nazareth born of Mary ever-Virgin. So we prepare to enter and relive that saving mystery at Christmas.
Christ comes to us today. He comes through grace, his presence and action in the Church and her sacraments, especially the Eucharist. Christ's Incarnation is extended through us and in us.
Christ will come. He will return in visible form at the end of time. We look to the inevitable "Last Things" of our future - death, judgement, heaven and hell. We look beyond time to eternity, beyond the beginning to the end and purpose of it all.

A RADICAL MAN

John the Baptist stands at each of these turning points of time. He was the greatest of the prophets of the Old Law, yet he died a martyr's death for Christ. He pointed to the future and shook the complacent by calling for radical conversion, baptismal repentance and a new life of obedient faith. He never concealed the powerful reality of divine justice.

Yet he was totally self-effacing. In John's Gospel he is the "best man", accompanying Jesus the Bridegroom on his nuptial procession, the journey of three years towards the cross. By his own words he is unworthy to loose the sandal straps of the Messiah. But his Lord proclaims him to be "the greatest of all born of women".

The paradox of Christ's simplicity and obscurity begins in John the Baptist. The "greatest born of woman" turns out to be a shaggy ascetic dressed in camel skin, a hermit in the wilderness, colliding with society by telling the truth. Himself a prophet, he fulfils prophecies given while he was in his mother's womb. John is one of the meek raised high. John shakes the mighty down from their thrones. John feeds those who starve spiritually and sends the rich away empty. John fulfils the jubilant words of his Virgin aunt's song.

John the Baptist tells us that the old order has ended. A new world is beginning. The civilisation of life overtakes the reign of death. The Kingdom of God is breaking in; the little ones of this world find their dignity in God's gracious plans. As it begins to unfold, one heroic man humbly carries out a task envisioned by Isaiah and proclaimed in his own father's words: "..prepare the way of the Lord!"

SALVATION HISTORY

John the Baptist teaches us to look at time, through the eyes of faith. This sharpens a rational understanding of the events of history. At the transition to the Third Millennium, at the dawn of the Great Jubilee, do we really see time and history as the story of our salvation?

Christians think of a year or a week, in a different way to non-believers. Have we ever reflected on that striking difference? The non-believing neighbours next door may have a vague awareness of Christmas, perhaps Easter. But they do not see time as we see it because they do not understand the meaning of the saving events of Christmas and Easter. They do not live each year as a re-enactment and celebration of the coming of the promised Saviour, of his grace and freedom, his promise of eternal life. And are we going to give them this good news? That is the challenge of John the Baptist, and Pope John Paul II calling us to a "new evangelization".

Not that our perception of time is yet perfect. We have much to learn, and the lessons are not easy in the pace of modern life. If we could just learn that time is in God's hands. This would not only soften the impatience that rattles our lives; it would help us recover something serene and consoling, a sense of Divine Providence.

It is not merely the history of the world, but our personal story that rests in God's hands: Lord, in your Advent, give us time to understand your time.