First Sunday Of Advent
MATTHEW 24:37-44 (Isaiah 2:1-5; Romans 13:11-14)
The English word “advent” is derived from the Latin adventus. The term was used for the official visitation of an emperor, a king, or other important official of kingdom or empire.
Our own Advent anticipates the visitation of our King, a title by which Jesus was honored almost from the beginning of Christianity, as we see already in the New Testament, for example John 1:49. The expectation of this visitation is threefold. We look first to the past, then to the present, and finally to the future.
We look to the past as we anticipate the celebration of the earthly birth of the Son of God about two thousand years ago. We look to the present as we anticipate making present again through the Advent and Christmas liturgies that momentous event which happened two millennia ago. We look to the future, as the liturgy reminds us in today’s readings, awaiting Jesus’return for a final visit. This final visit can be understood in two ways: the return of Jesus at the end of time as judge of all humanity, a visit referred to biblically as the parousia. This term is used widely of Jesus’ final visitation in the Gospel of Matthew and in the letters of St. Paul. A second way of understanding Jesus’ final visit or advent is his visitation to us at the moment of our death. Of the first meaning of Jesus’ final advent we have mostly uncertainty. Of the second meaning, we have no certainty as to the time of our death, but absolute certainty as to the fact that it will happen, as Sirach 8:7 tells us, “Remember that all must die.”
The subject of this Sunday’s gospel is the final parousia which climaxes in the general judgment. This brief gospel reading is part of Jesus’ final discourse or sermon in the Gospel of Matthew composed in the mid-eighties of the first Christian century. Matthew used a previously composed version of Jesus’ final discourse in the Gospel of Mark, but expanded Mark’s version to indicate a delay in the return of Jesus. Mark had anticipated that return almost immediately about the year 70. Since this did not happen, Matthew and Luke compose their version to incorporate a delay of Jesus’ return. Paul has his own ve-sion or versions, depending on whether he wrote his letters in the early years of his minis-try or later. All attempt to understand the biblically promised return of Jesus, but none of them are in complete agreement with each other. Their uncertainty does not extend to the event itself but to the time and the details.
Of the personal parousia we will face at the moment of our death there is greater certainty, but it is the certainty of faith, not of scientific observation. We can observe the death of someone, but cannot observe her or his encounter with Jesus. We should be more concerned about our personal parousia than the general parousia at the end of time. Those who keep looking into the sky for Jesus’ return can be assured of little more than a stiff neck. A better use of our time is to look inward to see that we are ready to meet Jesus at any and all times. To that personal parousia should be applied the words which are found in Matthew’s gospel just before today’s gospel reading begins, “… of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.”
It is unfortunate that this key saying was omitted from our gospel reading. Why? Because this saying attributed to Jesus has been one of the most disregarded sayings in the history of Christianity. From the first century on to the present day, sincere people and scam artists have been setting the date for the return of Jesus, that is, his return for the general judgment at the end of time. Beginning with St. Paul, who wrote to the Thessalonians about the year 50 A.D., that the return would be in his own and their lifetime, and con-tinuing with the Gospel of Mark a few decades later, there has been an endless setting of dates for that event.
What can be said with faith and common sense about this matter? We go back to the Church Father Origen, who died in 254 A.D., “All who listen to the depths of the gospel, and live it so completely that none of it remains veiled from them, care very little about whether the end of the world will come suddenly and all at once or gradually a little at a time. Instead they keep in mind only that their own individual end or death will arrive on a day and an hour unknown…, and that upon each of us, ‘the day of the Lord will come like a thief…’” All must be vigilant, as we read in today’s gospel, “Watch therefore, for you do not know the day or the hour.”
ISAIAH 2:1-5
In this reading Isaiah speaks of “the latter days,” which today’s liturgy interprets as the end of time. These words determined the choice of this reading to accompany today’s gospel. An oft-quoted passage appears in this reading: “They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.” A depressing commentary on the wars of the 20th and now in the 21st century! Obviously the “latter days” have never arrived. We pray that Isaiah’s “Prince of peace,” 9:6, will hasten the time when we all “…walk in the light of the Lord” and find the way to peace.
