First Sunday Advent [A] – December 1, 2019 – Matthew 24:37-44
We are entering the season of Advent. This time marks the beginning of the new liturgical year of the Church. The season itself is a preparation for us to welcome the Christmas, the coming of Jesus Christ. The word Advent is coming from the Latin word “Adventus” that simply means “arrival.” The dominant liturgical color will be purple that signifies hope and joyful expectation of the coming of our Savior.
The Church has always taught that there are two comings of Jesus. The first coming was two thousand years ago in Bethlehem, when Jesus was born into the simple family of Joseph and Mary. The second coming will be at the end of time, and nobody knows when it will be. It is the secret of God, and anybody who attempts to predict it is bound to fail.
Particularly, the first Sunday of Advent focuses on the second coming of Jesus. From the reading, we can extract at least two characteristics of this coming. Firstly, there will be judgment and the segregation between the good and the evil. Secondly, the coming will be utterly unexpected like the day of Great Flood in the time of Noah and his family or like a thief at the night. Since there will be a judgment based on our life as well as the unpredictable timing, we are expected to be always ready by persevering doing good.
The purpose of Advent is truly to remind us that God will definitely come, and we are prepared for that coming. How are we going to prepare for Jesus’ coming then?
The answer is unbelievably simple: be holy and keep holy. Surely, it is easier said than done, yet we can learn from the saints (they are called “saints” precisely because they have lived a holy life). Yet, again some of us may say that is just tough to be a saint, and it is almost impossible to be like John Paul II who was the holy Pope, or to be like Mother Teresa of Calcutta who spent her life in slump of India and tirelessly the poor, or like St. Stephen who was stoned to death for preaching Jesus. Indeed, it seems to be unsurmountable if we focus on the greatness of these saints, but truthfully, there are a lot of saints who are living simple lives.
St. Therese of the Child Jesus who spent her quiet and simple life inside a convent once wrote, “Miss no single opportunity of making some small sacrifice, here by a smiling look, thereby a kindly word; always doing the smallest right and doing it all for love.” They are many things we can offer sacrifice in our daily life, like our addiction to cellphone, our obsession to be workaholic, our time for our hobbies, and our tendency to complain. While St. Martin de Porres, a Dominican brother, who spent his life cleaning the convent and serving the poor, shows us that the path of holiness is not always grand, “Everything, even sweeping, scraping vegetables, weeding a garden and waiting on the sick could be a prayer, if it was offered to God.”
The way to prepare Jesus’ second coming is by being holy, and living a holy life can be done in doing ordinary things in love and for God.
Valentinus Bayuhadi Ruseno, OP
Often we take for granted the name Jesus Christ, without realizing the meaning behind it. The word “Christ” is neither part of the personal name of Jesus nor the family name of Jesus. Jesus earns the name Christ not because of His foster father, Joseph, otherwise, we also call him Joseph Christ and his wife, Mary Christ.
During the reign of Herod the Great, the Temple of Jerusalem was refurbished, adorned by gold and other precious metals, and expanded, and thus making it the crown jewel of the Jewish nation. However, the Temple was not merely a magnificent building, but primarily the center of Jewish religious worship and religion. Every morning and evening, sacrifices were offered, and every year, Jewish men from all over the world made their pilgrimage, and paid their homage the Lord God. It was the place where God chose to stay, the place where the Israelites meet their God, and the house of God.
In the time of Jesus, there are at least two kinds of taxes. The first tax goes to the Temple of Jerusalem. This is a “sacred tax”. Those who collect them are performing a sacred duty, and those who pay are fulfilling their due to God. Yet, the second tax is exacted by the Roman government. In order to effectively get the taxes, the Romans employs the local collaborators. The Jews are heavily burdened by this tax because they are unjustly hefty, and often collected by coercion. The Jews understandably loathe those Jewish tax collectors who willingly betray their own people and are involved in greedy malpractices. These are the worst sinners, unclean, corrupt and traitors.
In Jesus’ time, they were several Jewish religious groups and one of them is the Pharisees. These are the people who love the Lord and devoutly observe the Law of Moses and the traditions of the elders even in their daily lives. Thus, Jewish people regard them as righteous because they are faithful to the Law, and pious because they pray often. Many Pharisees turn to be the caretakers of the local synagogues and zealously teach the Law during Sabbath days. No wonders, the Jewish people offer the Pharisees the best places in the worship places and the parties. The leaders are called the Rabbis or teachers.
The widows are one of the most disfranchised groups in ancient Israel. In those times, women, in general, were considered to be less human. Every time a Jewish man in first-century Palestine woke up, he would pray and thank the Lord for he was not born as a Gentile, a slave or a woman. Often, women were treated as the properties of the patriarchs. While adult men were working outside the house, women were expected to stay behind to take care of the children and the household. Since many women were supported by their husbands, being a widow means loss of both financial foothold and honor. They were lucky if they had mature sons who would take care of them, but those widows without sons were the most pitiful.
Suffering, sickness, and death do not care whether you are Jews or Samaritans, whether you are rich or poor, whether you are old or young. When it strikes, it strikes. In time of Jesus, leprosy or Hansen’s disease was still one of most dreadful sicknesses. It ate you your skin and made you ugly. It is highly contagious, and thus, cut you from your community. It was incurable and thus brought you a slow and agonizing death.
If there is one most powerful force in the universe, it will be faith. Jesus teaches us that even faith as small as a mustard seed can do the impossible. Jesus preaches that with this little faith, we can command a sycamore tree be uprooted and be planted in the sea. One of the smallest things on earth can move the most significant reality in the world. The sycamore tree has both deep, strong and widespread roots. It is just impossible to uproot it when it has grown mature. Yet, Jesus surprises further even by saying that we can replant this on the bed of the ocean. That makes it doubly impossible. Jesus is pushing his teaching on faith beyond natural human reasoning!
Once again, we listen to one of Jesus’s most remarkable stories. There is a rich man, and this guy is insanely wealthy. He is described as someone clothed with purple and fine linen. In ancient time, fine purple linen is an utmost luxury, and usually only nobilities could afford to buy this kind of cloth. Before the coming of synthetic coloring, purple dye is coming from snails of Mediterranean Sea, and it takes thousands of snails just to dye one ordinary garment. This rich guy is also throwing party every night. At the time of Jesus, where majority must toil to earn a little and to have something to eat, to enjoy feast every night is madly extravagant. At that time, fork, knife, and napkins were not common; thus, people are eating with their hands. In very wealthy houses, they will cleanse their hands by wiping them on hunks of bread that will be thrown away. These are pieces of bread Lazarus longs to receive.
In Medio Ecclesiae 