Monday of the First Week of Advent

 Lectionary: 175

The centurion said in reply,
"Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof;
only say the word and my servant will be healed.

 A  good friend, a Veteran and former Army chaplain, opened today's gospel for me. He had studied military history and knew much about the Roman army, one of the best disciplined, trained, and effective armies in history. No centurion won his rank for being someone's son, or for his wealth. Nor had he brown nosed his way into that position. A centurion had killed men in face-to-face, hand-to-hand combat. He had sent men he admired into suicidal situations, and had overseen the slaughter of defeated enemies. 

If the centurion in today's gospel has developed a measure of respect for the Jews he rules, and demonstrates more civilized characteristics, he has not forgotten what he has done, what he has seen, or who he has become. Like everyone, he has a past; and it is complex. 

Approaching Jesus, he has armed men with him. Bodyguards, they are prepared to defend their centurion against assaults and insults. Their faces are as hard and stern as his; their expressions, watchful, impassive, and stolid. They see everything, they say nothing. 

When Jesus says, "I will come and cure him." the Centurion's reaction is immediate. That's out of the question. He cannot have such holiness enter his quarters. Nor can he risk such an imposing, divine presence in such an intimate space. His hardened surface may crack; his soldiers might see their commander weep over a servant; they might hear him impulsively, insanely confessing  his crimes to a Jewish holy man. 

So long as he lives he will have blood on his hands. When King David wanted to build a house fit for the King of Heaven, he was told he could not do so. He might collect the materials of silver, gold, wood, and stone. He might order the finest cloths from the world's best weavers but he was a man of war with blood on his hands. (1 Chronicles 28:3) He would be cleansed of this damned spot only by the blood of Jesus. 

As we welcome Advent we begin with a profound awareness of our sins. They are ancient and deep, systemic and as real as history. We cannot change the past, nor do we dare to ignore it. If we think only of the future as we hide from the past in frenetic, absurd entertainment it will catch us in our sleep, like the guilt, horror, and remorse of Lady Macbeth. 

When Jesus said, "I will come and cure him." the Centurion was smote with unexpected emotion. We can sense his struggle for control; and Jesus saw it on his face. He saw what the bodyguards saw but would resolutely not see. The Lord knew immediately why he must not go with the centurion. And he called that faith: 

"Amen, I say to you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith."

He saw an awareness of both sin and holiness he had not found in Israel! The descendants of Abraham, remembering many centuries of faithlessness despite God's fidelity, had covered over their past with Pharisaic practices and pretensions. They could not recognize or appreciate the advent of their God in the person of Jesus; they could treat him only as another faux prophet who was making a troublesome stir. 

Advent and our salvation begin with the appearance of Saint John the Baptist as he proclaims a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Our "examination of conscience" must discover more than petty self-accusations about missing morning prayers and failing to say a daily rosary. It must discover our part in the endemic violence, racism, and waste that constitute American life. We are a people of unclean lips, and live among a people of unclean lips. 

Advent remembers not the flags of our fathers but their sins, for which we are still responsible, which still determine the decisions and policies of a deeply troubled nation. If we cannot in a matter of three and a half weeks before Christmas, rid our hands of these spots, we can kneel before the Lord and confess, 

“Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed”

First Sunday of Advent 2024

Lectionary: 3

People will die of fright in anticipation of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.
And then they will see the Son of Man 
coming in a cloud with power and great glory.
But when these signs begin to happen, stand erect and raise your heads because your redemption is at hand.

T hroughout the Gospels, Jesus of Nazareth kept an amused distance from questions about his identity and his mission. He asked his disciples on one famous occasion, "Who do they say I am?" and then, “Who do you say I am?” He heartily approved Saint Peter's initial response, "You are the Christ!"

But when Peter proceeded to dictate to the Christ how the Christ should speak and act -- and that he should never speak of being crucified in Jerusalem -- he was severely rebuked: “Get behind me, Satan! You are thinking like men think, and not like God!” Despite his finding the right word to name Jesus, he had no idea what it meant. He had looked deeply into an amazing, inexpressible, terrifying mystery and recited the word Christ like a child reciting his catechism.

The Lord seemed to favor any number of titles. He responded to rabbi, master, and teacher. He didn't object to Messiah (Greek, Christ) and Lord. He was often called, "Son of David;" and that was the address he seemed to favor when the blind Bartimaeus of Jericho called him.

However, the title "Son of Man" appears 81 times in the Gospels. And Jesus is the only one to use the phrase in reference to himself. The four Evangelists never call anyone else a son of man, although it could apply to any ordinary fellow, chap, bloke, dude, guy, senor, or hombre. And very often, a fellow might speak of himself in a street debate or workshop conversation, saying, “Here’s what this son of man thinks!”

Jesus made the expression his own; and the Evangelists never, in all the Gospels, use it to refer to anyone else. Quite the opposite, in the Lord's usage it is himself, and it describes his destiny as we hear today. The Son of Man is the "One coming in a cloud with power and great glory."

The Gospel of Saint Mark begins with a quiet story about this son of man’s baptism.

On coming up out of the water he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit, like a dove, descending upon him. And a voice came from the heavens, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” (Mark 1:9-11)

But apparently no one else saw the heavens torn open or the Spirit descending upon him; and only Jesus heard the voice from heaven. In this oldest gospel, he does not have a brief conversation with John the Baptist about whether he should be baptized. If the two man are related by their mother’s, John doesn’t seem to recognize his cousin.

And then, as Saint Mark tells the story, “Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God” after his baptism, after his sojourn of forty days in the desert, and after Saint John was arrested. This story of the son of man builds with increasing intensity through fourteen chapters to a climax when something spectacular, something apocalyptic must happen. It is a moment when everyone, the entire universe, makes an irreversible decision of cosmic consequences. That moment comes when…

the high priest rose before the assembly and questioned Jesus, saying, “Have you no answer to what these men say against you?”
But he was silent and answered nothing.
Again the high priest asked him and said to him, “Are you the Messiah, the son of the Blessed One?”
Then Jesus answered, “I am; and ‘you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power and coming with the clouds of heaven.’”
At that the high priest tore his garments and said, “What further need have we of witnesses? You have heard the blasphemy. What do you think?”
They all condemned him to death.

And that is the last time we hear of the Son of Man in Saint Mark’s gospel. They have condemned an ordinary fellow, chap, bloke, dude, guy, senor, or hombre to death for being the Messiah, the son of the Blessed One.

We might call this the apotheosis of the Son of Man. I use that strange word intentionally. In Washington DC, if you go to the Capitol Building, stand under the rotunda, and look up toward the center of the dome, you will see the “Apotheosis of George Washington.” The word literally means the raising of a person to the rank of a god. Romans said it of the emperors Caesar Augustus, Julius Caesar, Nero, and Caligula. By Jewish and Christian standards, it’s rather ridiculous. Washington played a pivotal role in the history of the United State, but he is not a god. I use the word today only to point out what Jesus is doing for the expression, “the son of man.”

By identifying with any human being born of woman he invites every man and woman to share his divinity, to become like God as we pass through this world into the glory of heaven. We do that as we confess our sins, are baptized into holiness, eat his flesh, drink his blood, and become by prayer, fasting, and works of charity the body of Christ. No one has to be a king, founder, army general, real estate agent, or entrepreneur to know that glory. 

And so, in today’s gospel, on the First Sunday of Advent, he warns us, “Beware that your hearts do not become drowsy from carousing and drunkenness and the anxieties of daily life, and that day catch you by surprise.”

That day will see our own apotheosis when we rise with the Lord through the resurrection of the body into life everlasting – provided that we have not surrendered our hearts, souls, mind, and strength to the temptations that come at us from every direction.

The world, of course, has its own ways of honoring the common man. I think of Aaron Copeland’s magnificent Fanfare for the Common Man, honoring the courage, struggle, and sacrifices of the United States during World War II. Our society is very good at co-opting and degrading our sacred symbols and memories for their own purposes. They would sell the Virgin Mary if they can make a profit by it, especially at Christmas time.

The Son of Man teaches us the quiet, humble, and sometimes solitary way to follow the Lord from Bethlehem to Jerusalem, Calvary, and Easter. He gives us a community of faith, a Church which mysteriously understands where we are going and how to get there. We can leave pretensions behind, we can expect more challenges than success, and we shall see with the high priest and the Sanhedrin, "the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.”