Revealing What is Hidden

Fourth Sunday of Advent

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  Recently the fifth season of the western-drama, “Yellowstone” finished up.  Like most TV shows, the audience is given a divine-like view, where they know what is going on, while the characters in the show have to figure things out for themselves.  This fifths season begins with the death of one of the major characters, and while the death is initially ruled a suicide, the TV audience knows that, quoting Shakespeare, “there’s something rotten in the state of Denmark.”
    I think that many television shows, especially, but not only, dramas, rely on the human desire to play God.  We don’t want to wait for God to bring to light those things hidden in the darkness.  We want to know now all that is going on, even the things that don’t seem to make sense or those that confound us.  
    St. Paul promises that God will reveal all hidden things when the Lord returns.  And in some sense, we might enjoy this.  When many people talk about heaven, they talk about an eternal Q & A session with God, asking questions as profound as why this person had to die, or why that person got to live, to the more mundane and silly questions like whether Adam and Eve had belly buttons, or who killed JR (you might have to be a little older to get that reference).  
    It’s also something to which we look forward because often there are serious questions to which we could never know the answer for sure.  We sense a lack of justice when we don’t know if the guilty party received punishment or not.  Think about how much ink has been spilled about whether Lee Harvey Oswald truly killed President Kennedy, and whether he acted alone or was part of a grander conspiracy, whether with the Mafia or perhaps even with our own government.  When those who, ostensibly, do not get punished for the wrong they do, especially prominent people like actors, musicians, athletes, and politicians, our desire for justice seems unfulfilled, like there’s no resolution that satisfies.
    However, bringing to light what has remained hidden in darkness cuts both ways.  It doesn’t only apply to actors, musicians, athletes, and politicians.  It applies to us as well.  The things that we work so hard to hide from others, whether simply out of embarrassment or perhaps out of true shame and contrition, Christ will also manifest as He judges us.  That, I imagine, delights us a bit less than the idea of knowing where Jimmy Hoffa is buried.  I imagine we would like to know the secrets of others, but we probably don’t want them to know our own secrets.
    Of course, the Lord knows it all.  He is omniscient.  He sees all time as at once, and knows the causes and the effects of every action and reaction.  Nothing we could do could ever be hidden from him.  And yet, God chooses to forgive us for those wrong actions, and, when we are truly sorry and confess our sins, He no longer holds those things against us, no matter how secret they may be.  Yes, those sinful actions still happened, and yes, they still echo through their consequences, but God does not hold them against us at our judgment if we are contrite and confess.  Those sins going from being things of shame to being opportunities to grow in the grace of God, who transforms our sins into healing, just as God healed the death of sin through taking death upon Himself, though He had no sin Himself.  

    But, as we approach the celebration of the Nativity of the Lord, we also have another aspect of revealing what was hidden.  And that is God Himself.  True, God had revealed Himself, as the author of the Letter to the Hebrews states, in various and sundry ways.  But the birth of our Savior was a true revelation, the revelation, of who God is.  When Christ came in the flesh, even though the flesh sometimes hid his divinity, it also revealed it.  One of the Christmas songs I hate, and I consider it at least partially heretical, is “Mary, Did You Know?”  And one of the lines I think is heretical is, “Mary, did you know / […] when you kiss your little baby / You’ve kissed the face of God?”  First of all, yes, she did know, because the Archangel Gabriel told her.  But more importantly, in the Incarnation, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, who was pure spirit, took flesh in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and after He was born, we all saw God any time we saw Christ.  Throughout His life, the Savior revealed God as the one who loves sinners, but hates sin; as the one who welcomes those who wander away, but condemns those who make obstacles to repentance; as the one who heals the sick with tenderness, but casts out vendors from the Temple; as the one who dies for our sins, but rises on the third day because death cannot cancel out life.  God does not hide himself, but reveals Himself, so that we can access salvation.
    Though not my favorite season of “Yellowstone,” this, what I believe to be, final season draws people in by allowing them to know what remains hidden from the characters in the show, at least at first.  Through our upcoming celebration of our Lord’s birth, may we rejoice at the revelation that had remained hidden, only suggested and pointed to from afar by the prophets, the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit is God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

The Grand Tour

Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time

    George Jones, or as those of us who listen to classic country music know him, the Possum, had a number of hits with his unique and melancholic voice.  One of those hits, with a piano jingle you can’t miss, was “The Grand Tour.”  In the song, George takes you on a tour of a house where his wife used to live (before she left him), and all the things that are connected to memories of when they were together.  He sings about the chair where she used to bring him the paper and tell him she loved him; about the bed where they slept; about the closet where she hung her clothes; about the nursery where their baby slept.  In all of these places, the Possum wants you to see it all so that he can share the pain he’s feeling at his wife leaving him.
    Today in the Gospel, Jesus invites Himself to Zacchaeus’ house, where there is a dinner.  The locals in Jericho are not too pleased, because Zaccaheus is a tax collector, and tax collectors often increased the amount of money you owed, so that they could earn a living.  But Zacchaeus promises to give half of what he owns to the poor, and if he has extorted anything, he promises to repay it fourfold.  Zacchaeus received the Lord into his home, and was transformed by the presence of Jesus.
    Are we so welcoming to Jesus?  In the Book of Revelation, Jesus says, “‘“‘Behold, I stand at the door and knock.  If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will enter his house and dine with him, and he with me.’”’”  Jesus wants to be present with us, in our home, and place of comfort and security.  He wants fellowship with us, so that we can have fellowship with the Father.  But do we welcome Him in like Zacchaeus?
    If you house is anything like mine was when I was growing up, whenever we had guests over there were certain rooms the guests didn’t get to see, which happened to be the places where we’d put all of the stuff that we didn’t make time to put away before the guests came over.  Usually the guests didn’t mind missing out on that one room during the nickel and dime tour of the house.  But Jesus is not like other guests.  He wants to see us all.
    When Adam and Eve sinned, after they clothed themselves to hide themselves from each other, they also tried to hide from God.  They went to a part of the Garden of Eden in which they thought they could get away from God.  How often are there parts of our lives into which we don’t want God to look.  We hide them from God, or close the door of our hearts to God, thinking that if the rest of the house is clean, then we don’t have to worry about those messes that we have put away in a different room.
    In fact, God wants to enter every part of our house.  There is nothing in our life to which God does not want access.  But God is not a robber.  He will not break into the parts of our lives that we don’t want to hand over to Him.  That may seem like good news, but in reality, the rooms where we hide all our junk are exactly the rooms that keep us separated from God, that don’t allow us to experience the full joy of a relationship with Him, because a true relationship with God means giving Him our all, not just the parts we want Him to have.
    This makes perfect sense when we think about it like a marital relationship.  Imagine owning a house with your spouse, but there’s one room where he or she won’t let you go.  Because we not omniscient, the curiosity would probably eat away at us.  It would create a barrier between you and your spouse, which, if not resolved, could easily lead to the break-up of the marriage. 
    Or imagine after ten years of marriage with your spouse, a young adult comes to your front door and knocks.  And when you ask who the person is, he tells you that he’s your spouse’s child from 20 years ago.  I would imagine you would be confused, hurt, angry, and a whole range of other emotions.  You would feel like you had a right to know, even if your spouse thought it was going to be too embarrassing.  And not having that full disclosure would eat away at your relationship, making you wonder what other secrets your spouse might be keeping from you.
    In reality, God knows what’s in that one room that we don’t want Him to enter.  God knows all the secrets of our life.  But, because He loves us, and love never forces itself on the other, He will never force us to reveal what’s behind the door, or what’s in our past.  Still, while it’s not an obstacle to God, because His love for us is everlasting, it is an obstacle for us, because in order to have the full joy of a relationship with God, He has to receive everything from us, not just the parts that we want to share.
    Today, here at Mass and when you go home, enjoying the rest of the Christian Sabbath, invite God to take the grand tour of the house of your heart and soul.  Open up every door for Him.  Show him the clean rooms and the rooms where there’s a mess.  Invite Jesus: “Step right up, come on in.”

The sycamore tree in Jericho that Zacchaeus climbed to see Jesus