The Gift Jesus Wants to Give Us

The Nativity of the Lord

Many people have favorite Christmas movies.  There are the old classics: “White Christmas,” “It’s a Wonderful Life,” and “Miracle on 34th Street.”  There are new favorites, like the Jim Carrey version of “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” “The Santa Clause,” and “Elf.”  There are also the usual line up of songs made into short movies: “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “Santa Claus is Comin to Town,” and a lesser-known, but also very good movie, “The Little Drummer Boy.”  

In this movie, there is a little boy, Aaron, who has a drum, and a pet lamb.  They end up finding the three Magi, and going with them to Bethlehem (something we will celebrate in about two weeks at the Solemnity of the Epiphany).  But along the way, the lamb that belongs to Aaron, is injured mortally.  He asks the Magi to heal it, thinking that because they are Wise Men they can heal it, but they admit they cannot.  So they encourage Aaron to go to the newest king, the baby, and ask the baby to heal the little lamb.  Aaron, not knowing what to offer the king, offers what he has: the gift of playing his drum.  At this point, the narrator says, “And as Aaron looked at the babe, he thought it was the most beautiful sight he had ever seen.”

Tonight/Today, we come to celebrate the birth of that littlest of kings, Jesus.  We come because while tomorrow (and maybe tonight) we will give gifts to each other, there is a gift that we need from Jesus.  There is some need that tugs on our heart and draws us, not to the star of Bethlehem, a city whose name means “House of Bread,” but to this church, this House of God.  There is something that we want to ask of Jesus.  But maybe we are afraid.

Isn’t it funny that we could be afraid of so little a child, so peaceful a king, so gentle a ruler?  We are afraid to ask for something, even though this infant king would grow to say, “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon your shoulder and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart.  And you will find rest for yourself, for my yoke is easy and my burden light.”  We are afraid to ask for something, even though this merciful king would later say, “Has no one condemned you? Then neither do I condemn you.  Go, and from now on, sin no more.”  We are afraid to ask for something, even though this suffering king would later say, “Whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you.”  What are we afraid to ask for?

What weighs on our heart tonight/this morning?  It’s likely not that we get this or that toy.  The desire of our hearts is for something greater: healing; forgiveness; love.  And Jesus wants to give us these gifts.  He wants to heal us, forgive us, and shower His love upon us.  But in order to receive that gift, we have to open our hands to Him.  And in order to open our hands to Him, we have to give something away.  Hands that are already holding on to something cannot be filled with God’s good gifts.  In order to receive the good gifts of God, what will we give away?

The Little Drummer Boy gives what he has: not silver, not power, not wisdom, not fancy clothes, not jewels, not even gold, frankincense, and myrrh like the three kings.  The Little Drummer Boy gives himself.  And he demonstrates this gift of self by playing his drum.  Have you ever heard a single drum play by itself?  It’s not very impressive.  The simple rat-a-tat-tat, or, as the song goes, ra-pa-pum-pum, has no grandeur to it, but only simplicity.  And yet, as simple as it is, it is a full gift, because it is all the boy has.  It is like the widow’s mite, her lowly coin, that is all she has.  After the boy plays the drum, and the song plays in the background, one of the three kings says, “Your gift, little drummer boy, given out of the simple desperation of a pure love is the one favored above all.”  The gift of love, given when we have nothing else to give, is the gift God favors above all.  He wants the gift of our heart, given to Him because we know we have nothing else but love.  And when we give that gift of love, the love we receive in return is overwhelming.

Tonights readings all focus us the gift of Jesus that God gave to us, to those who could receive Him.  In times past, God had sent other gifts through the judges and prophets and kings.  But this gift is the greatest of all, because it was the gift of the Love of God, His Only-Begotten Son.  As I sit down, I want you all to close your eyes, take a deep breath in, breathe it out, and then say in the silence of your heart: God, I offer you my heart.  God, I offer you my heart.  God, I offer you my heart.

That is the best gift we can give at Christmas.  That is the gift God wants.  May that be our prayer every day: God, I offer you my heart.

Promises, Promises

Fourth Sunday of Advent

One of the things we learn from a very early is that we are supposed to keep our promises.  When we say something, we are supposed to stand behind what we say and follow through.  Sometimes it requires that special phrasing, “I promise I’ll give you $20 if you drink that milk that’s 5 days past the expiration date.”  Sometimes it is expressed by a handshake or a signature.  In any case, we expect that when someone tells us that something will be done, it will.  We can just hear the kids whining when they don’t get something they thought they were told they were: “Awwww, but you promised!”

It seems like promises don’t hold the same weight as they did before, though.  Some people still stand behind their word alone (without the words, “I promise” or a signature).  But those people seem to be in a minority.  It’s almost expected now in contracts that there is some special language which basically backs a person out the guarantee that was made, so that it’s only the rarest of cases where a business has to stand behind what it promised (with all the fine print that alleviates them from that burden).  When a man and woman have sex, they make a promise with their bodies that they give all of who they are, past, present, and future, to the other (which is why sex is made for marriage), and yet how often, in the culture of hook-ups, friends with benefits, and one-night stands is that promise broken, leading to many broken hearts and lives.  And, when a child is conceived after sex, an implicit promise is made to the infant in the womb, that the mother and father will take care of that child, but how often is that promise broken through abortion or an absentee parent!  In marriage, a promise is made to love each other above the self for life, no matter what happens.  And while sometimes separation and divorce follow because of abuse, or something that only became known after the marriage which would have changed the mind of at least one of the spouses getting married, we live in the no-fault divorce culture, so that if you simply grow tired of living with the same person, you can go your separate ways.  We live in a world of broken promises.

In the midst of all these broken promises, we hear good news today: God is the one who always keeps His promises.  These promises are kept most perfectly in Jesus.  In the first reading, we heard about how David would always have an heir on the throne, and that his kingdom and throne would endure forever.  The Jews were waiting for that promise to be fulfilled.  Not for hundreds of years had Judah had a king.  For hundreds of years they had been ruled by foreign powers, who had appointed puppet kings to help govern the people.  But it seemed like David’s throne and kingdom were only a thing of the past.

But what the Archangel Gabriel tells Mary is that the child that will be conceived in her womb is God (“Son of the Most High,” he says), and God will give Him the throne of David, His father.  This makes sense as Mary was a descendant of David.  But the family of David was long past its ruling days.  So God is making good on His promise to David, and in Jesus the throne of David would endure forever, since Jesus’ rule has no end.  In Jesus, the promise made to David is fulfilled.

But Jesus also fulfills an older promise that God had made.  After Adam and Eve had sinned against God, God laid out the consequences of sin.  For the serpent, the consequence is that there would be a battle between the serpent and the woman, “and between your offspring and hers.”  Eve’s children would always fight against the spawn of the evil one.  But God promises a savior to Adam and Eve, a victor in the battle, when He says, “‘He [the offspring] will strike at your head, while you strike at his heel.’”  God promises to end the battle, once and for all, by a male offspring of Eve, who will strike the serpent at its head, killing it.  Jesus is that offspring of Adam and Eve, since he takes human nature upon Himself in the Incarnation.  Though Satan strikes at Jesus on the cross and uses all his influence to get Jesus killed, by Jesus’ death and resurrection, He destroys the kingdom of Satan and restores the kingdom of David, the kingdom of God, for all time.  

God has made a promise to us, and He has fulfilled it in Jesus.  He has promised to be our God, and we His People.  In Jesus, humanity is forever married to divinity, and God and His People are inseparably joined.  God has promised to dwell with us.  In Jesus, we see Emmanuel: God-with-us.  God never breaks His promise.  He is ever-faithful, even if it seems like He has forgotten.  Think of the Jews who were waiting for the kingdom of David to be restored.  It was almost 1,000 years until Jesus came.  And those Jews who do not acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah are still waiting.  But they know that God will fulfill His promise.  

God has promised to be with us.  In the midst of the myriad broken promises that surround us, God reminds us that He can be trusted.  And only living as disciples of Jesus can enable us to live up to the promises we make on this earth.  What good news it is for us that God keeps His promises!  May that inspire us to keep ours.

Do We Truly Love Jesus?

Third Sunday of Advent

           

Think of the last person you fell in love with (if you’re married, I hope it’s your spouse sitting next to you!).  And, if you’re a teen, maybe it’s just the last person you had a crush on.  I bet you could talk about that person for a long time.  I bet that you would try to put into words what exactly it is that you like or love about the person.  You would try to describe your love.  And yet, you probably wouldn’t be able to exactly point to the thing that made you like or love that person.  You could probably talk for hours on end without being able to really explain your love.  And the person listening would probably be bored to tears, and never really get it, though they might pretend to be interested out of politeness.

            For me, that person is the Bride of Christ.  I don’t really want to get started about what I find so beautiful in Her, because if I get going, I might not be able to stop!  And Lord knows the bishop doesn’t need to get letters from all of you about how I preached for 2 hours and only stopped because I needed water.  But she is the perfect one for me.

            Or maybe you’re an enthusiast for the arts.  Maybe there’s just one performance or one play or musical about which you could talk for days!  Or maybe it’s a sports team, or an athlete.  We probably all have something that we love so much, and we treasure so much, that once we get going, we’re like the Energizer Bunny, and we don’t stop, no matter how much the other people around us lose interest.

            Today’s first reading is usually connected with Jesus in the Synagogue.  Jesus reads this passage and says that it is fulfilled in their hearing.  We have all heard it before.  And we’re all quite comfortable with knowing that Jesus is the one who is anointed by God, who was sent to bring glad tidings to the poor, heal the brokenhearted, proclaim liberty to captives and release to prisoners, and announce a year of favor and a day of vindication by God.  We’re probably all sold on that.  And Jesus could say that because He was (and still is) madly in love with His Bride, the Church, and wants to give Her every good thing.  He wants to clothe her with the robe of salvation, wrap Her in a mantle of justice, and adorn Her with jewels.  The whole account of Jesus, and the whole Bible, is a love story about God and His People.  It is the account of one who is so madly in love that He can never abandon Her, even when She abandons Him.

            But today’s first reading is not just about Jesus.  Hence our Gospel passage about St. John the Baptist from St. John the Evangelist’s account.  The Evangelist talks about how the Baptist testifies to the light.  The Baptist cannot stop speaking about Jesus.  He is not the Bridegroom, but He is the Bride waiting for the Lover of His soul.  And He preaches to make people ready, to help them understand why they should be so madly in love with Him.  But the Baptist’s work is only to prepare the way.  He is only a messenger, while Jesus is the Message; he the voice, while Jesus is the Word.

            Wonderful!  Very information!  Glad we now know that John the Baptist is the one who prepares for Jesus, and Jesus is the one who sets Israel free and blesses her!  But that’s only half the story.  “And now,” to quote Paul Harvey, “the rest of the story.”

            You are anointed by God!  You are sent to bring glad tidings to the poor, heal the brokenhearted, proclaim liberty to captives and release to prisoners, and announce a year of favor and a day of vindication by our God!  The call of Jesus is your call!!  No, that’s not blasphemy, that’s sacramental theology!  When you were baptized, you became a part of Jesus’ Mystical Body.  You were joined to Jesus.  After you were baptized with water, you were anointed with Sacred Chrism, a perfumed oil, and were made to be a christ.  You were not made to be the Christ, but were made to be  a christ, an anointed one (which is what Christ means).  When your parents (if you were an infant) or you (if you were over the age of seven) said yes to being baptized, you were given that same mission as Jesus, because you were made a part of Jesus.  His life became your life.  His mission became your mission.

            “But,” you might say, “I don’t want to talk about Jesus.”  If that is the case, we have to ask ourselves if we truly love Jesus as much as we should.  When we truly love someone we cannot help but speak about that person.  “Isn’t she gorgeous!  She’s so kind!  I just want to be around her.  She brings out the best in me.  I feel happier when she’s around me.”  We can talk for hours, even if we only have a crush on a person. 

“But I don’t know how to talk about Jesus!”  When we’re truly in love, we don’t care if we have the right words; all we care about is telling someone just how great that person is.  “She does this thing with her face when she gets annoyed and she just scrunches up her face in just a way like this, but not like this because I can’t do it right, but it’s just so, I mean it makes me feel so, it’s kinda like, I don’t even know how to describe it!”  When we love someone truly, madly, deeply, we can’t hold it in, just like St. John the Baptist couldn’t hold it in.  Maybe the way we talk about Jesus won’t be in the same way as we talk about our spouse or our crush.  But let’s at least talk about Jesus in these last few days of Advent, so that we, too, can prepare the way for the Lord and make straight a path into others’ hearts to receive the love that we have received from God. 

Desserts and Deserts

Second Sunday of Advent

           

I’m a little weird.  Most of you have probably learned that already.  Why do I think I’m weird?  I like formality (in formal situations) and I also love country music.  Those two things don’t usually go together.  In most situations I’m very stoic.  And yet, you get me listening to a sad song like “I Loved Her First,” or get me watching a movie like “Old Yeller,” and water starts streaming down my eyes and my voice starts to waver and crack.  I’m also someone who loves grammar, and loves speaking grammatically correctly.  I think many people consider that weird.  You will rarely hear me end a sentence with a proposition.  I’m not confused by there, they’re, and their, nor when to use who and whom.  The English teacher at St. Thomas Aquinas school in East Lansing gave me, as a parting gift, the New York Times bestselling book, Eats Shoots and Leaves about proper punctuation and its importance.  I also love helping people understand grammar, using funny tricks.  For example, the way you know how to spell dessert versus desert is that you always want more dessert, and so you add a second “s.” 

           

Deserts (not desserts) play an important role in our readings today.  In the first reading we hear Isaiah say, “A voice cries out: In the desert prepare the way of the Lord!”  And in our Gospel passage St. Mark writes about St. John the Baptist as the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy.  “John,” Mark tells us, “appeared in the desert proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”  Deserts are key in what the Word of God is saying to us today.  And deserts were key for the Chosen People.

            We don’t think of deserts as places of life.  There is such a lack of water, that only the strongest plants that have developed a system to survive can make it.  We’re used to seeing deserts with nothing but sand, like in Death Valley or the Sahara desert.  But Antarctica is also a type of desert.  In any case, deserts are not know for life or being great places to be.  Deserts are places where humans are in a race to beat the elements and find water, the source of life. 

            But, for the Chosen People, the desert was a very important place.  It still wasn’t a very kind place, but it was important.  Desert brought back the memory of the pilgrimage from slavery in Egypt to freedom in the Promised Land.  In between the slavery in Egypt and the land flowing with milk and honey in the Promised Land, there was a desert, in fact 40 years of desert, as the Chosen People did not trust God, and so God did not allow any of those who had rebelled against Him to enter the land He prepared for them.

            Wandering in the desert was not fun, and it didn’t carry with it the best memories for the Jews.  It seems like every other chapter of the pilgrimage to the Promised Land is a complaint of the Jews about how good Egypt (the place of slavery!) was in comparison to wandering in the desert.  There’s no food, no water, and no trust that God will provide them.  At one point, the people complain and God sends little seraph serpents that bite the people to stop their whining.  Even Moses has problems in the desert.  The people were complaining about not having water.  God tells Moses to strike the rock once, and water will flow from it.  But Moses gets so frustrated that he says, “Shall I provide water for you?” and strikes the rock twice.  Because of Moses’ disobedience to God, even he is not allowed to enter the Promised Land.

            And yet, the desert was the place that God continued to draw Israel to Himself, and teach her how much He loved her.  It was where the Israelites learned that no matter what, they could trust God; God will provide.  They always had enough food and drink when they trusted God, and when they trusted God, nothing went wrong.  As much of a trial as the desert was, it was also the sacred space for Israel: the place where they learned how to love and trust God.

            So it makes perfect sense that the desert is the place where preparations are made for the Lord, as Isaiah prophesies.  It makes perfect sense that St. John the Baptist chooses the desert as the place where repentance will take place.  God’s highway is going to go straight through the desert, and God is once more going to teach His Beloved People how to love Him.  In the desert, comfort will be given to Israel as they acknowledge their sins, and their guilt will be expiated, expunged, and a cleansing will take place, a cleansing with water which prepares for a cleansing with the Holy Spirit. 

            Don’t be afraid of the desert!  That is where we learn to love God.  Maybe your desert is an illness or a disease in yourself or a loved one.  Maybe your desert is final exams, or an upcoming test, or just school in general!  In this Year for Marriage in Michigan, maybe your marriage is in a desert.  Do not be afraid!  Illness, difficulties in school, and difficulties in marriage are not good things, but God makes them a means to learn to love Him more.  God makes the desert a sacred place where trials are meant to lead you closer to God and closer to a land flowing with milk and honey.  Do not be afraid, but do not be apathetic, either!  In illness, seek to unite the suffering with Jesus’ on the cross.  In school, see how God teaches you patience in going through things that are difficult or gives you opportunities to rely on others for help (not cheating, mind you!) or just is stretching your mind in a way that will help you become a better person.  In marriage, do not wait until things are really bad and about to fall apart.  Treat yourself to a Marriage Encounter weekend to make a good marriage better.  Or if you do find yourself in a marriage that is falling apart, invest in a Retrouvaille weekend to give your marriage every last chance to be salvaged.  If you are divorced with no hope of reconciliation, go through the process of a Declaration of Invalidity (commonly known as an annulment) to be able to heal those memories and be able to be free to marry again according to God’s plan.  In whatever circumstance you are in, listen to the “voice of one crying out in the desert: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.’”  Everyone wants more dessert, and so we add a second “s.”  Through this Advent, may we also desire the desert as the place where we come to love God more!

"Be Watchful! Be Alert!"

First Sunday of Advent

            Last Sunday I shared with you that I was hit on my way to a dentist appointment in Williamston, and my car was beat up pretty bad.  I was very blest that there was really no damage to my person, and I was able to walk away from the crash; and, after making sure there were no injuries at the ER of Sparrow Hospital in Lansing, I have been pain free since last Monday.  What I didn’t share then is that I had called Shelly in our office (handsfree to be safe!) just to check on a couple of things on my way to the dentist’s office, and Shelly told me, “Drive safely!”  For whatever reason, after hanging-up, I remember thinking: ‘If I died in a car crash today, at least the last thing I would have done was say Mass [at 8 a.m.].’  But then I remember thinking that I shouldn’t be so melodramatic. 

            Obviously I didn’t die!  But since then, not having a scratch on me, and seeing the way the front end of the car looked, my mind has often returned to how different things could have been for me.  In a similar set of circumstances, I’m sure there are people who have not been able to crawl over to the passenger side of the vehicle and climb out.  I’m sure that many people have had broken noses and bruising on their faces.  But I am not one of them.  I escaped from that traumatic event with a small scrape on below my knee and a sore neck for two days; in essence, no real pain or trauma. 

            But when I saw this Gospel passage, and read Jesus saying, “‘Be watchful!  Be alert!  You do not know when the time will come.’” it certainly hit me differently this year than it has before.  If just a few of the details of the crash would have been different, I might have been buried from my first assignment as the sole priest. 

            I could also connect with the first reading from Isaiah: “Would that you might meet us doing right, that we were mindful of you in our ways!  […W]e are sinful; all of us have become like unclean people, all our good deeds are like polluted rags.”  What a joy it would have been to know that the last thing I did was provide Jesus to His people!  What a comfort to know that, for all my sins, my last deed was uniting people to the Blood of Jesus which cleanses us from sin and death!  Maybe it will still be that way.  Priests often hope that the last thing they do on earth is celebrating a sacrament with people, what we in the trade refer to as “dying with our boots on.”  But, as the Prophet Isaiah reminds us, even our good deeds are not enough.  Nothing we can do can earn our way into heaven.  It is Christ who welcomes us into heaven, if we have followed Him to the best of our ability as disciples.  And we know neither the day nor the hour. 

            Staying awake for a long time is hard.  Keeping our attention when it seems like we can slack off can sometimes feel impossible.  But that is what the Lord calls us to.  He calls us to always be people ready for judgment.  He calls us to be “gatekeepers…on the watch.”  My recent car episode has reminded me of that.  And it leads me to ask a question to you and me: what did you do before you came to Mass?  If, God-forbid, you would have died on your way here this morning, what would be the last thing that you did?  Did you yell at your children or embrace them?  Did words of love emanate from your mouth or words of hate?  Did you look down on the homeless man walking along the street, or pray that he may find shelter and a job?

            One of the posts on Facebook in response to the pictures of the car post-crash was from the diocesan Master of Ceremonies, Deacon Tom Fogle.  He wrote, “God has more plans for you if you were able to walk away from this without injury.”  Maybe Deacon Tom just wants me to help him more around the diocese with Masses the Bishop celebrates.  But God does have a plan for my life.  And He has a plan for your life.  And the only person who can really mess with that plan is me; is you.  We are the only ones who can derail that purpose for which God put us on the earth, no matter whether that plan was for a short time, like the sad situation when a child dies in the womb, or whether that plan was for 80 years.  Not even the devil himself can truly stop the plan of God in our life as long as we are willing to cooperate with God.  Bl. John Henry Cardinal Newman put it this way:

God has created me to do Him some definite service.  He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another.  I have my mission.  I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next.  I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons.

He has not created me for naught.  I shall do good; I shall do His work.

I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it if I do but keep His commandments.

Therefore, I will trust Him, whatever I am, I can never be thrown away.  If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him, in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him.  If I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him.  He does nothing in vain.  He knows what He is about.  He may take away my friends.  He may throw me among strangers.  He may make me feel desolate, make my spirit sink, hide my future from me.  Still, He knows what He is about.

            We may not know what God has specifically intended for us.  But we know we are called to follow Him in all things.  We also know that our time is short, especially compared to eternity.  Jesus was not melodramatic.  So may we take seriously the serious words of Jesus: “‘Be watchful! Be alert!’”