First Sunday of Advent – 1 December 2024
There used to be a Chinese curse which went, “May you live in interesting times!” It is hard to know whether we live under this curse at this time, but we certainly live in a time of great change. As Pope Francis himself remarked recently, it is not even that we live in an era of change, but that we live in a change of era. And it is this that make the times even more interesting.
Because of the uncertainty of change and the insecurity that pervasive change engenders in most of us, it is easy to resist change and to defend ourselves from its demands in different ways. We can develop a defensive nostalgia for the past, for example, or we can rush toward the future desperately trying to construct in such a way that we remain in control. Or we can simply deny anything is taking place around us and go on living oblivious to what is happening.
The hardest challenge for us in a situation of change, is to listen deeply, to be alert for both the dangers and the possibilities. In fact, the full Chinese proverb goes, “May you live in interesting times when danger and possibility exist in equal tension.” It is not easy to wait with all that is occurring, to take the fullest picture into account and slowly but surely to discern where the most appropriate pathways lay. Most often our anxiety won’t allow us this space, this quiet. Yet, foundations for the future are built most solidly through a discernment which is full of care, patience and quiet expectation. When we can approach change with this attitude of mind and heart, then we make a friend of change. It is not our enemy. In fact, we begin to realise that change is actually the mother of creativity, of growth, of something new coming to birth in us. Change is actually the pre-condition of growth. No change, no growth. Change is an opportunity for the Kingdom of God to come further into the world; change is a doorway through which the Kingdom of God enters into our world. We must approach change then, with a sense of attentiveness and reverence and expectation rather than with fear, defensiveness or despair. We are to sift through all that is happening and to try and discern where and how the marks of the Kingdom might be presenting themselves in and through all that is happening. This is why the Gospel calls us to be always alert, to live with awareness.
In the poetic style of his day Jesus speaks of a time of great change coming: an old order passing, and a new order being introduced. It was the literary style of the people of his time to describe such pervasive change in apocalyptic terms, i.e. in terms of upheaval and catastrophe. But when they write of such upheaval they are primarily talking not about what is going to happen in the future. They are talking about the change that has already occurred in the encounter with Jesus. The life of Jesus, his Death and Resurrection, have brought about the most radical change. An older order has been destroyed; a new order has come into being. Something new has been born in our midst: the invitation to reconciliation has transformed the drudgery of alienation, justice has transformed the harshness of injustice, atonement has transformed the cruelty of arrogance, the warmth of acceptance has overcome the coldness of bitterness, reverence has overwhelmed exploitation; mercy has come into our midst. Hope has been birthed in our world.
And what is hope? Hope is the recognition that no matter how dark might be the circumstances, there is always a future. The victory has been won! Christ has come, is coming, and will come! And, therefore, we are not those who are afraid of the future, but those for whom the future is always given to us a gift, in which there is always an invitation, a possibility.
This, then is the theme of the Jubilee of 2025 into which Pope Francis has called us. Every 25 years as a Church we pause, we reflect, we re-order our priorities, we celebrate. And this year our focus is on hope, bringing hope to our world. We are to be agents of hope, bearers of hope to one another.
It does not take much. A smile, a word, a thoughtful gesture. Each time we convey hope, however. we demonstrate the change that the life of Jesus has brought into our world; each time we share hope we bring to birth that life. The birth of Jesus is not just our celebration, therefore. It is our responsibility.
We live in interesting times. May this not be a curse for us, but instead a blessing – a blessing for us, a blessing for those whose lives we touch and with whom we share the hope that Christmas brings our world.
