HOMILY ADVENT SUNDAY 4-B
Trust In God and be a Beacon of Hope and Light to the World
(2 Samuel 7:1-5b, 8b-12. 14a, 16; Psalm 89; Rm 16:225-27; Luke 1:26-38)
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Years ago, noted television personality and writer Malcomb Muggeridge spent some time working with Mother Teresa in the slums of Calcutta. He noted that one of the forces that kept her going amidst all that suffering was her all-consuming desire to “Do something beautiful for God.”
Today, we are encouraged to trust in God, and let God do something beautiful in us – to fill us with faith and hope for the world.
In the first reading, King David sounds like Mother Teresa. He is now a successful king. There is more peace and stability in his kingdom, and he wants to do something great – build a temple for God. The prophet Nathan quickly sets him straight. It is God who has plans for him, who will surprise him, make him a great nation in a mysterious way. God will provide for David an offspring who will be Son of God, and establish his house and throne forever.
It is David’s son, Solomon, who builds the magnificent temple, and his dynasty runs for around 400 years until 587 BCE when the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem, burnt down the temple and dragged the people off into exile. Described in 2 Kings, this tragically marked the end of the Davidic line, as Zedekiah, the last king of Israel, was blinded and died in exile after his sons were killed.
While the people must have questioned the providence of God, the sacred writers preserved the memory of God’s promise to David, as this passage from 2 Samuel was written after the exile had ended. They were hoping against hope, and sure enough, after another 500 years had elapsed, in a surprising, totally unforeseen way, that trustworthiness of God began to be fulfilled.
In the gospel, we see it happening. Showing the particularity of God’s loving design, the angel Gabriel comes to an obscure small town in Galilee, to a young maiden, and greets her with words reserved for divinity – “Hail, full of grace!” Then he informs her she will conceive by the power of the Holy Spirit, and give birth to a son. That child will also be the Son of God, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David. He will reign over that house forever, and his kingdom will have no end. Suddenly, God’s promise to David is being fulfilled.
Mary then hastens to visit her barren cousin Elizabeth who is also with child, and we marvel at the humble way God works in our lives. Two poor, unknown, simple country women, Mary and Elizabeth, are quietly, without fanfare, touched by God’s spirit. They conceive within the darkness of their wombs two children who are Jesus and John the Baptist. Those two children changed the course of human history, indeed the history of the universe and all of creation. The Creator has now come to live among us, more, to live within us, and to love us totally as light in the darkness of the world.
There is darkness in our communities, our country and our world. Even a moment of reflection brings up things like a rate of suicide among the First Nations five times the national average; family break-ups; neglected kids; addictions of all kinds; marriages failing; misuse of public funds, dishonesty and corruption at all levels of government; the profit motive and greed reigning supreme causing the gap between the rich and the poor to grow wider daily; horrific war in too many countries, and on and on.
1,000 years ago, at the last millennium, history shows that people had five major fears: poverty, invasion, epidemics, violence, and death. Has anything changed? People and governments today also fear renewed poverty, invasion by immigrants, an opioid crisis, horizontal and family violence, and death. Disintegration of family, fundamentalism, polarization, addictions and globalization are characteristics of the darkness in our society today.
Are we to despair? Not one who has faith. For the person of faith in Jesus Christ, there is every reason to hope. Hope is the main thrust of the pastoral letter Pope JP II wrote to the church on the eve of the millennium. And hope is the main message of the mystic Julien of Norwich who famously wrote, “All will be well and all will be well, and in the end, all manner of being will be well.”
What happened so quietly and mysteriously 2,000 years ago in Mary and Elizabeth continues to happen in those who believe. Faith makes all the difference, the faith of Mary who is an example of what Paul calls the “obedience of faith” to which we are called. Faith leads to hope, and hope leads to love.
As all the darkness in the world cannot overpower a single candle, so all the darkness in the world cannot overpower those with faith. Through strong faith in Jesus Christ who is the light to the world, we become, each in our own way, light to the world around us, giving others hope and showing the way of quiet, powerful, healing love that makes present the kingdom of God which Jesus established in our world for all time. We believe that love has come to live within us. We are now the Temple of God, of the Holy Spirit of Jesus. We have every reason to hope.
There are signs and glimmers of that light and hope all around: people on healing journeys; communities who are healing and confronting their abusers; people who are learning to communicate and forgive; more and more lay ministry. Returning To Spirit is one such sign of hope. Developed by an Algonquin facilitator with the help of a sister of St. Anne, it puts First Nations and Euro-Canadian participants through separate weeklong healing and personal growth sessions, then brings the two groups together for three days of dialogue and reconciliation.
Little by little, God’s spirit is at work in our lives and in our darkness, including this pandemic, through faith in Jesus Christ, bringing hope and new life and light to our poor, suffering, unbelieving world. We are part of it for we are the Church, the Body of Christ, the new House and Throne of David.
The Eucharist is our anchor, our foundation. In it we confess our need for forgiveness, proclaim God’s Word, profess our faith, and receive the Body of Christ so that we might become more and more like Christ, who is the light to the world.
So, let us have faith, trust in God’s faithfulness, and let Christ make us a light to the world, and a beacon of hope and love that will overcome all the darkness. Let our light shine.
