Homily for December 2, 2007 First Sunday of Advent

We have several different things going on today, and I want to try, in some way, to pull them together.
When I was asked if we could have a baptism of babies during Advent, to tell you the truth, I don't know if we can or not. I'm sure the question arose  was it Advent when you got married? [We had a couple who had gotten married 40 years ago this day at Holy Cross.] The day before. I'll bet some people thought you shouldn't get married during Advent. But then I thought, Advent is about preparing for the birth of Jesus, and what better time to celebrate birth and new life and marriage than during this season of Advent?
I was reading a criticism of the liturgical year in the newspaper yesterday that said the church goes in a cyclical year, but our lives are not cyclical; our lives are linear. Mainly, people's lives go on, people are getting married, they're dealing with grief, they're dealing with whatever is happening in their life, in spite of the cycles that we celebrate in the church year. You might feel like you're more at Easter time than you are at Advent time; you might feel more like you're in Lent than you're in Advent.
So I know the fact that we're celebrating Advent doesn't mean that that's where everybody is in their life. But, you know, I don't believe that our lives are linear, either. I believe they come in waves. Do you know what I mean? A wave comes and moves us in this direction, then it subsides. Then another wave comes and moves us. Sometimes they wash over us. Sometimes we get caught up in them.
In those waves there are certain images that keep coming back over and over and over. There are images of light and darkness. You know, it's no accident that we celebrate Christmas in December. We had a Mass yesterday and I asked the young people, “do we know when the birthday of Jesus was?” Not really. You know why we celebrate Christmas December 25? The winter solstice. The days are getting shorter and shorter. Darkness seems to be prevailing. December 22nd will be the shortest day of the year, and then, imperceptibly, the days will get bigger.
The ancient Romans celebrated a feast in honor of the unconquered sun, and we Christians, as we do all the time, we took it over and made it our own, to celebrate the birth of Jesus.
That theme of darkness and light comes again and again in our life. And there are other images. The image of wakefulness and sleep, alertness and drowsiness, attentiveness and drunkenness  those images occur again and again in our lives. Images of birth and rebirth, of life and death, occur again and again in our life. And images of hope, the dawn of new light, the dawn of hope, the coming of peace and our longing for peace  that image occurs again and again in our life. And the image of freedom and captivity occurs again and again in our life. Sin and forgiveness are related to this as are images of fidelity and infidelity. Can you relate to it?
Are there any other big themes that I've left out? I think I covered most, Yes? (Inaudible.) Anticipation, right, and surprise. So, that sense of longing, that something big is about to happen. As Glenn mentioned at the beginning, we want to focus on hope during this season of Advent. The first reading gives us beautiful images of hope.
What would happen if God was the arbitrator of all of our disputes? What would happen if God was the arbitrator between nations, and between governments? What do you think? We might beat all of our weapons into the ground. Nations might decide that they didn't need them anymore, that they didn't need to prepare for war, because God would arbitrate all of our disagreements.
Let me ask you, do you think the United States government would buy into that? Not really, because we would want to insist on our national sovereignty and on nobody being above us. And yet that image and that hope is there in Isaiah. Nations will come to God’s holy mountain. They will receive instruction from God. They will learn God’s ways. God will judge between them. God will impose terms. And then the nations will turn their weapons and the use of resources that goes into production of weapons toward the production of food. I ask again, do you think the United States government would buy into that? Do you think other governments would? Would the U.S. be the leader or the follower in that movement?
I want to read you a poem about hope that I think ties together wedding anniversaries -- because of  you've been married 40 years, you've got grandchildren here, right? -- and tiess in so it ties grandchildren and children, and it ties together the image of loving what we can't see and longing for what we can't see. And the poem is by a man named Rubem Alves, and it's called Tomorrow's Child.
[The poem was read in its entirety in church but is not quoted here because of copyright laws. The poem mentioned that hope is a pre-sentiment that our imagination is more real and reality less real than it looks. It expressed the conviction that the oppression we see is not the last word. It expressed a connection between suffering and hope. “Suffering without hope produces resentment and despair.” “hope without suffering creates illusions. It ends with suggesting we plant dates even hough we will never eat them and that we love what we cannot see.]
Well, in hope, we baptize these children today. In hope for the life that our grandchildren will have, we try to work for peace in our world. In hope for the world that our grandchildren will grow up in, we try to protect our environment. In hope for our grandchildren's future, we commit ourselves to welcoming the light of Christ.