2nd Sunday Advent A 2019 Repentance and Hope

John preached repentance and with repentance comes hope. Hope is of course what this Advent season is about.

But we hope for different things, don’t we?

Children hope for toys.

The older children, especially teens, live in a changing world and ever-growing realization of things around them. They might be hoping for quiet, understanding …. along with a new iPhone. Some people hope for companionship, maybe even a new love interest. Parents hope to be able to provide a wonderful Christmas for children and family. Grandparents hope to see children and hope grandchildren visit. Workers are looking forward to time off.
Some may be hoping to make it through the Christmas season in peace amid all the activities. I know a few deacons and priests and church ministers and dads that have a peaceful stress-free Christmas on their wish list.

All Christians hope for peace and love and that others might grow closer to Christ.

Maybe that we will grow closer to Christ this Christmas.

 

And hope to be closer to God, brings us to John the Baptist.

John the Baptist preached repentance and returning to God. And while we often think of repentance as only the stopping of sin, repentance is really more about turning TO GOD rather than turning away from sin. Certainly, turning away from sin and turning to God are two sides to the same coin. But if we turn from sin but do not turn to God, we are wasting our time and will never bear fruit. Turning from sin doesn’t automatically mean we turn to God But turning to God requires us to turn from sin.

Many decisions we make are like that aren’t they.

When I was a teenager and trying to make decisions about my future, I was told that not to decide is to decide and more precisely, that to choose one thing means deciding not to choose other things. It is a, yes, for one thing and a, no, for other options.

And for each decision made, to be successful, whether it is turning to God or saying yes to a calling, commitment is required. To choose a career and then change your mind ever week means you really never chose.

To choose a spouse and then turn away from them because you lacked commitment or discipline means you never really said yes in the first place. In Canon law it is called defective consent. We must be able to say yes and commit to one thing and say no to others.

To repent and say yes to God does indeed mean we must say no to sin. And we hope for God’s help and strength to help us keep that decision. And we need help saying, yes, every day.

Because it doesn’t matter what we did yesterday. It doesn’t matter how wonderfully we prayed or were charitable or serving. It is what happens today that matters.

It doesn’t even matter if we are priests or deacons or married and have formally said yes to a new life and commitment. We still need to wake up every morning and say yes. Yes, to marriage, yes to a vocation. And yes, to Jesus Christ and his way.

I converted to Catholicism 38 years ago and knew when I knelt down after taking communion for the first time that I had made a decision for one thing and against a whole bunch of other things. It was a no to an old life and even lifelong friends and yes even family. Old ways and activities and things detrimental to my new life in Christ had to be turned away from and many times that was painful.

A yes for Christ means a no for anything or anyone that gets in the way.

So John tells us today to repent. Turn to God. And we must do this, this Advent and every day. There is no easy button. There is no one and done, like getting a certificate for accomplishment and then moving on. No, repentance and returning to Christ means we say yes to him each day and no to sin.

And those days when we struggle with our, yes, we ask for help from God. And that is the beauty in what we do here. We do not repent alone. We do not have to face the challenges of this world and this season alone. We just need to turn to Christ and let go of everything else. Let go of yesterday, it’s over and let tomorrow be for now.
St Therese of Lisieux tells us

“If I did not simply live from one moment to another, it would be impossible for me to be patient, but I only look at the present, I forget the past, and I take good care not to forestall the future.”

I think we are the same. We need to focus on today and this moment. We spend so much energy worrying about yesterday, grieving losses, revisiting mistakes. We worry ever more about tomorrow.

And while planning and preparing for the future is not a bad thing, worrying and thinking we can control everything and avoid failure is too much. We may indeed face trouble and failure tomorrow.

We can’t control this world. And all of us will face failures.

It is then though we need to remember our yes, to turn to God, and keep on track. Focus on Christ and his love and get up and keep moving forward. It is then we will find greater strength, resolve, peace and love.  But make no mistake about it. Failing is part of life.

We will fail even in our repentance.

Even in the one decision, the one yes, more important than all else, the yes to turn to God, we will fail. And that is why we have confession. To help bring us back once again to a yes to Jesus.

In a couple of weeks, we will celebrate God becoming man to save us. God whose mercy allows us to turn back once again.

Do we really understand in our hearts what that means?

In the story of the prodigal son the Father and elder son wait for the younger wayward son to return home from a life that resulted in envying pigs for the husks they were fed. Even the Father who did go and meet him when he saw him waited for him to make the journey home first.

In the kingdom of God, which Jesus brings to you and me, he did not wait, but left the Father to take our hand as we sat like the prodigal son in the pigsty eyeing the husks the pigs were eating. Sitting in our sin and lostness, in our darkness. He reaches out his hand in the flesh even today where we are and says come home. Come back with me to the Father.

Our Mother Mary too calls to us to come home. Do you remember perhaps when as children we played outside all day? I know how strange, right. (Kids ask your parents what it was like.) Toward the end of the day, as it was getting dark the streetlights would come on. And if we didn’t head home immediately, Mom would be yelling for us to come home to eat and be with the family at the table. Mom would call her children literally out of the darkness into the light of a home.

Well, Mary calls us now, this Advent, to turn away from whatever draws us away from Jesus and return, to his table, return to our home, return to the light of the table. For our Holy Family waits our return.

Return home this Advent by doing three things.

1. Go to the confession services offered here and at other parishes. It is a gift so we can always return to God and this is a great time to use gifts given by God.
2. Whatever your work is, bear fruit by working and dealing with others in charity, fairness and live your Christianity, your yes to God in how you treat others in the workplace. Be the beacon of Light at work.
3. And lastly share what you have been given. Share your money, but certainly and more importantly share the relationship you have with God with others.

Be John the Baptist who was desperate to tell everyone that the time is now to turn to God and come back to the light. We all hope for many things this Advent. But the greatest hope this Advent is the gifts Jesus gave us in the Eucharist and Confession. Gifts that bring us back to the light and promise of Christmas.