December 3, 2023
Isaiah laments the chaos and evil. He asks God why He has permitted this. We may ask the same question today.
Key Points
- Advent invites us to look back and forward at the great scope of history.
- Christianity is about real, historical events.
- Jesus fulfills the ancient prophecies.
- He reveals God as present, guiding, and acting in history.
- How does this shed light on our own history and current events?
This is a computer-generated transcription that has been included to make the homily searchable. It has not been verified by the author.
“Why do you let us wander, oh Lord, from your ways, and harden our hearts so that we fear you not? Why do you let us wander? Oh Lord, behold, you are angry, and we are sinful. All of us have become like unclean people. All our good deeds are like polluted rags. We have all withered like leaves. And our guilt carries us away like the wind. There is none who calls upon Your name, who rouses himself to cling to you, for you have hidden your face from us, and have delivered us up to our guilt.” How’s that for a nice optimistic message to start Advent out with? “We are sinful we have become like unclean people; all our good deeds are like polluted rags. We have weathered like leaves; you have hidden your face from us.” And it begins by saying, Why? Why do you let this happen? Oh, Lord. And that’s a question we often have. Why does God let all this mess happen? Why does God let so much suffering happen? And so Isaiah is the great prophet, Isaiah, speaking of this devastation of sin, in which evil seems to triumph, and God seems absent. You have hidden your face from us, like we can’t see you. Where are you? You’ve turned away from us. And so that’s a question a lot of people have today. Where is the Lord? Why is He permitting this? And we might experience that in our own lives. And we might also sense it in our world, in our country, in the Church. Why is God letting this happen. And so we can ask that about our own lives, and maybe our own history. Advent, and especially this very beginning of Advent, has a particular characteristic. Because it invites us to look at the whole scope of human history. It invites us to look back to the very beginning and invites us to look forward to the very end. So to look at this immense compass of human history, from ancient prophecies to the goal of all history. And Christianity, distinct from many religions, is about historical events, about things that happened. It’s not just about the moral teachings, or enlightened thoughts, or a philosophy of life. Or it’s not about a myth of things that happened in some faraway place in time. But it’s a history of real events in our world. And one of the things that’s so striking about the Bible, is that the Bible is a book of history. And it’s not just like, say, the Koran, which is given, the Muslims believe was given to Muhammad, just to him, just in his lifetime, or the Mormons believe that Joseph Smith got these great revelations. But Christianity is a religion, which are the great book of our Bible spans many centuries. It’s much easier to pretend that so and so was a great prophet or messenger from God. It’s much harder to do that when you’re talking about all these different writers over many centuries. It’s a lot harder to fake that when you have prophecies from centuries ago, and then their fulfillment, their mysterious fulfillment, many, many, many centuries later. And so, Christianity, our Christianity, which begins, the Scripture which begins with creation, and ends with the great wedding feast of the Lamb but is about God acting in this world. Again, it’s not just about teachings. It’s that there’s a lot of teaching in scripture. But it’s also about a God who is acting. It’s a book of the history of God acting. Sometimes His action is very dramatic. Sometimes his action is very hidden, subtle, and gradual. But through all of this, God is active. And so Advent invites us to look at this great scope of history. And so just to just recall very quickly some of the great stages that begins with God, creating, and man, the first man or woman sinning, and the terrible disorder that begins then. But then the whole action of God gradually beginning to bring, His, to gradually beginning this great work of salvation, preparing His people, calling Abraham out of Err, the great ancient city of Err. History is talking about how they may I don’t know maybe it’s maybe it’s the most ancient city or one of the most ancient cities, we have records of the city where Abraham was living. We have the Chaldeans, and then the Lord, gradually gathering and forming people, then leading them out of Egypt, to that particular place in the Holy Land, and then announcing a savior and prophecy. And then a lot of good and mediocre and bad responses, and demanding a king, and the infidelities of the kings and the people, the prophets warning them, and then the terrible devastation and exile. And then many centuries, where the prophets were silent, there were no prophets. And then suddenly, a man comes out of the desert, John the Baptist, and begins preaching repentance, and announcing that the one that they have been waiting for, is about to come, it is not him, he is announcing His coming. And then Jesus begins His ministry. And that we heard these words of Isaiah today, “Lord, return for the sake of Your Servants, the tribes of your heritage, oh, that you would rend the heavens, that you would rip open the heavens and come down.” Because man has felt like this, this immense, immense infinite gulf between him and God. And so he’s wanting God to rip open the heavens, and come, “while you wrought awesome deeds that we could not hope for, such as they had not heard of from of old. No ear has ever heard. No, eye has ever seen any God but you are doing such deeds for those who wait for him.” So this ancient prophecy of Isaiah, where it seems like just like a pipe dream, and yet in Jesus, it happens. It has already happened. God has already ripped open the heavens and come down. The infinite distance between God and man has been bridged by God, doing what no one could have imagined. By God becoming man, and not just becoming man, but sacrificing Himself for this extreme weight of sin, to free humanity from this weight of sin. And so what Isaiah said has happened. It’s not just something we’re hoping for. It’s already happened. And it happened beyond all expectations. You know, so often it happens like, and publicity is an advertisement. They advertise on it’s really like this is gonna change your life. You know, it’s a new toothpaste or mouthwash or something like that, that’s gonna change your life and you get it and it doesn’t really change your life. Maybe your breaths a little bit better but doesn’t change your life. You know, so often it’s always over promising, whereas God doesn’t do that. He makes a promise, but he over fulfills beyond expectations. “That you wrought awesome deeds that we cannot hope for. no ear has ever heard. No, eye ever seen any God but you’re doing such deeds for those who wait.” So in Jesus Christ, we have the realization or realization of the of this God becoming man and so In the life of Jesus is the great proof. The life, death and resurrection of Jesus is the great proof of our Lord, accomplishing so many of the ancient prophecies. Some of them He accomplished completely in His first coming. And some of them He began the accomplishment, which will only be fully realized, in His final coming. But it shows that Jesus is true. God is true. Jesus is our God, He is true, He is powerful, He is faithful, He is loving. He has ripped open the heavens. So this reveals that Jesus is the Lord of history. Because human history is often so tragic. So sad, so dark, so heartbreaking. When you learn about history, when you know about history, it’s just so much of it is so, so sad. And yet, and I’ll quote the words of Saint John Paul, in his very first encyclical, he says, which is entitled, precisely Redemptor hominis, the redeemer of man. And he says, “the redeemer of man, Jesus Christ, is the center of the universe and of history,” the redeemer of man, Jesus Christ, is the center of the universe. So he’s not just some man, even one important man among many. He is the center of the whole universe, and the center of history. You know, many people have felt that history is just a chaos of random events. Because that’s what the way it often feels like. And so this is a view of faith. We don’t always see this, but this is the view of faith that Jesus Christ is the center of universe and of history. And the pope quotes that the Vatican, the Vatican II document, Gaudium et Spes, that says, this beautiful quote, Christ is the Lord and the goal of human history, the Lord of human history, that is all under His dominion. And He is also, the goal all human history is leading to Him. He is the focal point of the longings of history and of civilization. All He is, the deepest longing of all human hearts says He is the center of the human race. So He’s not, He’s not the founder of one religion, among many. He is the center of the whole human race. And then that goes on to say, He is the joy of every heart, and the fulfillment of all its yearnings of all that yearnings. That is, we don’t need Jesus and something else. Everything that we hope for and beyond that we could hope for, is fulfilled in Jesus Christ, because He is God. I read that again, “Christ is the Lord in all of human history, the focal point of the love in the history of civilization, the center of the human race, the joy of every human heart, and the fulfillment of all its yearnings.” So Jesus is the Lord of history. And that means that He is also the Lord of your history. God is present and acting in history. And again, we don’t always feel that, we don’t always experience that. But we know it by faith, history, He is moving history, He is leading history. History is not just some random series of events; He is leading it towards a goal. It’s not just a blind force, or, or impersonal laws of science, but it is God Himself. It’s a battle. So there’s, there’s an enemy that’s working against Him and enemies, always working to delay or to destroy His plans. But beyond the power of the enemy, He is leading it to the triumph of His kingdom, in which He will gather forever His family. So, again, He is the Lord of history. So He is also the Lord of your personal history. And even in the dark times when things seem chaotic, and dominated by evil, when He seems absent, like think of that long period, in which as they said, the prophets were silent. And the people had no more prophets. And it might have seen them I don’t know it might have seemed to them like is as God left us, or is the time of His marvels over? Or has He abandoned His people? But that then came from the desert, John the Baptist. So that’s a sign that God’s designed are, as I said, are sometimes dramatic and evident. But they’re often hidden, sometimes very hidden and mysterious, like they were at the cross. At the cross, it was so hard to see how this could be, have any part in God’s design to seem like the complete destruction of God’s designs. And His enemies were rejoicing. And yet, the even in that, and especially in that, His hidden designs were working. It seemed like the triumph of the enemy, but it was actually like, you could say, kind of like a trick to draw the enemy in, and to destroy the power of the enemy. And so this is often hidden. And I think of our personal history here at MDM. Where so many times, things have been unclear, and we haven’t, we’re not always sure, like even just beginning, the Mission of Divine Mercy were buying this property, sometimes, it wasn’t real clear. While I think this is what we’re supposed to do. But it’s not real clear. And it’s often only gradually later on that we see more clearly His action. And so in our world today, in the Church today, which is going through a terrible crisis with terrible scandals, and many people are leaving the Church. But in spite of that, we know that in this moment of great crisis, that God’s plans are still active, God has not abandoned His people. And the whole revelation of Divine Mercy, which was given especially for our times. Saint Faustina died in 1938. But it’s just in very recent decades, that has become, her message has become more widely known. And so it’s a special message of God speaking for our times, of His infinite mercy, He knows how bad the situation is, that His children are facing. You know, so many people come to me and say that their children, their grandchildren, and so forth are not, are not going to church, and they’ve turned away. And that’s why we need so much trust in God’s mercy, because He knows how confusing and dark these times are. So God is the Lord of all history. But of course, He respects our human freedom. And so we can ignore Him. We can even oppose Him, as many are doing. Or we can cooperate with Him, work with Him, fight for His kingdom, so that we can share one day, His glory. And that’s the opportunity we have in these critical times that we’re living, to work, to hold on, to fight for His kingdom. St. Paul says, “As we wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will act and who will triumph.” This Advent is a special time of, also, this great time of hope, is a great time, especially with our Blessed Mother, our mother of hope, asking her to help us believe because we struggle. To help us to believe, to trust, to hope in these times. And so as we come together at this beginning of this advent of 2003; 2023, (I was 20 years behind the time, but I am catching up) – coming together at the beginning of this Advent, in, as I say, in these important critical times that we’re living in this whole history, in this whole great scope of history. these difficult times that we’re living have their special role in God’s designs. We don’t always see them. We don’t always understand them. But by faith, we know that everything is in His hands. And with her, we proclaim that Jesus is the Lord, the Lord of history. Jesus, we trust in You. Amen.
KEYWORDS / PHRASES:
Isaiah 63:16-17,19, 64:2-7