Advent Sunday2 Year B (10 Dec 2017)
Homily of Fr. Paul Panaretos, S.J.
Creation Kissed
When did our end begin? For Christians end means fulness of time, we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness will be at home. God’s righteousness created our original innocence. God’s righteousness and our original innocence harmonize with one another. That is what Jesus revealed by his living and announcing that God draws near. Our Christian end, that is, the fulfilment of history, began with the first arrival of Jesus.
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The Advent season opens each year with a look at the fulfilment of history; then it turns our eyes to Jesus’ first arrival. Advent’s First Sunday bridges what the gospels of the final Sunday of the church year invite us to consider: the summing up all of creation in Christ Jesus and our participation in it. At Jesus’ first arrival he began his call to others to join his mission. The rest of Advent helps us look again at the way God worked Jesus’ arrival for us in human circumstances: of time; location; culture; and faith.
The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God. Those words are words of faith; they entitle the Gospel of Mark. Its first hearers would have been more astonished on hearing them than most of us today. To titles describe Jesus: Christ, that is, Messiah; and Son of God. That the God of Israel would have a son was impossible to imagine. God personally accompanied the people Israel and each person from the beginning; and God was also totally unlike people. A messiah, one God would anoint and appoint, was possible to imagine. Indeed, people had come to long for a messiah who would resemble King David and Prophet Moses. All the prophets after Moses would speak of God’s heartfelt longing to re-accompany God’s people. But that God would personally do that in flesh and blood—Jesus, God’s son—was beyond most everyone.
For the early church today’s responsorial psalm captured essentially how Jesus embodied God. God’s salvation drew near in Jesus; in Jesus: Kindness and truth met; justice and peace kissed. Truth sprang out of the earth, and God’s justice…walked the earth in a way we too may walk.
In scripture a kiss signalled greeting—of family and friends; it expressed marital love; it also expressed loyalty. God kissed creation by entering it as human. By God’s kiss friendship, love and loyalty received new status. That status and solidarity Christians ex-pressed to one another with the holy kiss.1 After the newly baptized were dressed in brilliant white robes the next ritual was the first holy kiss of greeting, a greeting repeated throughout their lives.
To celebrate the beginning of our salvation, beginnings of our redemption or beginnings of God’s grace,2 the Incarnation of God in Jesus, son of God and son of Mary two things may help us enter this mystery: losing ourselves in God’s love for creation; love so deep that God kissed creation to entered it as human. Second, we may ponder: does the Christian holy kiss shape and sustain our eager longing for new heavens and a new earth in which God’s righteousness will be at home? Every element in the story of God’s advent and birth as human can help our holy kiss purify our societies and our creation.
In your daily 15 minutes with Jesus this week
- Pause in the bright love of our triune God who loves us enough to become human for us.
- Ask John the Baptizer to present us to Jesus.
- Chat with him: praise Jesus for embodying God in human flesh, bone and emotion; thank Jesus for calling us to join him and his mission.
- Ask Jesus for the grace to lose ourselves in his love that transforms every relationship—with creation, with others, with God.
- Close saying slowly the Lord’s Prayer. Jesus gave us his words as our guide to walk eagerly in his steps of his kindness, comfort, mercy and peace. His prayer reminds us we enjoy already his kindness, comfort, mercy and peace and will enjoy them fully at his glorious return.
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- Romans 16.16; 1Corinthians 16.20; 2Corinthians 13.12; 1Thessalonians 5.26; 1Peter 5.14.
- From the Roman Missal: the first is from the Christmas Vigil Mass, Prayer over the Offerings; the second is from its Octave Day, Prayer over the Offerings
Link to this homily’s Spiritual Exercise
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