Abound in Love

Springtime (1902) by Wincenty Wodzinowski

Here at the end of November, spring feels like a long time ago. Perhaps it’s hard to even recall it, what with the leaves falling from the trees and the days turning colder and darker. But if you can think back to what it felt like in, say, early April – with the first hint of green appearing, and the trees beginning to flower – you might get a sense of the spirit of today’s liturgy.

As we start a new liturgical year, and beginning the season of Advent, the Church wants us to feel just like we might the early days of spring: a certain freshness and vigor, a certain anticipation for what is coming to life around us. In today’s first reading, we heard the prophecy of Jeremiah that a righteous shoot would spring forth for God’s People – a reference not to flowers blossoming or trees budding but to the coming of the Messiah, the Son of David, who will bring newness to God’s People and justice for all of creation. We read this passage (and similar ones like it from Isaiah, Zechariah, and other prophets) as a prophecy of the coming of Christ. Jesus comes into the world bringing righteousness, making things news, and so in anticipation of his coming, we eagerly make ready for what he comes to bring. We prayed to do just that in the opening Collect of today’s Mass: “Grant your faithful, we pray, almighty God, the resolve to *run forth* to meet your Christ”.

We tend to think of Advent as the time to get ready for Christmas, the celebration of Christ’s birth. But in these early days of Advent, the Church encourages us to think more of the Lord’s second coming at the end of time. That’s what the Lord himself speaks to his disciples about in today’s Gospel. Jesus tells them that despite the fact that his return will be preceded by terrifying sights, even people literally dying of fright, he wants his disciples to act differently than the rest: not cowering in fear, but standing erect, with raised heads, awaiting their redemption. Again, we see: Jesus himself brings newness and righteousness, and so to await his return is to prepare also for what will come with him.

The question then is how to prepare? How do we run forth to meet Christ, especially if we don’t know when he will return? There are many things we might consider, but perhaps we can focus on two things that St. Paul suggests in our second reading. Writing to the Thessalonian community, he first asks God to make them “increase and abound in love.” He phrases it as a prayer, but it is clear he wants them to grow in charity. And so too should we. To love – as a Christian, as a follower of Jesus – has to mean more than the ordinary, generic loves that we all know and enjoy: loving family, loving friends, loving people that love us. Christian love must be something much harder and more dogged: loving the people we don’t like; loving the people who don’t like us; loving the people who have hurt us, who annoy us, who talk bad about us; loving those whom we think are selfish, or prideful, or rude. To love as a Christian means treating people charitably on the outside – even when we are having a bad day, or running low on energy, or feeling as if we have been mistreated – but also seeking to be truly charitable toward them on the inside: in our thoughts, in our judgments, even in our emotions. To love as a Christian means to try to see Jesus in everyone, always, without exceptions.

Perhaps you are thinking, “Father, I already do all that.” If so, great! But listen to the second thing that St. Paul tells the Thessalonians: “do so even more.” Advent is a great time to double down on our efforts to show charity, and to really consider where the Lord is calling us to “increase and abound” in love. Maybe it is a specific individual whom we know, who pushes our buttons or with whom we have a difficult history. Maybe it is not someone we know personally, but rather some government or civil leader that we disagree with politically, or members of some group or organization that we think is doing bad things to our society, or maybe it is some whole class of folks based upon language, or skin color, or religion, or even sports affiliation. A good way of asking ourselves whom we can love more is asking ourselves, “Is there someone I am tempted to hate – some person or group that I am tempted to scorn, or talk bad about, or dismiss out of hand?” If the answer is yes, then we’ve found our answer as to who the Lord is calling us to love. For the Christian, our efforts to show charity are expressions of our love for God; if we are struggling to be charitable to others, it may be because we need to first grow in love for him.

Friends, to increase and abound in love sounds great, but it’s no easy thing; it requires us often to swallow our pride, to humble ourselves, to realize that we all have a lot of room still to grow in charity. But the good news is that if we seek to let our love increase and abound, we often experience something like a spiritual springtime, a certain freshness and vigor of the Lord’s grace empowering us to love others and, in so doing, preparing us well for his return. There’s no better gift we can offer him in this Advent season than to live out more faithfully his commandment to love, the commandment that he tells us should be our defining characteristic: “By this everyone will know you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

May the grace of this Eucharist inflame our hearts with the charity of Jesus that our love for others may abound in this season, in every season, until the day the Lord returns in glory.

The King Appears

Appearances can be deceiving. That’s a lesson we have all learned a time or two, most importantly about people. Perhaps you’ve had that experience of meeting someone and finding them at first a bit gruff or taciturn, but after getting to know them better, you discover that there’s a warm and kindly heart beneath their rough exterior. Or take the opposite case. Often those who laugh and seem carefree can be going through a difficult interior struggle on the inside. In the age of social media, and hyper-interest in the lives of celebrities, we quickly learn that appearances can be deceiving.

We could say that same lesson is at the heart of today’s Solemnity of Christ the King. In today’s Gospel, Jesus and Pontius Pilate discuss whether he is a king, as his followers claim him to be. It certainly doesn’t seem like Jesus is a king. Yes, he had ridden into Jerusalem to great fanfare and acclamation, but he had quickly been scorned, betrayed, arrested, mocked, and tortured. And now he stood bloodied and humiliated before Pilate, the governor of the Roman province of Judea and Caesar’s personal representative to the region. To believe this was a king would appear to be something utterly ridiculous.

And yet, remember – appearances can be deceiving. Pilate himself wonders if there is perhaps more to this battered and broken man than meets the eye. He puts the question to Jesus: Are you a king, as your followers believe you to be? He’s thinking however in earthly terms, wondering where Jesus’s kingdom could be and trying to figure out what kind of king could let himself be treated this way. Jesus’s response – “You say that I am a king” – is intentionally ambiguous. He speaks of a kingdom, but one not of this world.

Pontormo, Christ Before Pilate (c. 1525)

Jesus himself will not settle the question. He says he has come into the world to bear witness to the Truth; it is up to those who hear him to make up their minds about him. That means not just Pilate, but us too. Many people today can’t accept Jesus as their king. Some end up rejecting him explicitly, as Pilate did. Many more do so implicitly – because his kingdom is not of this world, because his reign does not bring an end to suffering now, nor perfect justice on earth. Whether consciously or unconsciously they move on from Jesus – they relegate him to the past, or to dusty theology books, or at best give him an hour on Sunday then spend the rest of their time seeking happiness and trying to deal with their problems in the way they think best.

It is only to those with the gift of faith that we see those precise questions – suffering, injustice, how to seek happiness, how to find meaning in a broken world – can’t be answered apart from Jesus, but only with him, and precisely by his kingship. Two thousand years on, it is by the power of faith, it is in the faith of believers that the kingship of Jesus is revealed – not an earthly reign, as Pilate was expecting, but a kingship given to him from on high and one day to be revealed to all. As the Church, we hear the voice of the Risen Lord speaking to us, bearing witness to the Truth, and by his grace we too bear witness to him as Truth. We cannot yet see the full extent of his kingdom, but we don’t let contrary appearances dissuade us. Many may have given up on Jesus, but not us. And what’s more, for those who haven’t come to believe in Christ, we won’t come give up on them either, because the Lord won’t give up on them. He wants us to continue to proclaim his kingship to all – both by what we profess and more importantly by the manner of how we live – awaiting with hope that day of final revealing, and experiencing even now, in mystery, the spiritual gifts of kingdom.

Friends, as we say in the baptismal liturgy, “This is our faith. This is the faith of the Church. We are proud to profess it in the name of Christ Jesus our Lord.” So much might appear to suggest there’s no way Jesus could be our King, but we know appearances can be deceiving, in his case above all! Let’s recognize the Lord as king now, and live like it, so that when he appears we shall be ready. As we celebrate this Eucharist, let’s examine our hearts to ensure we are not deceived with what’s going on in our lives, so that by the grace of his Sacrament, the Truth of the Lord will be visible for all to see.