For nearly all of us, the time of waiting that is Advent is over before it has begun. Usually, most of our celebrations of the feast have already taken place in the season of preparation: four weeks and it is over in two. This year it is different, as the national feelings have been subdued, and we are anxious about the mutations to the virus, the dangers coming closer, perhaps further lockdowns, and what the future holds for us in 2021.
But, while we are used to the mounting pitch of celebration
and its climax on Christmas Day, for the the Mother of God and St Joseph, this
their day of glory is really when their waiting begins in earnest. So this year
our experience is theirs, and their perspective is ours.
What lies ahead? First, we and they both, whose life at home
has been disrupted, must remain distant from the life-assuring closeness of family
and friends for months. While we face our own kind of uncertainty, St Joseph -
the architect who builds houses - cannot settle his family in a safe dwelling place.
Many of us are unable to reach the places we would normally visit; for them, the
land of Judea makes them strangers and they seek refuge at a distance in Egypt.
Innocents in Bethlehem lose their lives not to an indiscriminate plague, but to
a targeted scourge from an amoral ruler; and Mary remembers what she was told:
that her Child will be set for the rise and fall of many, and that a sword
shall pierce her heart as his life unfolds before her. For our part, we look
out not knowing, but looking forward. Reaching Christmas this year gives us
joy, and light in the darkness, as we steel ourselves to encounter what a new
year heralds, this time without fireworks.
So, this year, are particularly close to the Holy Family of
God the Son, as it faces both the Light Who has come into the world, and looks
out on the dark that gathers to shroud around Him. We have to wait while our
lives are restricted for weeks and months to come; while we are gradually
vaccinated not knowing if our future health requires that we will need to be
vaccinated again; we are held back from the normal human joy of seeing our
family and friends, holding and hugging those we love, and being embraced by
them in return. Even to see those we do
not like or get on with would be a welcome relief to get back to normality, and
put the past behind us. We wait, to know how our lives will develop, whether
work and living will ever be the same again. We wait, not entirely sure how the
lives of those most at risk in our society, the infirm and vulnerable, the
homeless, the powerless and the poor, will be sustained, as we proceed with
some uncertain, flickering lamps rather than clear beams, and walk onto new, untrodden
paths.
But we are not the first to face fears, or to walk paths
that are not well lit. The Holy Family that fled to Egypt under the protection
of St Joseph was following the path of Joseph the patriarch of the Old
Testament, who from a new land brought corn to end a famine in his homeland in
the Holy Land of Canaan. From Egypt’s land of waiting and exile, his
descendants the Hebrews, led by Moses, set out to meet the Lord God in a desert
filled with nothing, received His Word in the Law and the Commandments, just as
we in this desert receive the Word made flesh, and from thence entered into the
Promised Land, that flowed with milk and honey. And just as Moses at the end of that journey
saw across to the Land of Promise from a mountain, so Simeon the Prophet saw
Jesus the Son brought up into His own high Temple and there acclaimed him the
Light of the World. Now at last, he says, I have seen the salvation which You
have prepared before all peoples – a Light to enlighten the nations and the
glory of Your people Israel.
In the same way, we our conveyed along by the hope, too,
that somehow the Lord’s loving hand is there to be with us and uphold us whatever
happens - to bring goodness, mercy, kindness and blessings wherever and instead
of where adversity has befallen us. In this vale of tears, the tears were His
too. Whatever has torn us to the heart, with all that people have had to deal
with in the strains on our patience, our material resources, our mental
wellbeing, not to mention our hidden spiritual strength, or even to the loss of
life itself, we each one of us have a story of another human being who has come
to us with warmth, and love and selflessness, and made the difference, by the
humanity that we Christians know as the love of God for man, in man, that peace
and good will among people that is also glory to God in the highest, whose Name
is called Jesus, the very Son of Man.
And we have seen this compassion all played out before. For
the Little Donkey that we celebrate in songs, who carried Mary from Nazareth,
and then the Mother of God and her Son to Egypt, had a cousin who carried the
Lord into Jerusalem to face His Passion and the Cross for our sake. The bright
and warm stable with the animals, where the Light of the World first shone, is
a familiar surrounding, when you think another room not His own will be
prepared for that last supper, when Judas will leave the Light and go out into
the night. The shepherds’ fields where the angels sent by God the Father
Himself sang “Glory” at the top of their voices, shift through a crack in time
to reveal their eternal meaning: the night-time dark Garden of Gethsemane,
where the Son will pour out His heart and blood in prayer and those who once sang
“Hosanna” will cry with shouts to arrest Him and take Him to His trial and
execution. The Three Wise Men who come with gifts, give place to a false King
Herod, an unworthy time-serving High Priest Caiaphas, and a foreign power’s
governor, Pilate. They will apply a Crown not of gold but of thorns. They will
not offer the myrrh of salvation from death, but supply Him with vinegar. Nor
can they offer the glory of incense, for the right to be acknowledge the true
King comes not from the highest compliments of earthly importance, but from the
complete self-giving of utter sacrifice, in absolute love without reserve for
us, and unconditional forgiveness.
To Mary at this moment, all this lies ahead; but she awaits
its coming with a steady eye. She prepares for the high joys and the collapse
of hopes, and a sword to pierce her heart, all alike. Unusually on this most
joyful of days, this year we find ourselves waiting with her, looking ahead not
only suffering and the Cross, but what they will bring about. For just as the
birth of the Word made flesh will lead to the crucifixion of that flesh on Good
Friday, so the death on the Cross will lead as day follows night to
resurrection. Because the life to which Mary the Mother of God gave birth
cannot be held back in the dark earth but must break forth and take our lives
and hers with it, bound for a new Promised Land, the Kingdom come on earth as
it is in heaven.
Our beloved Cardinal Hume taught us that when we set out on
such a journey and see light at the end of the tunnel – that is hope. When we see no light yet still proceed on into and
through the tunnel – that is trust. Today with Mary, her hopes and fears, with
the Light of the World before us, we still contemplate the dark around us. As
we go, we wait for what will come, for there is little else, while we are in
this desert; and we persevere not with dismay, but with trust. We go on
with our faith, our love, and our belief in peace and good will, and glory
around and through and beyond it all.
May God fill you with this faith to see you through. May the
road taken by His Son for Your sake lead to new life, new hope and new joy, and
may you know it for yourself. May the love of a Mother’s worry shield and
protect you. And may “the hopes and fears of [these two] years” be met in Jesus
Christ who is the heart of our own heart, “the joy of the whole world”, its
healing and its promise from God that will never be broken. Peace, good will to us all, and glory to God
in highest heaven.
