This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.
There is something that aches about the season of Advent. We look forward to Christmas as the birth of Jesus, something that has already taken place, something glorious, a miraculous and definitive intervention of God in history. But as we meditate on our Advent readings, there is an ache in us that tells us that the Christmas story has not yet reached its happy climax. Jesus has completed His saving act, but His glorious triumph over all creation, and the establishment of His definitive rule, has not yet been fulfilled.
A glorious promise, that of the first reading, which is fulfilled in Jesus: “The scepter shall never depart from Judah.” From this moment of Jacob’s blessing of his son Judah, the tribe of Judah has been symbolized by the Lion–and it still is in Israel today. The Lion’s fairy tale title of King of Beasts no doubt originates in this reading; the Lion is King. And that kingship is to be fulfilled in Jesus, universal King of all creation. Jesus, the greatest Lion of the tribe of Judah, is seen in the book of Revelation opening the scroll of seven seals–opening the true and definitive interpretation and fulfillment of history–a right He has won by being slain as the Lamb. In this same passage, Jesus is both Lion and Lamb.
One of the most striking aspects of biblical prophecy is its fulfillment in real, earthy, human history. The Gospel delineates in black and white how Jesus is descended in lineage from that very Judah who is first called the lion in the first reading.
What aches in all this is that the glorious final triumph has not yet taken place; in fact, all the earthly miseries deriving from sin–sickness, death, catastrophe, tragedy, weakness, temptation–are all very much as potent in our world as they were at the time of Jesus.
We have not yet seen the prophecy of today’s Psalm fully come to pass: “Justice shall flourish in His time, and fullness of peace forever.”
This ache is a gift, however–an Advent gift. When we perceive it within us, let us cry out to God and ask Him to fill us with the gift of His grace this Christmas, won with the Incarnation and with His Passion and Death. May He give us such a measure of grace that we taste and drink deeply of His definitive triumph within our hearts, that which has not fully come to pass yet in the world around us.
Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Tell Jesus how deeply you need Him and long for His presence in your life. Ask for the greatest Christmas gift, the only one that matters: The gift of His complete triumph in your heart and in your life.
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