Second Sunday of Advent, A December 8, 2019
Fr. Albert St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette
“The wolf shall be the guest of the lamb.” “The baby shall play by the cobra’s den.” “Justice shall flourish in his time and fullness of peace for ever.” These are Messianic prophecies from Isaiah and the Psalms. What do you think? Have they come true? Does Jesus – the Messiah – really keep these promises made to the ancient Israelites? Even a quick look shows us war, injustice, and violence even in nature itself. Does that mean we can’t trust scripture? That God lied? No.
St. Paul, in the second reading, teaches “that by endurance and by the encouragement of the Scriptures, we might have hope.” What is so encouraging about unfulfilled prophecies? How does that give me hope? Because that isn’t all there is. Because we can’t just read a few verses and leave it alone. We must look at the whole story. Again and again, the Old Testament shows us seemingly impossible promises that are nonetheless fulfilled, sometimes centuries later. Abraham and his descendants as numerous as the stars, Moses and the promised land, Kind David and his eternal kingdom. All of these stories have this in common: endurance and hope. Hope is to believe and to act like you believe that you will one day receive what you were promised. Endurance is not giving up no matter how long you wait for that hope to be fulfilled, even through the day of your death.
If you question these unfulfilled promises of peace and justice in Isaiah, just look back to the beginning of the passage. The prophecy doesn’t just promise miraculous peace, it also promises that the spirit of the Lord will come along with this messiah. And that promise is fulfilled. At the baptism of Jesus and again at Pentecost, the Holy Spirit clearly entered into this world. That spirit came with gifts.
Isaiah gives us a sevenfold description of these gifts: “a spirit of wisdom and of understanding, a spirit of counsel and of strength, a spirit of knowledge and of fear of the LORD, and his delight shall be the fear of the LORD.” Some of you might remember hearing these in catechism; They are the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. And the promise of these gifts is what leads to the fulfillment of the promises after.
Jesus Christ received the Spirit and the gifts, and John the Baptist promises that we too are baptized with the Holy Spirit. By Baptism and Confirmation, we are incorporated into the body of Christ and given the same Spirit as him, the same Spirit poured out at Pentecost. Though Jesus Christ ascended to heaven, he is still very much active in the world, still making progress on fulfilling the ancient promises. And that progress takes place through us, his body.
So, why aren’t the promises fulfilled? Partly because it’s not time and partly because we are supposed to help fulfill them. These seven gifts of the Spirit are meant to help us do that, and they can be pretty amazing to witness in action, but they do not work like magic. Like many of the gifts children receive at Christmas, there is “some assembly required.” So, how do we unwrap these gifts, put them together, and install the right batteries? Through practice, a life of virtue that seeks to understand and then act on the truth about God and his gifts.
So, let’s understand them a little better. The first gift is the fear of the Lord. This means realizing that there is a God and you aren’t it; that you should respect – fear – the God who is beyond you. Not that he’s out to destroy you, but like the fear of disappointing the father who loves you. It’s best expressed in the act of contrition during confession.
Fear of the Lord helps us to accept our small, but important place as a member of God’s family. Learning to love that role is the gift of piety, which helps with a sense of duty and even enables us to enjoy the practice of our religion, to want to pray and do holy things. As piety and fear of the Lord help us embrace our place in God’s family, we come to know more about how to live a godly life. This is the gift of knowledge: not just memorizing faith facts but a real awareness of God’s truth and Goodness, and of how God’s providence works in mysterious ways.
Knowing what is right and wrong must be supported by the strength do what is right. This is the gift of Fortitude, which is the strength of God. It is the divine help that gives us the push we need to do the right thing when that right thing is difficult. As knowledge and fortitude shape our lives, we also grow in the gift of Counsel, which is the practical decision-making that continually asks: will this choice help me or someone else get to heaven?
As we learn and act on this practical knowledge of the life of faith, we also move to a deeper appreciation of the Truth. This is the gift of Understanding, which doesn’t just know the faith, but looks beneath the surface of reality to make deeper connections but individual truths – to see how all truth is connect and united in God. Understanding moves us from the level of thinking about what the Church teaches to thinking like the Church thinks… to think “in harmony” with the Church.
Finally, the greatest gift is Wisdom, which ties them all together. Wisdom is essentially seeing things from God’s perspective, which means we also rejoice in what we see, even when it looks dismal to a narrower perspective. Wisdom delights in the contradiction of the cross because it sees the fruit, which brings peace even in the midst of suffering. This divine perspective translates to encouragement, endurance, and hope because those who are wise rely on God’s power, not their own so they are not daunted by their own weaknesses.
And it is God’s power alone, the power present in all of these gifts, that will fulfill the promises of peace and justice we see in the prophets and psalms. We look to the kingdom of heaven, a kingdom that is already here, but not yet fulfilled. A kingdom that can be seen in the outpouring of these gifts and in the endurance of those who still have hope for these promises. Hold on to that hope. Read scripture and take note of the many ways God has kept his word time and again. Look to the promises yet to be fulfilled. Pray for an increase of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. And though you stumble and fall time and again, do not fret. Though you’ve done a thousand times before, repent again, for the kingdom of heaven truly is at hand.
Amen