2nd Sunday of Advent, C December 8, 2024
Fr. Alexander Albert St. Mary Magdalen, Abbeville
“I’m spiritual but not religious.” “I’m an open Christian.” “I am a spiritual person.” These kinds of sayings can be pretty appealing. For a little while, when I was younger, it was popular to be agnostic or atheist, to act like only dumb people believed in God or anything spiritual. Nowadays, however, most people are open to some kind of higher power or spiritual truth. The reality is that human beings need the spiritual. As soon as people start to reject that, they very quickly just transfer that need to something else. When the western world began to reject Christianity, there was a sudden increase in superstition and alternative faiths. Wicca, karma, animism, crystals, “new age” practices… there’s a long list of things that people use to “scratch their spiritual itch,” so to speak, when they decide to toss aside the faith of their ancestors.
In the wake of that, the “new atheist” movement kind of died out and now people default to a vague sort of spirituality, pursuing some variation of “my truth” that is open to quasi-mystical realities. Hence the sayings I began with. And yes, there is definitely some truth to be found in these movements and ideas. You can be “spiritual” without following a specific code. You can pick and choose ideas and maybe find some measure of internal peace and equilibrium. But it won’t last and it won’t actually satisfy the deepest need of the human heart. Human beings don’t just need a “spiritual fix” every now and then. They also need The Truth, with capital T. For the “spiritual” to be truly satisfying, it needs to be “fleshed out,” it needs to connect to, influence, and be visible in the physical world and in our own bodies.
Ever heard of Nostradamus? A French physician and astrologer in the 1500s, he’s most famous for his bizarre and mysterious prophecies. Every now and then, some event happens and people think they can match it up to something Nostradamus wrote. Not that we ever figure it out before the thing happens, only that we can kinda sorta make something fit after the fact. People want to compare it to scripture because biblical prophecies sometimes work like that: they can be vague and mysterious and many of them were hard to understand until after they were fulfilled. Some are still unfulfilled and mysterious.
Unlike Nostradamus, however, scripture requires commitments from us and it’s claims can be very specific and concrete. The prophet Daniel gives a timeline for the Messiah coming about 4 and a half centuries after Jerusalem is rebuilt. The Persian Empire ordered Jerusalem to be rebuilt about 444 B.C., meaning the messiah would appear right around the beginning of the 1st century A.D. And he did. That’s probably why the Magi knew to watch out for signs of a new king of the Jews and so spotted the star. Even setting aside that prophecy and others like it, scripture can often be very meticulous about historical details. Today the gospel gives the names of seven different historical figures and what positions they held. The story isn’t “Jesus showed up one day,” but “at this time, in this place, while these people were here, here, and here, John showed up talking about the messiah.”
Our creed specifically includes Pontius Pilate in it, a historically verifiable fact. We aren’t just saying “hey, this guy Jesus lived a long time ago and said we should do nice things.” We are making a historical claim. If it proves false, we are liars. But it doesn’t. Tiberius Caesar and Herod and Philip and Pilate and Caiaphas all did live at that time. Our faith isn’t just spiritual, it is historical, it is physical, it has flesh on it.
The prophecy of Isaiah quoted in the Gospel today tells us that “all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” Not just in our spirits or in a vague sort of spiritual way, but in our flesh we shall see the salvation of God. John the Baptist, in the flesh, promised the coming of Jesus in the flesh. And that flesh and blood Jesus taught, healed, suffered, died, and rose from the dead in the flesh, in history, in fact. He commissioned his apostles in the flesh to baptize all nations in the flesh and teach them to observe all he has commanded us. Commands that don’t just bind us in a vague spiritual way, but in the concrete, tangible day-to-day life we live as the flesh and blood, body-soul unities that we are.
Now, if this “spirituality of Jesus” comes with day-to-day requirements, with tangible rules and expectations of what we should do in our actual lives… what would you call that? A religion. Religion is the body to the soul of spirituality. If your soul left your body right now, what would happen? You’d die. To be “spiritual but not religious” is to die… it kills the way of life Jesus left us.
And that cuts the other way, too! If you are very religious, strictly observing the requirements of Jesus’ teaching, but you do not maintain the spiritual connection, the mystical awareness that comes with a living relationship to Jesus Christ… then you are just as dead.
But we do not want to be dead when Jesus comes in the flesh! He already came in the flesh and he is coming again. I’ve stressed to you that Advent is about preparing for the end of the world, for the coming of the Messiah in the flesh, but that is not all doom and gloom. Just look at the way the prophecy in the first reading talks about the coming of the messiah! “Take off your robe of mourning and misery; put on the splendor of glory from God forever.” “God is leading Israel in joy by the light of his glory, with his mercy and justice for company.” Listen to the hopeful anticipation of St. Paul in his letter “I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work in you will continue to complete it until the day of Christ Jesus.”
We look forward to his coming in the flesh with the same joy we celebrate Christmas, celebrate the way he has already come. Next year is a Jubilee year, a special year of celebration. Pope Francis has declared the theme for the year to be “Pilgrims of Hope.” Hope – like faith and love – is not just a vague sort of concept floating around in our heads. If it’s real hope, we should see it in the flesh; tangible, living, acting.
So, the question we face today is this: do I see the salvation of God “in the flesh?” Do others see my hope for salvation “in the flesh” of my daily life? In the concrete actions I take, the way I make decisions, the words I speak? If not, why not? How can I make my spirituality religious and my religion spiritual? St. Paul puts it this way, praying that we “increase ever more and more in knowledge and every kind of perception” of Jesus Christ and what is valuable to him.
Do you know where I see Christ – my salvation – in the flesh? The eucharist. The pages of scripture and my breviary. The beads of my rosary. The sounds and smells and bells of the liturgy. Words whispered to me in the confessional. I see him looking back at me when I look with loving faith at another person. I see him in the pursuit of justice rather than vengeance, the offer of mercy, not mere tolerance. I see him in those who submit to the truth, not merely their “own truth.” Perhaps most poignantly, I see him in other Christians sacrificing out of love: fasts & penances; enduring commitments to prayer; cutting costs to give more to God and neighbor; selfless acts of service; losing social status for refusing to participate in gossip & immodesty & indulgence; patiently bearing with faults and weaknesses of other people because even annoying & difficult people have dignity and need to be loved.
Jesus is real. Spiritual, Religious, God, Man, Flesh & Blood. He has come and he is here. Do you see him? And will your life, your flesh be sign of hope to the world so that they too might see him before it’s too late?