November 30, 2006
Anxiety
Advent 1C
The cosmologists tell us that if we look through the great Hubble* telescope floating weightlessly out there around us, not only may we see all the way out to the edge of space, but as well, to the edge of time. The reason for this, we’ve learned, is that space and time are two sides of the same coin and are actually created simultaneously and inseparably in such a way that one simply may not exist apart from the other.
This new season of Advent returns each year, quietly, gently, without store-window decor or newspaper ads and TBTG with absolutely no mall or elevator music dedicated to its cause.
It is to pity. For Advent, ever so much as its partner Christmas which gets all the press, suggests something in our human becoming, our human maturing that is very important not to overlook. That “something” is very similar to these new notions we’ve learned about time and space.
The stories from our family history we read through these days ring changes over and over on two great biblical themes of expectation: Blessed Baptiser John’s clarion call, an anxiety for all, and Blessed Mary’s baby, an anxiety of her very own. Advent gathers both these in one and points to the mysterious union of matter and spirit caught up in the star-crossed saving event of Christmas. And Christmas brings the great themes of judgment and redemption into focus.
What is created in the image of God is, as well, now redeemed in the image of God, assuring us that finally, in a way so strikingly similar to what we’ve learned about the universe, never again need we — nor can we — separate the one from the other.
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