THE WORD IN ADVENT
Third Tuesday in Advent - December 16, 2025
Zephaniah 3: 1-2,9-13; Matthew 21: 28-32
The Joy of the Reign is a choice to be made, the Word told us yesterday. Today, the reflection continues to establish and impress on our minds that this choice has to be necessarily internal and integral! Internal, because no amount of external appearance can manage to delude God to conviction; Integral, because a choice one makes has to remain coherent with his or her entire life!
Zephaniah speaks about the famous inversive logic of God - the haughty shall be no more, the humble shall find their voice, the remnants of Israel shall begin to shine and the suffering servant shall rise in glory. It is an apt manifestation of the presence of God - for in that presence, there are no rich and the poor, the oppressed and the oppressors, the powerful and the simple... they are all reconciled in Christ - in the Reign.
However, that requires a choice, a choice made for God... and that choice as we have already said, has to be internal and integral. It cannot be a choice out of force, fear or some sort of luring with the fortune. It comes from an internal choice, that does not care about what others think or say, how they judge or what they comment. It does not even count whether there will be a blessing as a consequence of my choice. The Choice has to be drastically internal, personal guided by a sense of clarity and dare.
The choice thus made, has to be integral, because it cannot be conditional or provisional, nor can it be partial. It cannot be changed when conditions change nor can it be true for some parts and not applicable for the others. The choice has to affect my entire life. I cannot go by convenience, comfort or compliance. It has to be a convinced, radical choice which I am prepared to carry out come what may. That is the reason Jesus declared, one who puts his hand to the plough but turns back, cannot inherit the Reign of God.
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