Hope and Promise - In the presence of the Lord

THE WORD IN ADVENT

December 1, 2021: First Wednesday in Advent

Isaiah 25: 6-10; Matthew 15: 29-37

This is the Lord, our God in whom we hoped! The Lord is the only one in whom we can hope! For hope is not merely the passing away of a troublesome experience here and now. It is not the disappearance of the difficulties we have at a given moment. Hope is about the sense of eternity; it is an experience of salvation; a dwelling forever in the house of the Lord. 

The promise of the Lord to prepare a banquet of rich food and fine wines, is not merely a promise of food and drink. As the Acts of the Apostles clarifies the mind of Christ to us: Reign of God is not food and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. In short, it is Shalom! The fullness, the sense of tranquility, the sense of no-want, the sense of stillness where there is no anxiety of looking for one's needs, where there is no suffering of having to go through experiences of hurt and pain, where there is no craze to prove oneself or dominate the other for the sake of hogging limelight.

Jesus who multiplies the bread today to satisfy the people with him, does not consider it as some kind of an ultimate good that he is doing for them. He does it as a matter of fact... he cured the sick, he consoled the suffering, and he fed the hungry! For him all these were important...not just the food which mattered a lot to the people! That is why Jesus had to chide them once: do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life. He had to instruct them, time and again: a person does not live by bread or food alone! But these signs and miracles were exactly signs, signs that pointed to a reality more profound that Jesus wanted to introduce them, and wants to introduce us to.

The ultimate reality towards which the Advent preparation guides us, and the only lasting reality that can make us really fulfilled, is the eternal dwellings of the Lord - that is precisely where our hopes lie and what the promises of the Lord consist of... the promise and the bountiful grace of the Presence of the Lord.