Romans 13:11-14
Matthew
24:37-44
You do not expect,
the Son of Man will come.”
With the first Sunday of Advent, we begin a
cycle in our liturgical calendar. This Year’s cycle is Cycle A, and most of our
gospels are taken from the version of St. Matthew. In today's gospel,
then, Matthew gives one of his eschatological discourses. If we recall, this
theme is closely related to that of last Sunday since, as the year-ends, we
meditated on the evangelic message about the last things. But although
this Sunday's is eschatological the season of Advent invites us to situate our
thoughts on the coming of the Son of Man not so much in the context of
Parousia but in the context of the mystery of the
Incarnation
1. "Time" is one of the hardest things to
define. But there are at least two basic concepts of how man and culture look at
time. The oriental concept of time is something spiral. Meaning, it tends
towards a cyclic direction where things and events in time move, as it were,
upward and downward, forward and backward - as if they go round and round in
circle or in cycle. That is why for the easterners, nothing is so fixed in time.
If one is up today, he may be down tomorrow, just as if one is down today, he
may be up tomorrow. So too, nothing is a complete or an absolute past. There will always be
tomorrow. What happened yesterday day or today can still happens tomorrow, just
as the sun rose yesterday, rises today and will rise tomorrow. It is in this
sense that history is said to repeat itself
The western outlook of time, however, is
quite different. It is more linear than spiral. Here, things and events
go straight and never turn back; past is past. What is done can never being
undone. Thus, while the spiral time has always tomorrow, in the linear
time, tomorrow may never come. Tomorrow is completely another day.
So, it is here in the western concept that history is said to be the succession
of events that began somewhere in time and shall then terminate in the end
time.
2. The mystery of the Incarnation reminds us
of this one noble truth: The timeless God enters into human time. Advent
literally means "coming." And indeed. God comes in time. Of course, we
know that God has his own time, which is perhaps quite different from man's
time. Thus, we say, "God's time is not man's time. " This could be
figurative but this could be literal, too. That is why, being different from
man' time, God's time is known only to him. Not even the angels or the Son of
Man know it, but God the Father alone (cf Mt. 24:36). Such is the message of the
eschatological coming which, today's gospel figures out. It comes just at a
moment when nobody expects. So, of the two men in the field, one will be taken
while the other will be left; or of the two women grinding at the mill, one will
be taken while the other will be left.
3. But although the eschatological time is
the Father's top secret the advent time has been a big revelation to man
and humanity. It is the divine kairos taking shape in the midst of human
history. And since God deigns to be part of time, we see too that he so
respects even man's limited concept of time and tries to make his incarnation
understandable and laudable just according to how man and culture understand the
flow of temporal and historical events.
a. The advent time-shares the concept
of linear time. Scripture is so clear that this advent time is the
fullness of time. “ When the fullness of time comes. God sent his Son, born
of a woman, born a subject of the Law, to redeem the subjects of the Law"
(Gal 4:4).
Sometimes we may perhaps wonder why Christ
came only some two thousand years ago. If we take science's position that this
world has| already existed for billions of years, Christ's coming seems too
late. Why did Christ not come much earlier? Or else, if we consider the possible
nuclear holocaust, we may think that the incarnation could be best after
everything turns into ashes and the world starts anew with God becoming
man.
But Christ came neither before nor after the time he really did. And the answer
is quite simple: neither before nor after was the fullness of time. This
fullness of time then is part of God's eternal plan. And as he reveals
himself in the person of the Incarnate Word, we are also told of his noble
purpose: "He has let us know the mystery of his purpose, the hidden plan he
so kindly made in Christ from the beginning to act upon which the times had run
their course to the end; that he would bring everything together under Christ,
as head, everything in the heavens and everything on earth" (cf Eph
1:10).
That Christ is the Alpha and the Omega seems
to be attested by course of world events. They seem to follow a linear and an
upward movement wherein they all point to Christ as the climax and apex of
history. Certainty, many religions - great and insignificant alike - emerge in human history. Some have
continued to take influence until now. Others simply disappear in time. But no
religion, however great, has tremendously influenced civilization than
Christianity. And this began by the coming of the poor Nazarean. In fact, the
point of reference in history is year of our Lord. If we refer to these
current millennia, we say “ Anno
Domini" (or AD.); or if we refer to the millennia before the advent time,
we say: "Before Christ" (or B.C.).
b. The advent time also shares man's
spiral out look on time. True the journey towards the kingdom demands no
turning back. Anyone who takes, the plough and turns his back is unfit for the
kingdom (cf Lk 9:62). But the message of the advent time has undoubtedly a
Spiral character. That is, the mystery of the incarnation gives meaning
to man’s ups and downs, to one's forward and backward struggle, indeed, to the
spiral movement of human life. Christ's coming has one big evangelic of hope. By
becoming one like us, God teaches us that shortcomings and failures are not a
"linear end" of everything but an occasion for a new "spiral
beginning." God's mercy and love give man a living hope that there will
always be a "tomorrow" for an ardent repentant heart. Only, this tomorrow is
God's "today." Meaning, man’s hope finds fulfillment in his untactful use of
time, in his immediate response to God's “today." It is in this sense,
therefore, that advent time means wise and careful use of time. It is making
tomorrow today. Remember Zacchaeus and the repentant thief? By human standards,
they had neither today nor tomorrow. Their linear time had already come
to an end. But by God's love, hope was born again, and their spiral movement
towards grace found fulfillment. "Today, salvation has come to this house,"
"Today, you will be with me in paradise." Indeed God’s today is man's
tomorrow!