REFLECTION
An
Advent Without Blindness
Martí
Colom
Today we begin the Advent season, and perhaps a look at the readings of this first Sunday can help us to live in a fruitful way this time of preparation towards Christmas.
We have, first of all, the
optimistic and confident voice of Jeremiah: “The days are
coming when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and Judah
… I will raise up for David a just shoot; he shall do what is right and just in
the land. In those days Judah shall be safe and Jerusalem shall dwell secure.”
On the other hand, Jesus also tells us (in agreement with the prophet) that our
“our redemption is at hand.” But his message is much more nuanced, because he
utters a disturbing warning before this final promise, filled with apocalyptic
echoes: “There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on earth
nations will be in dismay … People will die of fright in anticipation of what
is coming upon the world.” Jesus is more realistic and restrained than
Jeremiah, and perhaps he also wants to be more honest with those who hear him. He tells us: “peace will come and it is true
that those who look for justice will not be deceived. But let us make no
mistake about it, first there will be trials, conflicts, anguish and suffering.”
Advent is not, in other words, a season of low intensity, free of worries,
during which we are only asked to adorn our homes with trees, nativity scenes
and Christmas decorations while we wait for the night of December 24, listening
to carols and pretending that we live in a world without pain. The upcoming
birth of the Prince of Peace does not imply the magical disappearance of all
violence. In fact, the child is born every year in a wounded world.
Perhaps many will think
that in this 2015 the truth contained in Jesus’ words is particularly obvious.
Some will listen to the description of “people dying of fright in anticipation
of what is coming upon the world” and will say to themselves: “he is talking
about us.” The brutal terrorism seen in Paris, Beirut and Egypt in recent
weeks, the wars that instead of fading away seem to increase everywhere, the
terrible images of endless lines of refugees crossing Europe, the frail boats
that daily reach the Greek, Italian or Spanish shores filled with immigrants,
the increasing intolerance with which some respond to the suffering of those
who arrive… everything seems to strongly confirm the dramatic passage of this
Sunday’s Gospel. However, we cannot forget that at the end Jesus echoes
Jeremiah and announces without ambiguity the victory of peace and a new dawn of
freedom.
What we wished to
underline here is that if we are to truly live out Advent in a profound way the
season requires that we listen to the complete
message that today Luke places in Jesus’ lips. Then we will have to reject both
the fruitless illusion of thinking that we dwell in an idyllic garden without
conflicts as well as the hopelessness (just as useless and mistaken) that comes
from thinking that tragedy will have the last word.
This, then, requires two
things of us, equally important. First, that those who could understand this
Season as an invitation to forget about the problems of the larger world and to
pretend that they are in a paradise may listen attentively to Jesus’ warning,
and may open their eyes to the pain of others. And second, that those who may
only heed the announcement of upcoming tragedies may hear also the conclusion
of the passage: “when these signs
begin to happen, stand erect and raise your heads because your redemption is at
hand.”
This age of ours is not
different from previous times. As it happens now, every other epoch had those
who thought that their world was the culmination of human History, and that
they had reached the peak of development and attained the perfect society. They
deceived themselves, because they could only maintain such a fiction by
ignoring the suffering of their brothers and sisters. In the same way, there
were always those who on the other hand believed that their tragedies surpassed
the tragedies of previous ages. They would
declare that their horror was new, more cruel or overwhelming
than the crisis their grandparents had to face –and they concluded that this surely
indicated that the final victory of evil over good was a fact. They also
deceived themselves, for their pain was not more vicious than the pain of their
ancestors (violence is always heartbreaking, whether it takes place today
or a thousand years ago, and whether it happens in the streets of France or of
Mosul). And they deceived themselves most of all because at the end Jeremiah and
Jesus will be right. Advent is the time to wait for He who, indeed, will one
day bring peace to all.
How should we,
therefore, live out this Advent? By rejecting both the blindness of the naïve
and the blindness of the pessimist. This is the task of the person who wants to
hear, without fear and with trust, Jesus’ words.
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