Reflection on the Word on the First Sunday of Advent, November 21, 2021
REDEMPTION IS DRAWING NEAR - Luke 21:25-36
"There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see 'the Son of Man coming in a cloud' with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near."
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The first advent began right after the expulsion of humans from the Garden of Eden. As it was a prehistoric event, so it marks the factual history as well, as the post-Eden history began with the first advent of waiting for the Messiah, as it is written in the Book of the Genesis, chapter three that God told the Serpent, that "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will bruise your head, and you will bruise his heel."
There is not only the curse there that the serpent and his offspring will keep bothering humanity all the time, but also there is the promise that the offspring of the woman will bruise the head of the serpent. Through history, which we understand not only as the chain of merely physical events on Earth and the involved galaxies, but it is also a spiritual arch, called salvation history and the rescue plan of God.
The very arrival and the suffering of the Messiah was expected and prophesied by the men and women of God, the patriarchs, the prophets, and it was hoped by all the faithful. The waiting for Christmas was a long-long period, compartmentalized by multidimensional ages and differing eras. Nonetheless, all the Biblical promises, given to the prophets, were fulfilled regarding the perfection of time and place, national and family environment, which means that the chosen Messiah was born in the right time and at the right place.
According to the New Testament, after the ascension of Jesus into Heaven, a second Advent began, waiting for the return of the Christ. As an event it was many times assumed as postponed by infinite centuries or quite the opposite, it can be immanent in any moment, sudden and unexpected. We do not know the exact minute of the second coming, in theory it can happen any time, just as Jesus warned the disciples in the Gospel of Luke that You must "know this, that if the master of the house had known in what hour the thief was coming, he would have watched, and not allowed his house to be broken into. Therefore be ready also, for the Son of Man is coming in an hour that you don't expect him."
Nonetheless, either it is postponed back to the future or it is immanent tonight, most prophecies and prophecy researchers agree that before the Messianic era begins, first come the tribulations. It is very odd. The last 2000 years were bad enough. One may ask, that if the Christ arrived at Christmas, and redemption had been already done for humanity on Good Friday and it was approved by Easter, then why the world did not change a bit, and why it got and moreover it keeps getting worse and worse?
For the gentile world actually it is not a surprise. From Egypt to Babylon, from Greece to Rome they held, that there was first a Golden Age, then a Silver Age, then a Bronze Age, then an Iron Age. The history of humanity is a gradual but permanent sinking into the pit. The Hopi nation in northeastern Arizona says, that tradition has it, that we are currently living in the fourth world, approaching to the transition of the fifth one. Unless we amend our ways, the transition will bring great catastrophes.
The Indian subcontinent keeps counting time in billions of years, and they warn us, that we have been already living in the age of dark lawlessness and inhuman wickedness, called the Kali Yuga, where demonic forces triumph and hysterically laugh over the Earth.
During some postwar prosperity between recurring inflations, it was suggested that our western way of life, if not perfect, it is one of the best possible options, regarding our high esteem of the illusion of the usefulness of the representative democracy and the cruelly blind market economy, called vulture capitalism.
However, most of the optimism ended up in devastating and relentless wars, hot or cold.
There are some denominational tensions to talk to other religions in order to have really open discussions regulated by loving kindness, however, it is obvious that the sages on all continents always agreed and agree, that when we reach the darkest moment at the intersection of the known history and the unbearable future or the deepest pit in our social interactions, then the redemption will be close and a redeemer will be coming.
The sages think, that this will happen either by the incarnation of the divinity itself to Earth, or by sending an envoy with superpowers to overcome the evil or a holy sage will be appointed by the Creator Spirit to come as a new, global lawgiver to make the planet change course for the better. The Jews are waiting for the Messiah, the Christians for the return of the Christ, the old Persians for the Saoshyant, the Hindi for the Tenth Avatar of Vishnu, the Buddhists for the fifth Buddha, the atheists are waiting for fate lottery by chance. Everybody is waiting for the Big Change for the Better.
The sages say, that the waiting can be a patient one or a nerve-wrecking one, or gnashing the teeth or chewing the nails. Waiting can be passive, idle, active or proactive. Either this and that or those and these, most sages assert, that we have to earn the positive change, which also means a tiny bit, that whatever troubles we got, we deserved them. The dynamics of the Advent comes from this tension, that the size of the prophesied calamities in the upcoming tribulations are proportional, like punishment are proportional to sins even through generations.
If we want to get rid of the bad chains of ill fate in the world, we have to break the vicious circles. If we want a better future for the children of the next generations, we have to deserve it now. Exactly as Jesus foretold the disciples in the Gospel of Luke that "Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day catch you unexpectedly, like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man."
According to Jesus, we have to pray for it with full faith, and the gained strength in the Holy Spirit must be enough to overcome or escape the tribulations. We should not think that there is still a plenty of time to do that, and we can just wait out our life, just doing close to nothing. We have to earn the better future on Earth, and we have to earn Heaven, as well. The sages say, if not now, when? If not me, who else? May the Lord be praised by our perseverance and by our faithful, good deeds, AMEN.
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