Sermon Tone Analysis

PRESENTATION: The Two Advents of Christ

As we continue to progress through this season of Advent, we continue to meditate on the two Advents of Christ, the first when He came among us as man which we will soon celebrate, and the second when He will come in glory, that we watch for, attentively.

In His first Advent, Christ began His salvific work in the world, and at His second Advent, He will bring it to completion.

Christ’s first Advent began what is properly called, the Messianic Age.

This is the meaning behind Our Lord’s response to the Disciple of John in today’s Gospel:

Go and relate to John what you have heard and seen.

5 The blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead rise again, the poor have the gospel preached to them.

When the Disciples of John question whether Christ truly is the promised and longed for Messiah, Christ responds by quoting from the Prophet Isaiah, telling them in a way they would understand, “Yes, I am He who’s coming was foretold, and you can know me by my works.”

John’s Disciples may have been confused and unsure about Christ’s identity because of the many false beliefs that existed at that time about the Messiah.

Some, like the Zealots, believed that the Messiah would be a great earthly King who would overthrow the Romans and make Israel the dominant kingdom in the world.

Others, like some of the Pharisees, believed that the Messiah would inaugurate a great transformation restoring the world to its original harmony.

Incidently, since modern Judaism decends exclusively from the Pharisees of Our Lord’s time, this is what the Jews are still awaiting.

Of course, the Pharisees were right, that is exactly what the Messiah will do, they just got their timing wrong.

When Our Lord returns in His second Advent He will do exactly that.

What Our Lord did for a few at His first Advent as a sign of His true identity, He will do for all the blessed.

The blind will see, the lame will walk, the lepers will be cleansed, the deaf will hear, the dead will rise, and the poor will have much more than the Good News, they will have Christ Himself for their inheritance.

EXPLANATION: The New Heavens and a New Earth

The Catechism succintly explains what will happen when Our Lord returns:

1042 At the end of time, the Kingdom of God will come in its fullness.

After the universal judgment, the righteous will reign for ever with Christ, glorified in body and soul.

The universe itself will be renewed: (769; 670; 310)

The Church … will receive her perfection only in the glory of heaven, when will come the time of the renewal of all things.

At that time, together with the human race, the universe itself, which is so closely related to man and which attains its destiny through him, will be perfectly re-established in Christ.

1043 Sacred Scripture calls this mysterious renewal, which will transform humanity and the world, “new heavens and a new earth.”

It will be the definitive realization of God’s plan to bring under a single head “all things in [Christ], things in heaven and things on earth.633

(671; 280, 518)

1044 In this new universe, the heavenly Jerusalem, God will have his dwelling among men.

“He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away.”

This is the inheritance that Our Lord has promised to His Church, and to its faithful members, not just an eternity with Him in Heaven, but a new creation, superior even to the original harmony of the Garden.

This is the source of our hope and our longing for Our Lord’s return as we watch and wait with patient yearning during this Advent season.

IMPLICATION: Meditating on the Two Advents

When Christ came at His first Advent, He came to free us from the power of sin and Satan, but we remain in this fallen world and must continue to struggle with the help of His grace.

When Christ comes at His second Advent, He will free us from all suffering, and even from death itself, that is the source of our Advent hope.

This season of watching and waiting, affords us an excellent opportunity to spend some extra time in silence and prayer, especially as the world around us goes full-bore into the frenetic activity of shopping and celebrating a holiday that is yet to arrive.

In recent years, there has been a custom some have adopted of reading St. Luke’s Gospel throughout the season of Advent.

St. Luke is not only the one who provides us with the fullest infancy narrative of Our Lord’s birth in Bethlehem, but his gospel has been divided into 24 chapters, neatly allowing one chapter to be read each day from December 1st to December 24th.

If you have chosen to make that reading part of your Advent preparations, I’m not going to tell you to stop, reading the Gospels should be a daily practice for all Catholics.

However, if you aren’t reading St. Luke’s Gospel this Advent, or are looking for some additional reading, the Church has, for centuries, recommended the reading of the Prophet Isaiah during this season.

All throughout Advent, the scriptures in the Divine Office of Matins are taken from Isaiah, as are most of the readings in the Ember Week Masses.

It’s quite easy to see why, as Isaiah speaks beautifully about the first Advent of Christ, “Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign.

Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son and his name shall be called Emmanuel” and the second Advent of Christ:

6 ¶ The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,

and the leopard shall lie down with the kid,

and the calf and the lion and the fatling together,

and a little child shall lead them.

7 The cow and the bear shall feed;

their young shall lie down together;

and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.

8 The sucking child shall play over the hole of the asp,

and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den.

9 They shall not hurt or destroy

in all my holy mountain;

for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD

as the waters cover the sea.

As we prepare to once again celebrate Our Lord’s first Advent and look forward with longing to His second, let us pray that the Lord may fill our hearts with a spirit of eager hope for that day, when all thing will be made new, and Christ’s salvific work will be brought to completion.