Tuesday of the First Week of Advent
When Jesus turns to his disciples in private, are we supposed to hear what he says?
I always understood this brief moment literally: Jesus is speaking only to his disciples. We’re intruding, and it is only by eavesdropping that we overhear this private conversation. Surely we aren’t as blessed as the disciples were. We weren’t the ones walking with Jesus—hearing him, seeing him, listening to him directly in Jerusalem in the first century. We can be excused for our lack of faith compared with those privileged disciples. Jesus even says outright that they are blessed for having seen and heard such things.
But what if God is speaking to us? Despite our chronological distance from the events of Scripture, we do, in fact, get to hear this private exchange—we are privy to this aside from Jesus. What if we are the ones who see and hear and are blessed by God? Though we didn’t walk with Jesus over two millennia ago, we do see and hear God directly through the Spirit. We follow Jesus’ ministry and preaching through the liturgy and through our life together as Church. We hear his teachings, we witness his miracles, we live his Word.
Moreover, in this Advent season especially, we are called to make our hearts a place for the birth of the Christ child. We are called not simply to see and hear but to become the wondrous dwelling place for the shoot of Jesse that Isaiah prophesies. Our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, and we bear the fruits of the Spirit. We are children of God, the progeny of the Lord. Do we take our place on the tree of Jesse? Can we say that we have remained rooted in Christ and that we bear good fruit—that we bear God’s image?
We are not the kings and prophets of old who waited and longed for the Messiah. By our baptism, we share in the life and mission of the incarnate Christ. Therefore, in the Spirit, we are given an even more profound access to Christ, no matter our chronological distance from Scripture’s events. We have seen the Messiah in our time; we have witnessed the birth of the Christ child in our hearts and in our lives. We have no excuse for a lukewarm, mediocre, or excuse-laden faith. We are transformed in the Spirit—we are indeed blessed! We are thus charged with proclaiming this marvelous message of hope, continuing Christ’s mission in the Spirit, so that even more might hear and see Jesus in the world today.
