Stand Erect! First Sunday of Advent, Year C
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| From quillette.com |
(Audio of homily at end of post)
“Stand up straight with your shoulders back.” We often hear parents and grandparents tell their children to stand up straight, that they may be confident and ready to encounter the world. It’s much more than appearance – it actually can make a difference in our lives. In fact, for Dr. Jordan Peterson, who has become a well-known psychologist, professor, and author over the past couple of years, in his book 12 Rules for Life, this is the first rule that he gives: “Stand up straight with your shoulders back.” In order to justify this rule, he actually looks at lobsters, demonstrating that research shows that the dominant lobsters in the sea extend their appendages more straight out than the lesser lobsters, showing their strength and ability to conquer in fights. In the same way, we as human beings can show a lot through our posture. Peterson writes, “To stand up straight with your shoulders back is to accept the terrible responsibility of life, with eyes wide open. It means deciding to voluntarily transform the chaos of potential into the realities of habitable order . . . It means willingly undertaking the sacrifices necessary to generate a productive and meaningful reality.”[1]
We actually hear Jesus say a very similar thing in today’s
Gospel: “Stand erect and raise your heads because your redemption is at
hand.” Here we are at the beginning of
Advent, the beginning of a new liturgical year.
With this new beginning, we also have a fresh start; in fact, a friend pointed
out to me this past week that the word Advent is the beginning of “adventure.” And Jesus tells us the posture to adapt as we
begin this season and new adventure: “Stand erect and raise your heads because
your redemption is at hand.”
What can be a bit frightening though is the context in which
Jesus says this in regard to the end of the world: terrible signs in the sky,
wars among nations, earthquakes, famines, plagues, persecution, people dying in
fright of what is happening. Wait, we’re
supposed to stand erect in the midst of this?
And we don’t have to imagine what this can look like: all it takes is
one viewing of the evening news to see the brokenness and tragedy of the
world. I don’t know about you, but some
days I just want to crawl back into bed and escape this reality for a while!
So there are two possibilities of posture in both our physical
and spiritual lives. We can either stand
erect and look forward, ready to meet Christ and act in His name in the world,
or we can become weighted down and slouch over, focused only on ourselves and
our own wants. Notice: in my physical
posture, when I do this, my head is lowered so that I’m looking back on myself. Isn’t this where sin brings us, looking only
to ourselves and not attentive to others in our lives? I’m not looking forward to Christ, welcoming
him in. One of my favorite theologians,
named Hans Urs von Balthasar, writes about this powerful image: “Closed and
well-armored was the world against God from all sides, and it had no eyes to
look out since all of its glances were turned inwards on itself. But its interior resembled a hall of mirrors
in which the finite appeared refracted as far as the eye could see, multiplying
itself infinitely and thus playing the self-sufficient god.”[2] In this hall of mirrors, we can become so
focused on ourselves and forget about all else.
We also recognize how there are particular causes that can
lead to this. Jesus lists three
particular things in today’s Gospel: carousing, drunkenness, and the anxieties
of daily life. Carousing refers to
simply seeking pleasure for ourselves without any regard for others. Drunkenness refers to anything that keeps us
from being attentive to the Lord; we think first of alcohol, but there’s plenty
of other causes as well that numb our minds: overuse of television, computers,
phones, overeating, overworking, laziness, greed, and an unwillingness to
respond in generosity to others. And
finally the anxieties of daily life, which can easily make us forget about our
true identity as children of God. Isn’t
it ironic that this time of year that is meant for our preparation for Christ
is also filled with so many anxieties?
Students have final exams, businesses are preparing year-end reports,
families are preparing for all of the Christmas festivities, and so much else.
Evidently, when we fall into these things, we need
conversion. We need a significant change
in our lives to heal us and give us strength to stand erect. Thankfully, there is so much hope. Advent is this time of hope, a time to recall
that Jesus gives us the strength and grace to be lifted out of ourselves. He comes as a child at Christmas, defenseless
and open to the world, and his ultimate posture on the cross is complete
openness to us, the ability to receive us and take our burden of sin upon
Himself. In doing so, he shatters our
hall of mirrors and lets us come to Him in freedom. Yes, this is what we are preparing for, so
that in the midst of the chaos that our Gospel describes, we can stand erect
and raise our heads, because our redemption is at hand.
So here’s what we can do during this Advent: we can ask
Jesus for this gift of being rooted in His love and strength and not in
ourselves. This is exactly what St. Paul
prays for in the second reading: “May the Lord make you increase and abound in
love for one another and for all, just as we have for you, so as to strengthen
your hearts, to be blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the
coming of our Lord Jesus with all his holy ones.” When we ask for this day after day, Jesus is
so happy to give this, and we can rejoice with him at his coming.
Maybe all of us can think of a particular way to live this
out. Maybe we can decide to turn to the
sacraments, to attend daily Mass sometime during the week and especially to
receive forgiveness in the sacrament of confession, bringing our sins and
burdens that weigh us down before the Lord.
Maybe we can commit to prayer each day, 5 to 10 minutes, to be with the
Lord and learn from Him in the Scriptures.
Maybe we can find a particular way to be generous to others, through gifts,
donations, service, and time. In this
Mass, we can all ask Jesus, “How do you want me to stand erect during this
Advent?” In doing so, we trust that He
will help us fulfill this, so that when Christmas comes, we are ready to
receive Him in a new way.
Standing up straight doesn’t just help us or lobsters in our
physical lives, but it also leads us to a deeper calling in our spiritual
lives. So we pray together, “Jesus, as
we enter this time of Advent, we ask that you lead us toward conversion. Break through the self-centeredness and hall
of mirrors of our lives, and help us to stand erect and raise our heads, for
our salvation is at hand.”
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