Advent Reflection

"In times past, God spoke in fragmentary and varied ways … In this final age, he has spoken through his Son." (Heb 1:1-2)

Such a rich starting point for Advent prayer! This is an invitation for us to listen, remember and ponder God's word. This is an age-old story of God's love and how tirelessly God attempts to communicate the nature of that love. How varied are the expressions we have discovered in our receptive hearing of those words! What is it that God communicates to us through the ages? Not simply words that foretell Jesus' coming, but expressions of his love and life which, when gathered together, prepare us to understand just how profound an expression of love and life is that Word made flesh, dwelling among us.

The covenant promises that punctuate the 1st Testament were realized in fragmentary ways in Israel's life. This partial understanding forced them and us to strain toward a fullness of understanding. Sometimes such efforts are beyond us and require faith. In overcoming our human limitations, we are brought closer to the mystery of God that simply becomes a great silence within us and should fill us with a great hope.

The Wisdom writings are a unique and varied expression of God's love and self-revelation. We are reminded in them of the crossing point between mysteries of divine life and our human experience. That which ignites the human spirit was set there by God! The "timeless" (Eccl 3:11) was placed within us so we might know within our earthly existence that there is a divine life that is just beyond our sight.

The words of the prophets are not words about some future time, but words that caused Israel to struggle with the ways of God that are so far above our ways. They are living words that continue to give us hope, to challenge us and invite our restless spirit to find the answer to the questions of our life in these mysterious ways of God.

Expressions of praise and lament that are found in the Psalter capture our imagination and light a flame within receptive hearts. These also prepare us to grasp in the longing of the human voice of the psalms, what God has prepared for us.

All these words ready us to hear and recognize what is to come, establishing some way to understand God and what is God's hope for us. God is not finished speaking until he utters his final Word: the incarnate Son. This One is the fullest expression and revelation of who God is. We would be diminished in our hearing of that Word without our listening to and understanding all the words that came before in the 1st Testament. The writings in the New Testament: the Gospels, the writings of Paul and others, in one way or other, are written to invite us to ponder deeply and at length what that Word wishes to communicate to us of God, what is the meaning of his life, death and resurrection of the Son. To be able to grasp this, one needs to understand the ideas and references and vocabulary that are drawn from the Old Testament.

And what is the message of this speech of God that is given to us in "fragmentary and varied ways" that comes to full flower in the birth of the Son? Perhaps that is the best question to keep before you as you make your own way through this blessed season of Advent and into Christmas.

Barbara Shanahan