Hope, Promises, Truthfulness, Endurance and Encouragement

Homily for the Second Sunday in Advent

Today we read from the Letter to the Romans in which St. Paul uses five powerful words that address the very essence of Advent. These five words apply to all three of Jesus’ advents: the first Christmas - the first coming of Jesus, the end of our life or of the world - the second coming of Jesus, and his coming to us today into our very bodies and souls in the Eucharist - the third coming of Jesus. The words are “hope,” “promises,” truthfulness,” “endurance,” and “encouragement.” St. Paul says “that by endurance and by the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” and “show God’s truthfulness, to confirm the promises to the patriarchs.”

The virtue of hope, one of the three theological virtues, is more than simple optimism. Optimism is only a human feeling or thought that comes from us or out of us. Hope comes from God. The Holy Spirit is the giver of this gift. However, God is also the object of hope. What we hope in is not our own desires and longings, which are uncertain, but God’s promises, which are certain. God cannot lie. God must be faithful in fulfilling his promises. Thus, the liturgy or Rite of Christian Burial speaks of “the sure and certain hope of the resurrection.”

When God gave us life, we were plunged into a world that is infected with many evils. The principal evil of life is death. However, God has delivered us out of all evils, defeating even death. We all need hope because life is full of problems and sufferings and failures. No matter how happy our life is, death infallibly will end it all. This world is simply not enough. We all need a goodness and a happiness and a strength and a joy beyond what we have here and now, and we naturally, instinctively long for it. Hope is the virtue that believes in it. This is exactly what God has promised us.

We have all made promises in our lives. Unfortunately, sometimes we fail to live up to our promises. When we fail, a trust is broken. However, God does not fail. So, our hope is based on the strongest possible foundation – on the fidelity or truthfulness of God.

Promises are always about the future. However, God’s promises don’t come with a timetable. God is love, not a train. We know that God will deliver us from evil, but we don’t know when or how. So, what we need in the present, while we are waiting for God’s promises to come true, are two things: patience or endurance and encouragement.

The second Sunday of Advent, which we celebrate today, introduces us to John the Baptist, the man who prepared the way for Jesus. Though he appears first in the Christian Scriptures, he is often called the last of the Old Testament prophets. Later in the Gospel, Jesus will tell us that there was no greater prophet born of woman than John the Baptist. John the Baptist is the best example one can use to describe the necessity of placing hope in God’s truthful promises with patience and encouragement. John died before Jesus gave his life for us. Like all the characters of the Old Testament, while they held firm in their faith in God, they never realized the fulfillment of God’s promises in this life. We, on the other hand, have the good fortune of having realized God’s plan of salvation and our place in it. All of the characters of the Hebrew Scriptures, from Adam and Eve through the last of the prophets, placed their hope in God’s faithfulness, in God’s truthfulness. The children of Israel were patient for more than two thousand years. They endured slavery, a journey through a blistering desert, the corruption of their kings, and a second exile into slavery at the hands of the Assyrians. Yet they never lost hope. They continued to believe that God would send them a Messiah who would liberate them from the evils of this world.

Now here we are, some two thousand years after the birth of Jesus the Messiah, and we find ourselves in the same place. We have endured evils of every kind imaginable. Like our ancestors, we must never give up, never give in. Isaiah, St. Paul, and John the Baptist all call us to remain faithful and true, placing our hope in a God who is also faithful and true.