4th Sunday of Advent

When Christ came into the world, he said: “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me;…behold, I come to do your will, O God.” --Heb. 10: 5, 7

The Letter to the Hebrews is one of my favorite books of Scripture. The passage that is read today is particularly fraught with meaning, as it summarizes in a few verses the great mystery that we are about to celebrate: God’s desire to come among us, to be one of us, to assume human flesh, blood, and bone—to become fully human. And all of this out of one motive: love. “For God so loved the world that He sent His only Son,” as St. John has written.

Far too often the term “flesh” has been interpreted in a negative way in the Christian tradition and this has led to all manner of distortions: extreme asceticism, hatred of the body, abuse of the body, the denigration of sexuality. There is nothing wrong with the flesh when it refers to our bodies or our bodily condition. Created by God, our bodies are good and we have a responsibility to respect the body and to care properly for it. Similarly, the same mistake has been made with regard to the term “world”. The world is good, as it too was created by God. Yet, we are called to be in the world, but not of the world. So what does that mean? “Of the world” refers to worldliness—which is the seeking after power, prestige, fame, fortune, and all the fleeting things that we are tempted to grasp in order to ensure our own standing and security in this life. All of which serves only to distract us from “the one thing necessary”.

The one thing necessary is to do the will of God. It was for this that Christ came into the world: “Behold, I come to do your will, O God.” But, we struggle with knowing and doing the will of God. What is the will of God, for us, here, now? The trouble is no angel appears to us to tell us, as happened to Mary. Unlike her, we are left to figure it out for ourselves. But, is it really all that difficult to know the will of God? Perhaps we have only to look to Jesus to learn what the will of God is and how to do it.

Blessed 4th Sunday of Advent!