Dear Friend,

Reflection by Gregory Glazov, D.Phil. (Oxon.)

How do the readings of the day (Isaiah 48:17-19, Psalm 1, and Matthew 11:16-19) help us to enter into the “Hospitality of Advent”?

Isaiah 48:17-19 addresses the Jewish people who are in exile in Babylon. They suffer in many ways.  They have lost their freedom, health, and homes. They are mocked that their God did not save them. They fear that, given their past sins and life in this unclean land, they are unfit to return home to God’s presence in the Temple.  All this implies that God’s promise to their patriarch Abraham, to make them, his children, as numerous as the stars of heaven, to bring blessing to all the nations of the earth, has been nullified. Their names, especially of those who have been disabled from having children, will be blotted out, their lives made futile. In response, Isaiah declares that God, as their Redeemer, has a plan to lead them home and fulfill those promises. Later chapters proclaim the good news that God has a new way of redeeming them from captivity, disability, and sin, not through mighty deeds of military power, and not through animal sacrifices in the Temple, as in former days, but through a Suffering Servant.

The Psalter, too, was composed to help Israel cope with the Exile.  Our Psalm, Psalm 1 sets up the key problem by contrasting the blessing awaiting those who welcome and live by God’s Torah with the fate of those who do not. The former are like Trees of Life nurtured by running waters; the latter like dissipating chaff. Since no one can meet such standards, as the Exile proves, the Psalter maps out the path which God has created to lead Israel back home from the exile and pit of sin and shame.

In the Gospel, Jesus presents a parable that invokes a game in which children, by playing a flute or singing a dirge, summon friends to dance or mourn and express frustration with those who don’t play as expected.  Jesus likens John and himself to the latter. “This generation” wanted John to dance and Jesus to mourn. John was imprisoned for criticizing King Herod’s unchastity, and, what’s more, was about to lose his head on account of a dance in Herod’s palace. Jesus, expected to champion the righteous, frustrated the righteous by welcoming “gluttons and drunkards, tax collectors and sinners.”

Where are we in this scenario and what are we to do?  Shall we join “this generation” by sneering at Jesus for his sketchy company? That would work if we weren’t part of that company, but who among us has such confidence? If, on the other hand, we feel unfit before God, we can take heart that He, through Jesus’ birth and deeds, reveals His plan to redeem and welcome us into His presence.

Since the Gospel passage concludes a reflection on John the Baptist, let us conclude by considering his predicament and then discerning how it applies to us. The chapter begins by announcing that “when John heard in prison about the works of Jesus,” he sent his disciples to ask Jesus if Jesus “was the one to come or whether they should look for another.” How is someone in John’s position, the position of one who champions God’s law to the point of being imprisoned and being killed, to respond to Jesus’ claim of being “the One”?  John doesn’t exclude Jesus’ claim but has trouble welcoming it. The problem lies with gaining an understanding of Jesus, which in Matthew is called the Kingdom of Heaven. As Jesus explains earlier in the chapter, John has not yet entered it. He doesn’t have the understanding to discern the wisdom of the stages in which Jesus works to liberate us. Jesus calls upon him to discern how in His works, wisdom is justified.

Now, if those who make this discernment are to be called “wise” men, and if we assume their mantle, it would make sense to draw further inspiration from the beginning of Matthew’s Gospel by rising to follow Jesus’ star and bring him gifts. But what gift is better than the gift of one’s own heart, of opening it to Him and those He welcomes into His company? 

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Gregory Glazov, D.Phil, (Oxon.) is Professor and Chair of Biblical Studies at Immaculate Conception Seminary School of Theology, earned M.Phil. and D.Phil. degrees in Jewish Studies in the Graeco-Roman World from Oxford University in 1989 and 1993, respectively, the former on a Rhodes Scholarship. He specializes in Old Testament Studies and in the Jewish writings of the Russian philosopher Vladimir Solovyov.