Reflection for December 15
Jesus compares his complaining critics to children in the marketplace who cannot decide what make-believe game they want to play: wedding or funeral.
We can imagine them calling across the alleyways to each other, “Hey guys, you wanna play wedding?” “Nah… we don’t feel like being so happy.” “Okay then, you wanna play funeral?” “Nah… we don’t feel like being so sad.”
And so, they sit, bored and without emotion, unmoved by imagination.
In the same way, the crowds find John the Baptist too ascetic with his desert fasting and apocalyptic preaching and Jesus too joyful with his mercy towards sinners and universal table fellowship.
And so, they sit, bored and without emotion, unmoved by prophetic witness or messianic love.
Advent is both the dirge of the Baptist and the flute of the Savior. It calls us to repentance in preparation for the incarnation (notice that it shares the purple of Lent), and it readies us for the joy of the Nativity. It is the full emotional life of the universe in a single season. It is like going to a funeral in the morning and a wedding in the afternoon. It is not prosaic, like watching Amazon packages pile up on a stoop. It is a cosmic irruption of divine presence. What arrives at our threshold is Christ himself.
Noel Terranova