(For the audio version of this blog, please visit: https://brothersinchristcmf.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Mass-Blog-for-the-First-Sunday-of-Advent-2024.mp3)
Advent promises life after death. God knows we need that assurance! God knows death frightens us. God also knows that staying alive during hard times can frighten us more. So the Mass for the first Sunday of Advent kicks off the season of hope with readings designed to give us courage during hard times.
In the first, the prophet Jeremiah offers a foretaste of the promise of Christ—through God’s promise to raise up a just shoot to do what is right for our safety and security (Jer 33:14-16).
But Paul tells the Thessalonians we must fulfill our part in God’s promise as well—to spread and share with each other the kind of love that strengthens hearts and secures holiness (1 Thes 3:12—4:2). For, as Jesus tells his disciples in Sunday’s gospel from Luke, people without such love will “die of fright in anticipation of what’s coming.” (Lk 21:25-28, 34-36)
Don’t run and hide. Stand as tall as the just shoot Jeremiah promised.
Jesus spoke from experience. He knew the fate coming for him, but he knew it would also save humanity. He knew it from the beginning of his ministry, when the devil tempted him with easy ways out of it—promising a vast supply of food, security and power. Jesus wouldn’t pay the price Satan put on those comforts, so the tempter vanished. But would Satan have stuck around to add a fourth temptation if he had at his disposal the easy-way-out it took him 2,000 years to package for us in the 21st Century?
Meet McDeath.
Quick, easy death on demand.
21st century marketers even gave it a cool name: “The Sarco.”
It’s a capsule, almost like an enclosed bathtub, that allows its occupant to commit suicide by releasing nitrogen gas inside—lowering the amount of oxygen to lethal levels. You can almost hear Satan tell Jesus, “Why go through all that suffering when you can just go to sleep? Mission accomplished!”
This escape pod has become a major attraction in Switzerland, which allows assisted suicide under certain conditions. The technology didn’t meet those conditions in a recent case, however, and two operators using it “successfully” on an American client were arrested by Swiss police.
One suicide survivor learning about this story admitted she would have been a customer if this device had been around in the 90s. Clergy and friends saved her life back then, as well as the lives of the two children she would eventually have with her husband years later.
Paul’s advice about increasing and abounding in love for one another and for all is crucial to anyone as hungry for hope as this woman was.
“Only when I get to Heaven (hopefully) will I truly see how my life has actually affected other people and the world as a whole,” she told her connections on LinkedIn recently. She added three pieces of advice as an early Christmas present to anyone needing the hope she found:
–You were created in the image and likeness of God (whether you believe in Him or not!);
–There is only ONE YOU that HAS ever or WILL ever exist;
–Your life and reason for being is unique; no one else can do what you were created to do here.
On this first Sunday of Advent, keeping hope alive requires keeping it awake. Jesus acknowledged that life’s anxieties can make our hearts drowsy. As this latest innovation in assisted suicide proves, sleep can be fatal.
–Tom Andel
In the Gospel for today Jesus warns us not to become drowsy, and to not let the day catch us by surprise or become a trap.
I feel for these poor people who think the only way out of their circumstances is to “check out” on the journey of life. What despair these people must feel.
The church makes it clear. Life ain’t easy, as it wasn’t easy for Jesus who was born into poverty and led a life of rejection and trials.
We all need to strap in for the long haul. May the season of Advent help us to home in on this reality.
Without pain we wouldn’t have saints. You’re right, Thomas, life–like pregnancy–is the soul’s high-pain, high-reward journey.
The challenge for many in our society today is the avoidance of challenges and pressure that life brings, and what I would say is the norm and should be expected. It is the way life is and is meant to be.
Yet so many try to avoid this reality with drugs, alcohol and many other forms of escape, which typically lead to cascading negative outcomes.
The simple fact is, life is hard. Rich or poor, healthy or sick, we are all in the same pressure cooker of life, and it’s just the way it is. Suicide is such a drastic and sad cop out. Pray for those poor souls that chose this route!