For those of us who are old enough to remember, it might be hard to believe that it has been 25 years since people were on pins and needles as the world anticipated the potential cataclysm as computers rolled over from the year 1999 to 2000. The fear stemmed from a concern that since computers recognized only the last two digits of years in their programs they would read “1900” instead of “2000,” causing systems to crash and banking, communications, utility, and military systems to fail.
My memories of those days include being told to have three days’ worth of food, gallons of potable water at the ready, full gas tanks, and several hundred dollars in cash in hand. I remember a “This is SportsCenter" spot featuring Charlie Steiner holding a lantern with a tie on his head and painted face calling to anyone who would listen to “Follow me…to freedom!” as alarm buzzers sounded, lights flickered, and panicked people ran around in chaos at ESPN headquarters.
But I also remember friends and family calling on Sundays during late November and December that year, asking if I went to Mass and if I’d paid attention to the readings. When I responded in the affirmative, I was inevitably met with the statement “pretty scary, huh?”
The “scary” aspect of the readings was the fact that as the liturgical year ends and Advent begins, they tend to be drawn from the prophets who speak of the end times and use language of cataclysm and destruction. My friends saw in these passages predictions of the “apocalypse” doomsayers envisaged on New Year’s Day 2000 and were a little concerned. Quite literally, people thought the world might be coming to an end.
We may look back now and laugh at those fears, but for many they were real. In those weeks I reassured my friends that the readings had been chosen for the Lectionary back in the 1960s—well before we had become as dependent on computers as we were at that time—and I (gently) mentioned that we, as Catholics, need to avoid the rather arrogant attitude that Biblical predictions of the “end of time” were written specifically with our era in mind, even as we need to avoid the equally arrogant idea that they were not.
Jesus Himself told us that even He “did not know the day or the hour” of His return (Mt 24:36), but that we should be ready for Him when it comes (Mt 24: 44; Mt 25: 1-13).
This is one of the key themes of Advent: Jesus is coming back for us. The season is perhaps the best example of how the Church prayerfully lives in kairos—”God’s time” and ”eternity”—where past, present, and future meet. In this season as we read the prophets who foretold His coming, we enter into the past and join with our Jewish ancestors as they await the promised Messiah. In the craziness of the lead-in to Christmas, we are reminded of the “reason for the season” and through prayer and penance, we prepare in the present to celebrate the second most important feast of the year, the Feast of the Incarnation. Christmas. But we also anticipate the future when, as the Nicene Creed reminds us, Jesus “will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead.”
That event—the Parousia, Jesus’ “Second Coming”—will happen. Perhaps in the next year, perhaps not for a million or more, but it will happen. That’s not a threat. It’s a promise. And as Catholics, we should look at His return in that way, as an assurance. In his first letter, St. John reminds us that
…we have seen and testify that the Father sent his Son as savior of the world. Whoever acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him and he in God. We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us. God is love… In this is love brought to perfection among us, that we have confidence on the day of judgment … There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment, and so one who fears is not yet perfect in love. (1 Jn. 4:14-18, emphasis added)
Jesus is this God, the God Who only “has plans for [our] welfare and not for woe, so as to give [us] a future of hope” (Jer.29:11). His return is a good thing—one to be anticipated with joy, not with fear.
As Christmas approaches, many of us are getting our houses ready for our kids’ arrival from college on break, others are getting rooms ready for the homecoming of other out-of-town children, parents, or siblings. It’s work to clean rooms and go shopping for food in preparation, but we do it in love. We look forward to their return with eager anticipation. Because while we can’t know exactly what the return of our loved ones will bring, we know—at the very least and very most—that we will be with those we love.
As we will when Jesus comes again.
Advent reminds us that Jesus is coming again—at the end of time, or sooner. Whether He comes to us, or we go to Him, we will meet Him face-to-face. Advent is a time to reflect on our reaction to that fact. If we are anything but excited about the prospect, perhaps it is because we need to work on our relationship with Him. Perhaps we don’t yet fully love and trust Him as we should. But we can change that.
When St. Charles Borromeo was a young man he was playing pool with his buddies. Asked by one of them what he would do if he knew he had but 15 minutes to live, Charles—without pausing to think—replied “I would sink this shot.”
No wonder he became a saint—and the patron of the greatest parish in the diocese ;-).
A few weeks back we ended the liturgical year with the Feast of Christ the King, reminding us that the Lord is King of the universe and that nothing is outside His loving Providence. We begin the year with Advent, reminding us that our King is coming.
May we make ourselves—and our world—ready for when He does.
A.M.D.G. / B.V.M.H.