by Father John P. Cush
THERE’S A TREMENDOUS sense of urgency in the message of St. John the Baptist, a central figure of the early part of the liturgical season of Advent. John is a radical figure, not only in dress but also in demeanor, utterly fearless in his preaching about the coming Kingdom of God. He recognizes the hypocritical nature of the lives of the Pharisees and Sadducees and he is not afraid to call them out on it.
His message was the Kingdom of God is at hand. And what is the Kingdom of God? Perhaps we might wish to adjust our interrogatory pronoun from “what” to a more appropriate “who.” Who is the Kingdom of God? It is Jesus. He is the messenger and the message; He is the teacher and what is taught; He is the preacher and what is preached. And what does Jesus come to bring- nothing less than Himself- He is salvation and He manifests this salvation in His words and in His deeds. This is what John’s mission was, more than anything else- to announce the coming to the Messiah.
And this arrival of the Messiah in the midst of Israel requires a radical recognition of the identity of Jesus as the Christ and, if we take seriously who it is that Jesus is and what it is that He stands for, then there must be a radically change in life, a true repentance.
The early follower of Christ would have a real sense of the urgency of repentance in order to embrace the Kingdom of God.
As we could expect, the sense of eschatology of the four last things – death, judgment, Heaven, hell – was so much greater in the early Church. These followers of the Way, who daily were risking their lives because they believed in Christ, who were considered enemies of the state due to their faith, truly believed that, at any moment, Jesus, King of Glory and Lord of the World would descend, just as He had ascended to judge each man according to his deeds.
Naturally enough, when Jesus didn’t come back, after a year, after 10 years, after 50 years, even as followers of a religion considered a dangerous, seditious cult, followers of the Way began to become complacent. They settled into their daily routines and the concerns of daily life became more and more important. They began to focus in on the little things of life, naturally enough, and began to miss the big picture. The Christians in Corinth, in Rome, in Ephesus and in other places began to forget that, at any moment, the bridegroom could come again, like a thief in the night, and they could be caught wallowing in the mire of their own sin. Made for immortality, they could be stuck in immorality.
As history progresses, this is even more true. When the danger of being Christian seemingly fades, when Christianity becomes, in a sense, mainstream, like after the Emperor Constantine’s edict tolerating Christianity, and indeed throughout most of western civilization, instead of the big picture, we put our focus on the little things, as important as they might seem, and miss the forest for the trees.
The same is true today, even with the reality that being a Christian today, in the Middle East, in Africa, and in other places, can and might get you killed. In the U.S. today, in the age of the cult of political correctness, we may not be physically killed for our faith, but we are considered completely irrelevant and the enemy by a large portion of society. We have lost that eschatological edge, and, I think, we need to reclaim it as soon as possible, if we are to regain the proper focus in the Christian life.
The Protestant theologian, Paul Tillch, asked what is our area of ultimate concern. What did he mean by this term, “the area of our ultimate concern”? It’s actually quite simple- naturally enough, as we go through life, we, as responsible adults, have many concerns, for instance, our health, our family’s safety and wellbeing, our financial security. These are concerns, but if one were to ask a person what his or her ultimate concern really was, it might be harder to articulate.
According to Tillich, true religion, defined by him as “the state of being grasped by ultimate concern,” is the area of our ultimate concern. The area of ultimate concern is that upon which we base our lives; it should be the guiding factor in all our life decisions; it should be that “pearl of great price,” that which will perdure after all the other concerns of our lives, as important, as they are have faded.
So what’s our area of ultimate concern? What’s really our ultimate concern? If it’s not the salvation of our immortal soul, then we need to reevaluate our lives. John the Baptist stands as one who reminds us of what and who our area of ultimate concern has to be- the Lord Jesus Christ. May we use this Advent season to reclaim our eschatological edge.
Readings for the Second Sunday of Advent
Isaiah 11:1-10
Psalm 72: 1-2, 7-8, 12-13, 17
Romans 15: 4-9
Matthew 3: 1-12
Father John P. Cush, a priest of the Diocese of Brooklyn, serves as the academic dean of the Pontifical North American College, Vatican City-State and as an assistant professor of theology and U.S. Church history.
