Make Straight the Path of the Lord

 

To the church in Diaspora[1].

December 10, 2006: Second Sunday of Advent

 

Introduction

                     Advent’s two parts

After Vatican II Advent is no longer a penitential season as it used to be in days past. Its new mood is one of joyful expectation, and we may now party, eat and drink in the new Advent. Its new color in some places is blue, not penitential purple, in honor of Mother Mary and Baby Boy Jesus. What's not new is the division of the Advent into a first and second part. Both parts concern the Lord’s coming.

 

The impatience of late Advent

The second part of Advent, which begins on the 17th of December with the Novena of Christmas (sometimes called Late Advent), looks to the Lord’s first coming. It gazes backward into the past when in Bethlehem of Judea Mary bore a baby boy "with love beyond all telling" (2nd Preface of Advent). That second part of Advent builds up a delightful impatience in kids and adults, as carols sing out that “Soon it will be Christmas day.” That impatience was very fervent especially in the old days when Advent was still a penitential season, and we had to hold Christmas off until the 24th of December. When at long last Christmas Eve arrived, we pulled out all the stops: the lighting of the Christmas tree, the arrival of Santa Claus, the Christmas caroling, the opening of gifts and the taste of Christmas cookies and goodies after the four slim weeks of Advent. Then followed the walk to church in a winter-wonderland for Midnight Mass to hear the angel’s good news, “I bring you tidings of great joy which shall be to you and all the people: this day is born for you in the city of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign for you: you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger” (Lk 2: 10-12).

 

The impatience of early Advent

The first part of Advent begins with the first Sunday of Advent and goes till the 17thh of December. It looks forward to the Lord’s second coming in glory. Most of the liturgical reading is from the prophet Isaiah who practically stones us to death with the future tense, which is the tense of promise. One promise after the other rolls off the lips of the prophet Isaiah: "They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. One nation shall not raise the sword against another.  Nor shall they train for war again" (Is 2:4-5). “Then the wolf shall be a guest of the lamb and the leopard shall lie down with the kid" (Is 11:6). "On that day the deaf shall hear the words of a book. And out of the gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind shall see" (Is 29:18). 

 

The first part, which promises an end to blindness and deafness and cancer and tsunamis and suicide bombers, also builds up to impatience. It has the prophet Isaiah and us crying out,  “Oh, you heavens hurry up and rain down the Just One” (Is 45:8)  “Oh Lord God of Israel, hurry up and tear open the heavens and come down with the mountains quaking before you” (Is 63:19). It builds up to an impatience which has the church crying out at Vespers on the 19th of December the third of its O Antiphons. All the O Antiphons of the Christmas novena are impatient, but the one for the 19th is particularly impatient: "O Radix Jesse, veni ad salvandum nos!” Oh Shoot from the stump of Jesse, hurry up and save us! “O Radix Jesse, noli tardare!” Oh Shoot from the stump of Jesse, for God’s sake stop your delaying!” Hurry up and come to fulfill the promises.  Hurry up and come to do for us what we can’t do for ourselves. Hurry up! What in the world is keeping you!

 

Enabling his coming

There is something in the world that’s keeping him. The Messiah is already en route but the going is rough. He has no hefty Hummer to drive in or super-highway to ride on.  The roads dwindle down at times to mere trails cluttered by fallen trees and rolling stones. There are also potholes in his path.  His coming needs our help. So John the Baptist stands before us today as a voice crying in the desert, beseeching us to be enablers of the Messiah—beseeching us to hasten the day of his coming.  “Prepare ye the way of the Lord,” he cries out. Pave for him an expressway upon which he can travel with ease.  Level off the mountains and hills for him. Fill in the valleys and the potholes. Straighten out the winding roads before him and make smooth his paths. Then, at long last, he will arrive, and all mankind shall see the salvation of the Lord (Lk 3: 4-6).

 

“Veni et noli tardare!” Come and stop your delaying! What in the world is keeping you!  Rabbi Tsvi Schur thinks there is, indeed, something in the world that’s keeping him.  Some years ago he wrote me these words:  “If people in this world were filled with more compassion and tolerance, we would enable the Messiah to come so much sooner.  I often kid my synagogue saying that I visualize the Messiah about to be sent down to the world by God, but looking at all the hatred and cruelty perpetrated especially in the name of religion, beseeching God not to subject him to this cruel world.” No doubt the rabbi was writing out of stories and images and even personal experiences of the Holocaust burnt into his memory.

 

The Good Samaritan—an enabler of the Messiah

One day a man was going from Jerusalem to Jericho and was waylaid by robbers who left him half dead. Along came a Jewish priest who saw the dying man and passed him by. Along came a Levite who also saw the dying man and did the same: nothing. Finally a Samaritan came along, poured the oil of compassion and comfort into the poor man’s wounds, hoisted him on his beast of burden and hurried him off to the nearest inn where he provided for his care and cure. The Samaritan filled up the potholes on that rough road to Jericho that day. He smoothed out the path before the Lord. He hastened the moment of his arrival for the man waylaid by robbers. Because of the Good Samaritan, the poor man despite his bleeding wounds cried out, “Now my eyes have seen the salvation of God.”

 

The rabbi was speaking of Good Samaritans when he wrote, "If more people in the world were filled with love and compassion and tolerance we would enable the Messiah to come so much sooner.” For the rabbi it is we who delay the coming of the Messiah, and it is we who enable his arrival and hasten his day.

 

Aaron Feuerstein—an enabler of the Messiah

Aaron Feuerstein is a CEO and owner of Malden Mills, a fabric factory in Methuen, Massachusetts. He is also a devout Jew who reads Shakespeare and the Talmud, a rich treasury of rabbinical tradition. On the night of December 11, 1995 (eleven years ago this coming Sunday and six days before the beginning of Hanukkah on the 17th that year), a surprise party was being celebrated for Aaron’s seventieth birthday. During the party a boiler exploded and a devastating fire broke out which demolished a good part of his factory.

 

The morning after the fire he assured all his 2400 employees that, with God's help, they would all get through that tragedy together. Then he gave them their pay checks plus a $275 Christmas bonus and a $20 food coupon. Three days later on the night of Dec 14th in the gym of the Catholic High School where 1000 of his employees gathered to learn their fate, he made a startling announcement: "For the next 30 days, and it might be more, all our employees will be paid their full salaries. I think you already have been advised that your health insurance has been paid for the next 90 days. But over and above the money, the most important thing Malden Mills can do for our workers is to get you all back to work.  By the 2nd of January, 1996, we will restart operations, and within 90 days, God willing, we will be 100 percent operational.” There was a moment of stunned disbelief, and then the workers rose to their feet cheering and hugging each other and also weeping.

 

This CEO’s stunning unselfishness and compassion shone like a bright star in the dark night sky of corporate Enron greed. It leveled off the mountains and hills. It filled in the valleys and potholes for the Messiah. It prepared for him a straight and hasty path to 2400 employees waylaid by a devastating fire at Christmas time. All of them saw the salvation of God, and all of them cheered and hugged each other and wept. And the Messiah up in heaven, looking down and seeing such a wonderful Good Samaritan as Aaron, was delighted, and he beseeched God to quickly send him down to earth. All three (the 2400 employees, CEO Aaron and the Messiah) were filled with Hanukkah and Christmas joy.

That’s the way it works.  You straighten out the path of the Lord for me, and I straighten it out for you. You hasten his coming to me, and I hasten it to you. You make it easier for me to believe, and I make it easier for you. We’re all in this together.

 

Conclusion

The luminous glow of Aaron’s menorah

In Dickens’ Christmas Carol, the ghost of old Scrooge’s partner in business, Jacob Marley, appears to him on Christmas Eve. He is trembling in the chains of selfishness he forged for himself in life. Scrooge, trying to calm down the poor ghost, says, “Oh Jacob, you were always such a good man of business.” “Business!” the ghost cries out wringing his hands. “Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance and benevolence were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business.”

 

After his factory burned down on the night of December 11th (six days before Hanukkah began that year), some of his confreres advised Aaron to take the insurance money and run, as a good man of business would do. In spirit, Aaron said to them what the ghost of Jacob Marley said to old Scrooge:

 

"Business! Human beings are my business.

Every 2400 of them are my business.

Compassion, unselfishness and generosity are my business.

The dealings of my trade are but a drop of water

in the wide ocean of what really is my business."

 

Six days later Aaron began lighting the eight candles of his Hanukkah menorah. When they were all lit, its luminous glow was but a reflection of the bright flame that burned in him who had leveled off the mountains and filled in the valleys and had made straight the path of the Lord to 2400 human beings.

 

[1] Diaspora is a Greek word meaning dispersion. It refers to a religious group who for one reason or other has left its homeland and has taken up residence as a minority in a foreign land.