Happy New Year! Today’s the first Sunday of the Christian liturgical year. And the first words from the scripture that we hear today, from the prophecy of Jeremiah, are filled with hope.
“The days are coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and Judah. In those days, in that time, I will raise up for David a just shoot.”
When the Jews exiled in Babylon heard Jeremiah’s prophecy, they were certain that it was predicting their liberation by a charismatic, military leader. He would lead them back to Judah. He would restore Jerusalem to its former glory. There would be peace.
This prophecy came true for the Jewish people. However, it wasn’t because of a Jewish uprising. The Persian king Cyrus swept down and conquered the entire Babylonian empire. Shortly thereafter he released the Jewish captives and even helped them rebuild their temple in Jerusalem.
The Gospel reading for this new year is also hopeful. However, its message is cloaked in apocalyptic imagery. “There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on earth nations will be in dismay, perplexed by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will die of fright in anticipation of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.”
This is the announcement of the Parousia, the arrival of the Son of Man, the judgment of the world and the beginning of the messianic time. The Parousia will break into history like a streak of lightening. The world as we have known it, with its rejection of God, its wars, its inhumanity, its injustice, will be judged and purged of all that resists the will of God. How can I say that today’s message is hopeful? It sounds so frightening.
In the Jewish and Christian celebration of the new year, the liturgy opens the door to the Parousia. We stand at the threshold, look at our world through the eyes of the Son of Man, judge it and purify it. Then we look through the eyes of hope to envision a new world.
Each year we repeat this cycle. We end the old world and begin a new one. New week the scriptures introduce John the Baptist into our commemoration of the new year. He is the first light of hope. His cry to us to “prepare the way of the Lord” is meant to motivate us to envision a new world, and to turn around our lives so that we might adapt to that new world.
The world is ever-changing, but not always for the better. It’s very important that the liturgy of the new year marks the beginning of a new and better world. It will be through each one of us that this world will begin to manifest itself. It’s for each one of us to prepare the way of the Lord in preparation for that great day when God will be all in all.
