1st Week of Advent, Wednesday, Dec 6
Isaiah 25:6-10 / Matthew 15:29-37
The Lord will feast his people; He will wipe away all tears.
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Thornton Wilder wrote a novel called The Eighth Day. It's about a good and decent family whose lives are filled with pain, sorrow, and hardship caused by evil people.
Wilder ends his novel without alleviating or resolving the family's tragic situation. He shows no heroes being rewarded and no villains being punished.
There is, however, one hint of hope. Wilder likens the family's plight to a tapestry Looked at from one side, it's ugly. Looked at from the other side, it's beautiful. It just depends on your viewpoint.
“In other words,” Wilder seems to say, "from our
viewpoint in this life, the family's misfortune is ugly. But from God's
viewpoint in the next life, the family's misfortune is beautiful.”
***
How deep is our faith in Scripture's promise that God will
someday wipe away all our tears? “What soap is for the body tears are for the
soul.” Jewish proverb
***
For Isaiah, the sign of the messianic times is that through
the Messiah God will give to his people an abundance of food and drink. People
long for life, and for peace. Prisoners want to be free, the blind wants to
see, the hungry wants bread. But likewise, people hunger for consolation,
friendship, forgiveness, understanding, acceptance, and justice. These desires
are fulfilled when Jesus, the Messiah comes. He gives food to his hungry
people. And we, his disciples, have to satisfy the hunger of God’s people
today. For he acts through us.
***
Some hotels and restaurants offer a buffet meal or even an ala carte buffet for a fixed price. That means that we can eat all we want and eat all we can for just one price. Some may think that it is value for money and that it is worth it. But there is only so much we can eat and we can't pack any of the food home.
But even if we have eaten our fill, or maybe even over-ate,
does that mean that we have been fully satisfied and that that we won't be
eating for a long time more to come? Certainly not. We will be hungry again and
then maybe we will head for the buffet spread again, if that is what we really
desire. So in other words, there seems to be a longing that can't be fulfilled
or satisfied.
The 1st reading talks about a mountain where the Lord of
hosts will prepare a banquet of rich food, a banquet of fine wines. But at the
time the passage of the 1st reading was written, there was war and the danger
of being captured or killed by the enemy. Even if there was a banquet of rich
food and fine wines, there will be no appetite to eat because there was no
peace and one can't even eat in peace. But the 1st reading gives a hope that
one day the people will be at peace and dine at the banquet of rich food and
fine wines. It was a real hope because it was the promise of God.
***
And in the gospel, that promise was fulfilled in Jesus who fed the hungry crowd on the mountain top, a meal in which they ate all they wanted. That brings us back to our Advent preparation. We are preparing to celebrate a promise fulfilled and also a promise that will be fulfulled.
So, despite the woes and troubles and anxieties of the
present time, we look forward with hope when we will be at the heavenly banquet
of rich food and fine wines, where we will rejoice eternally because God has
wiped away the tears from every cheek, and nothing more shall we want.
***
Opening Prayer
God of all people, you know how people hunger and thirst for
truth, love and acceptance. If we accept you and believe in you, we see our
deepest desires and aspirations being fulfilled by you as we work for the
coming of your kingdom. Help us to let the cup that you pour for us overflow on
all your people, that all may praise you, now and forever. Amen
***
Saint Nicholas
Feast Day December 6
Children all over the world know him and love him.
In Germany, he’s Kriss Kringle. In France, he’s Pere Noel.
British children call him Father Christmas. Of course, you know him as Santa
Claus.
He’s got another name, you know. It’s an ancient one that
goes back hundreds of years. It's one of the very first names people called
him: St. Nicholas.
Children tell lots of fun stories about Santa Claus, Pere
Noel, or Kriss Kringle. All of these stories remind us of how much we’re loved
and of how happy we are when we give. The earliest stories we know were told about
St. Nicholas, the bishop of Myra.
Hundreds of years ago, Nicholas lived in a seaside town
named Myra, which is in the country we now call Turkey. Ever since he was a
small child, Nicholas loved God more than anything. He studied hard, prayed
often, and followed Jesus by helping the poor.
The people of Myra loved Nicholas so much that when their
old bishop died, they immediately elected Nicholas to replace him. He served
them well for a long time.
Nicholas was loved for one reason. He loved. He loved God
and God’s people so much that he would do anything for them.
Here is a story about Nicholas that has been passed down
through many generations.
There was a man living in Myra who was very poor. This man
had no wife, but he had three grown daughters who lived with him
In those days, when a young woman got married, she had to
bring money or property with her into the marriage. This is called a dowry. If
a woman didn’t have a dowry, she would never marry.
This man was so poor that he had no money for his daughters’
dowries. And he didn’t have enough money to support them either. He had, he
believed, only one choice: to sell his daughters into slavery. Nicholas heard
about this terrible situation. Late one night, Nicholas crept to the man’s home
and threw something through the window. It was a bag of gold—enough to pay the
dowry for his oldest daughter.
The man was overjoyed, and his daughter was too. She
married, but her father was still left with a problem. Two, to be exact. What
about the two younger daughters? Sadly, he prepared to send them away.
Nicholas returned one night and again threw a bag of gold
through the window. The father rejoiced. But he wondered who was helping him
and why.
Of course, Nicholas didn’t want the man to know. He knew
that it’s best to help others without letting them know we’re helping them. If
we help others in this way, we help because we truly want to and not because
people will praise us for it.
But the father was determined. He had one daughter left and
no money for a dowry. He certainly hoped he would be helped again, especially
because he wanted to find out who was doing it. So he locked the windows and
watched out the door.
Nicholas still wanted to help, but he didn’t want to be
seen. So, in the back of the house, far from the father's sight, he dropped the
bag of gold for the third daughter right down the chimney
Other stories are told about Nicholas. It’s said that God
worked through Nicholas's prayers to raise children from the dead—some who had
been killed in a fire and another child who had drowned. All of these stories
tell us the same thing about St. Nicholas. He lived for God, which means that
he lived for love. If people were in need and he was able to help, St. Nicholas
gave them hope and strength. St. Nicholas never paused for a minute to wonder
what he should receive in return for his help. He only thought about what he
could give to those who needed him.
Stories about St. Nicholas spread from his home in Turkey up
to Russia, where he is still a very popular saint. Through the centuries,
people passed on stories of him across the most northern parts of Europe, then
to Germany, France, and England, and finally to the United States. The children
in every country gave St. Nicholas a name in their own language, and ours is
Santa Claus.
Christmas is a fun, exciting time, isn’t it? It’s fun
because of all the time we get to spend with our families. It's fun because we
do a lot of celebrating. It’s fun because we get to think, sing, and pray about
Jesus, who was born into the world to save us.
Christmas is also fun because we get to give. We can show
our family and friends how much we love them by giving them special gifts that
we make or buy.
We give because we’re thankful. We’re thankful for
friendship and love and for all the people who take care of us. We’re thankful
to God for giving us life.
St. Nicholas was thankful too, and that’s why at
Christmastime we try to be just like him. He was so grateful for the life God
had given him that he just couldn’t stop giving joy and hope to others—no matter
how far he had to travel or how many roofs he had to climb!
St. Nicholas showed his gratitude for God’s gifts by
giving to others. What gifts can your family share with those in need?
