A new liturgical year begins as always with four weeks of
Advent. During this time we are
encouraged to prepare ourselves not only to commemorate the birth of our
Savior, but for the fourfold ways in which Christ comes to us:
- The Incarnation of God in the person of Jesus, a helpless infant;
- The coming of Christ into our hearts;
- The saving act of Jesus’ death and resurrection; and finally,
- The Second coming of Jesus at the end of time.
We will read extensively from the Book of Isaiah during
Advent, beginning Sunday with this important reminder: “We are sinful, all of
us have become like unclean people, all our good deeds are like polluted rags;
we have all withered like leaves, and our guilt carries us away like the
wind.” It is precisely when we think we
have it all together that we are in the greatest danger of losing our soul. In her wisdom, the Church sets aside this
time of year to help us reflect on our need for salvation, and a closer
relationship with God which is only possible because God Himself has reached
out to us and became man.
As evidence of our brokenness, consider the direction in
which our culture is trending as it adopts a “do-it-yourself morality.” Throughout the entire history of Western
civilization, cultural heroes were always those who did the right thing, for
the right reasons. Role models were
always people who did good, even under dire circumstances, and the “good” they
sought was defined by some external ideal that everyone understood and agreed
upon. The definition of “good” was
something everyone clung to because it was based on commonly held belief in a
moral code. Not so today. When Friedrich Nietzsche wrote Thus Spoke Zarathustra, he proclaimed the death of God and the coming of a new
kind of inner-directed hero who was his own god. He predicted the coming of Ubermensch or Supermen who would
transcend social and cultural norms, casting aside religion, philosophy, and
moral constraints by using their creative genius to move beyond what society
thought of as objective or absolute truth.
Television and movies are rampant with protagonists who live
by a personal code of their own devising. Some of the most popular TV shows
lately feature central characters who live by their own personal code of
behavior which is likely to include murder and mayhem to achieve their
ends. This genre may have begun with The Godfather, but is now commonplace in
prime time TV. The main characters in
series like 24, Breaking Bad, House of
Cards, Dexter, and How to Commit Murder, (to name just a few) are all
living by a moral code of their own making which justifies all manner of evil
to achieve their ends.
Programming like this sets a tone, and over time defines our
culture, and desensitizes us to brutality, murder, lust, and a host of other
vices. In the real world, people like
Hillary Clinton say things like, “Some of the best theologians I’ve ever met have
been five year olds.” (It Takes a Village). What she and many others are saying, is that
morality is no longer a question of applying reason to nature and using our
conscience to determine what is moral, but rather, “if it feels right, just do
it.” When Barack Obama was asked by a
minister to define sin, he confidently replied, “Sin is just being out of
alignment with my values.” If that’s
the case, then we are all gods, and doing god’s will as long as we are true to
ourselves.
Advent is a season for reflecting on the direction of our
lives, a time for introspection, and a time to seek a deeper relationship with
God who is reaching out to us in so many ways.
As the days grow shorter and darkness more pervasive, we seek the Light
of the World, hence all the candles and decorative lights. We decorate our homes with reminders of the
nativity because we need Christ in our lives.
We need His forgiveness and guidance to remind us that we are better
than our cultural icons. As Christians,
we are called to be counter-cultural and proclaim that there IS objective Truth.
If we fail to seek and uphold the Truth
as revealed by God, we will fall into the trap of deception that entices us to
believe we ourselves are gods, making up our own truth and moral code. If we truly seek peace in our lives, we need
a closer relationship with God, with His Truth, and what better way to close
out a year and begin a new one, than to participate in spiritual exercises that
draw us into closer relationship with The
Truth that sets us free, free from the slavery of sin and the chaos of
do-it-yourself morality.
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