Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus
THE FOURTH SUNDAY IN ADVENT
"Come, thou long-expected Jesus, Born to set thy people free; From our fears and sins release us; Let us find our rest in Thee."
Such a beautiful verse from today's processional hymn. It gives words to the very cry of the heart, the song of every expectant soul. "Come Thou long-expected Jesus." The season of Advent beckons us to enter into and align our desires with a holy longing: a deep yearning for the Eternal Son to come into the world, aching within the soul for God himself to be born into the human experience, to dwell with us. Jesus, who was gladly made like us and forever joined to humanity not only entered into the world of men but became a man that he might heal Eden's wound and bind up the broken-hearted.
Jesus is the long-awaited for Savior of old: promised to the prophets to come- in time- to his people Israel, "Behold, the Lord God will come with a strong hand, and his arm shall rule for him." Israel longed for the day when the Almighty God would once again visit his people, to vanquish every enemy, and to bring his strong arm crashing down upon wickedness, evil, and injustice. They awaited One who was promised to come- in the flesh- and speak comforting words, to pronounce pardon and peace. To declare unto Israel, "your warfare is accomplished, your iniquity is pardoned." Justice. Peace. Comfort; the longings of Israel was a holy longing for their God to come and be in their midst.
And is this not the very longing which the prayers, hymns, and scriptures of Advent aim to stir within our hearts? Is this not the desire of our soul, which must eclipse any and all earthly desires or longings? Hungering for God to be born into the world, into our hearts, within the very fabric of reality? Veni Redemptor Gentium, "O COME, Redeemer of the earth, and manifest thy virgin-birth. Let every age in wonder fall: Such birth befits the God of all." We have been awakened to a holy longing, and we have been turned to the eternal Word that became flesh and dwelt among us.
Last week on Gaudete Sunday, we rejoiced in the coming of the Lord, longings great gift: "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice!" For Jesus is our joy, and therefore, we rightly rejoice in him! And, today, on this last Sunday in Advent, we are once again awakened to him whom we have waited for: "Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world!" You see, the Baptist wants to be very clear, to make sure we recognize know who this Jesus is, the coming Messiah we have been preparing a place for. John is not the promised One Israel.
And though John has baptized Jesus, he knows Him to be a far greater man than he saying, "I baptize with water; [but] there is one among you whom you do not recognize, the one who is to come after me - the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to unfasten." But when the Lord Jesus comes to the Baptist on the bank of the Jordan River, he knows exactly who has come into his midst, "Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world" (Jn 1:23).
"Behold the Lamb of God." Jesus is the One born to die. In his Gospel, St. John the Divine tells us that the Lamb of God to which John the Baptist points is the "Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." From eternity the Divine economy lovingly purposed for the Son to be sacrificed for sins of the world. And in time, the Lord Jesus Christ was born of a virgin, lowly, on the run and in obscurity to offer himself as an acceptable and perfect sacrifice to satisfy the penalty which rightly should be ours. O the wonder and mystery of so great an exchange! God in Christ bore the full penalty of our sins, to set to right the result of our disobedience. To this merciful and wonderful truth, the psalmist testifies that Jesus was born into the world "to restore that which he did not steal!" (Ps 69:4) Hear today, the glory of the Gospel: Jesus Christ was born to die so that thieves like us might be live.
You see, it has always been the eternal purpose of the Father to restore fallen humanity to himself. This is the incredible eternal fact which the coming of Jesus reveals and makes known to us. "For our sake," says St. Paul, "he made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Cor 5:21). We long for the Just God, for the compassionate God, for the Great Physician who attends to and meets our needs. But friends, today we are reminded that what we need is the self-sacrificing God of Mercy: the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
The Heavenly Lamb prefigured in the skin of slaughtered animals to cover Adam and Eve's shame. He was the acceptable sacrifice offered by the shepherd Able. He was Issac's substitute caught in the thicket and offered in place of Abraham's Son. Jesus is the unblemished male Lamb, whose precious blood shelters captive Israel from death on the night of that first fateful Passover. Jesus Christ, the perfect, sinless offering- the True Paschal offering- who achieves what the multitude of every prior sacrifice could not: the destruction of death's stronghold, the forgiveness of sins, peace with God, and eternal life to all who believe. Friends "He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter." The Lamb of God born in time to die for the life of the world.
Jesus said, "No one takes [my life] from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again" (Jn 10:18). And this is beyond comprehension. Not only did Jesus chose to die at the hands of the unjust, but he did so joyfully! Is this not what the writer of Hebrews tells us? Jesus, "who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God" (Heb 12:1-2). And why? To take away the sins of the world. The whole world has transgressed the decrees and laws of its Creator. From the first man to the last, everyone single person has fallen short of the glory of the God who lovingly breathed life into the soul of every man, woman, and child.
And what have we given in return? Nothing. We have loved lesser things, desired the unholy, squandered our inheritance in the "far country" (Lk 15:13). St. Peter, quoting the prophet Isaiah puts it this way, "all like sheep have gone astray" (1 Pt 2:25). Sin brought death into the human experience whose grip we cannot escape. But behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world! Jesus offered himself, willingly died on the cross, to break the shackles of death and cleanse us from the stain of sin. You see, the Lamb of God is also the Good Shepherd who willingly lays down his life for his sheep (Jn 10:18). And in this merciful Advent movement from heaven to earth and back again, you and I are caught up in the incomprehensible wake of Divine salvation.
Beloved, the One for whom we wait, whom we long to visit us, Who is our Advent desire, is magnificent, beautiful, and more lovely than our wildest hopes and dreams, but we must never forget that Jesus Christ is "the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world." The truth of the matter is this: We cannot exalt Jesus on Christmas unless we remember the blood of his passion, the thorns of his crown, the gall of his crucifixion, for these are the high cost of the eternal love of God manifested and worshiped in that tiny babe in Bethlehem. At Bethlehem, by the miracle of the incarnation, God worked in time to carry out his eternal loving purpose of taking mankind into himself and sharing his goodness with us forever.
For my friends, God has chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blame before him in love." (Ephesians 1.4) The eternal purpose and everlasting love of God is that you and I are to enjoy his infinite goodness forever. We long for and desire God and cannot avoid this because he loves us and wants us for himself. We love Him because he first loved us.
And because he loves us, we find that all the bread and drink of this world is lacking. It cannot, in the end, feed our hunger or quench our thirst. We seek true bread, true drink, the bread that comes from heaven, born in Bethlehem because the all-powerful love of Christ is always drawing us towards the Father's goodness. But the love of God, which we enjoy, is so very costly for him. We know that the Lamb of God, his innocent goodness which takes away our sin and makes us acceptable in God's presence, must be slain. The child born in Bethlehem must be raised on a cross outside Jerusalem. For, as Jesus proclaimed, "when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself" (Jn 12:32). He who came lovingly came down had to be raised up.
"Lo it is written in the Book, I come to do thy will O God" (Heb 10:7; 9). From the glory of eternity, the Son shared in the Trinitarian love of God and undertook his part to pay the price. The man at whom John Baptist points is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. And there is only one way to return to the Father, and that is through the loving sacrifice of giving his only Son. It is this sacrifice that is made present to us as we long for the humility of Almighty God, who is coming to us as a child on Christmas morning. This same sacrifice is made present here, today, right here on the altar so that, eating the bread of eternal life and drinking the cup of everlasting salvation, we may taste and see how good the Lord is. The Lamb of God here, mysteriously in our midst.
Friends, whether Advent, Christmas, or whatever day we find ourselves with breath in our lungs and light in our eyes, may we so long for him as to welcome him always, and welcoming him, may we rejoice! Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice! Beloved, Aquinas tells us that true joy flows from love, from being in the presence of the beloved, and so the natural response of charity is to rejoice. Therefore, prepare your hearts to enter into the presence of the Lamb. Do not tarry, nor delay. Rather, come. Come to the feast and enter into the joy of the Lord, who is drawing near.
"Come, thou long-expected Jesus, Born to set thy people free; From our fears and sins release us; Let us find our rest in Thee." Amen+
