Parish Missons

Active Waiting

Rebe Barukh's grandson, Yehiel, came running into his

study in tears.

"Yehiel, Yehiel, why are you crying?"

"My friend cheats! It's unfair; he left me all by myself...

that's why I am crying."

"Would you like to tell me about it?"

"Certainly, Grandfather. We played hide-and-seek, and it was

my turn to hide and his turn to look for me. So he gave up; he

stopped looking. And that's unfair."

Rebbe Barukh began to caress Yehiel's face, and tears

welled up in his eyes.

"God, too, Yehiel," he whispered softly. "God too is

unhappy; he is hiding and man is not looking for him.

Do you understand, Yehiel? God is hiding and man

is not even searching for him." *

Hiding and seeking. They seem opposites. But the game of hide-and-seek is stalemated if both are not in play. It would indeed seems unfair, even self-defeating.

For the game to be effective, both are necessary.

Our Scriptures today call us to the same dual involvement. Though we are in a season of anticipation we are still called to be witnesses. Though we are offered prophetic visions that cause rejoicing, the Gospel challenges us to become witnesses of that vision. We don't simply embrace the vision, we proclaim it; we advance toward.

The context of these Scriptures should help us connect the message to our own circumstances. The Isaian prophecy is proclaimed among the rubble that was once Jerusalem in the waning days of the Babylonian captivity. Our response to that Scripture is Mary's proclamation in the Magnificat which breaks through her own personal dilemma as a pregnant teen. The Baptist is a voice crying out in the wilderness. The message of hope, the vision of a promise comes through most clearly to people of faith in their darkest moments.

We hear these proclamations in our own deserts, among the rubble of a country battered by wars and an economic crisis. We are challenged not just to wait, but to seek. To simply stand by is not an option. The vision must call us out of waiting into action.

Jesuit Walter Burghardt, the late preacher of the "Just Word," made the same point:

"...this very moment, for all its imperfection and frustration,

because of its imperfection and frustration, is pregnant with

all sorts of possibilities, is pregnant with the future, is pregnant

with love, is pregnant with Christ."

Both our own national crises and our personal dilemmas call us out of hiding. The vision offered by the Word of God calls us to seek out the presence of our God in the world today--a world that suffers and longs for healing. Not just among the war-battered and economically strapped, but among all who suffer injustice, poverty, and discrimination.

Advent is about seeking out our God who hides among our human imperfections and frustrations and may very well be unhappy when we cease searching.

* Hasidic tale told by Elie Wiesel quoted in An Advent Source Book, LTP, 1988, p. 95