This being Advent of Year B of the Sunday reading cycle, this former musicologist has only one specific recommendation for Advent — “This is the record of John” by Orlando Gibbons. One of the best of the English Renaissance composers, Gibbons sets this Sunday’s reading beautifully, writing a motet that elevates the text in a way that makes everything come into a new light. What caught my ear this year was the simplicity of St. John the Baptist’s responses. He doesn’t mince words, and he doesn’t answer more than the Pharisees ask. He simply responds: “I am not the Christ.”
How often do we make ourselves the Christ! We are so intent on being our own salvation, of making do by ourselves, of trusting in our own power to muscle through everything. We grit our teeth and bear it, we lose sleep and sanity having to do everything, to look the right way, to pretend that we’re more powerful, prestigious or capable than we really are. No, friends — we cannot save ourselves. Or perhaps, if we don’t try to usurp Jesus’ place, we think ourselves Elijah or Isaiah, or someone important, or someone who God needs to use every ounce of our strength to prove that we’re proper religious folk, just as the Pharisees did.
We forget that Isaiah expressly said that this is good news for the poor, that it is the poor who will receive this news the best and rejoice. Are we willing to realize our poverty and humility and live from this place? Are we willing to say like St. John the Baptist: “I am not the Christ”? Are we willing to let go of that to which we have no right to lay claim, to having it all together, of being respectable and postcard-perfect, especially in this season of high social pressure? God alone can bring peace and joy and hope into our hearts — we must not try to do it ourselves, but instead to strip ourselves of everything that hinders us from welcoming Jesus into our hearts, as we prepare to greet him again this Christmas, a baby who is all love.
Dear friends, the stable door is narrow and its lintel is low, and all of us with our bloated and exaggerated senses of self are inclined to crack our heads on the lintel and stagger away to nurse our headaches, or worse yet, get stuck in its jambs and prevent anyone else from coming in. No, indeed, we must be humble and honest, like St. John the Baptist: “‘I am not the Christ’ — but you, my Jesus — you are! Here am I, just as I am, here to worship and adore you.”
Solomon Ip – St. Joseph Seminary, Edmonton, Alberta.
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