Advent: Awaiting a New Creation

 Reflection on Today's Readings, Monday of 2nd Week of Advent, Year C, December 6th, 2021
Texts: Isaiah 35:1 –10; Ps. 85:9-14; Luke 5:17-26
Today's readings speak of a new awareness different from what used to be. This new awareness will manifest with the coming of the Lord; our Lord is coming to create a new awareness, something never imagined before, something never part of us before, something never existed before. Today's first reading pictures the era of our Lord in term of new creation. The reading projects a kind of reversal in creation: "For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water; the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp, the grass shall become reeds and rushes." Waters are hard to find in the wilderness, streams are alien to desert, pool is not found in a burning sand but with the coming of the Lord the reverse will be the case. We are going to experience a new creation with the coming of our Lord. Then, what we await is a new creation.
The imagery used by prophet Isaiah, in the first reading, reminds us of the words of St. Paul: "So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!" (2 Cor. 5:17). The mark of our participation in the coming of Christ is to be a new creation, we should have let go the old ways of life. If the first coming of Christ has not recreated us, then we are simply deceiving ourselves, saying we are waiting for His second coming. 

At His second coming we shall also experience new creation; for St. Paul says, "But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there we are expecting a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will transform our humbled body, that it may be conformed to his glorious body, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself" (Phil. 3:20-21). At His second coming our mortal body shall put on immorality, the corruptible shall put on in the incorruptible. At His first coming He has made us new that we may participate in the fullness of creation at His second coming. Only those who are made new by the first coming truly wait for His second coming. This period of Advent affords us the opportunity to be recreated by His first coming, that we may reign with Him when in comes in glory and majesty.
The reading also reminds us that the Messiah we await is God, for creation is the act of God. Hence, it was said that Jesus Christ revealed His glory when He changed water to wine (John 2:11). This was because He changed the nature of water to wine, that is, He recreated the water. Recreating water to be wine, He revealed His divinity, He revealed Himself  to be God. In today's gospel reading, Jesus reveals Himself to be God by forgiving sin. The gospel reading, therefore, affirms that the prophecy of Isaiah in the first reading is fulfilled in Jesus Christ; He has come and will still come again. He has come to heal and recreate us through the forgiveness of sins. This reminds us that at confessional we are recreated, transforming from sinners to saints. At confessional, old ways are gone while we gain the righteousness of God. What a wonderful recreation! Hence, let us run to confessional and be recreated.
The presence of the scribes and Pharisees in the gospel reading are sign that there is tendency for Christ to elude us when He comes; there is tendency that we reject Him and accuse Him of blasphemy when He comes. When He comes, there is tendency to see Him as one of those who are masquerading around as the men of God. We have to be vigilant and wise, we have to be conversant with the words of God, we should be able to decipher the signs of the Lord when He comes.
The prophecy of Isaiah also tells us that there will be a way, a Holy Way made by God in the wilderness and desert. He puts it thus: "And a highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Holy Way; the unclean shall not pass over it, and fools shall not err therein. No lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it; they shall not be found there, but the redeemed shall walk there." Sinners shall not be found on it; only the redeemed shall walk on it. This tells us that we are to wait for Christ's second coming by keeping ourselves holy. We wait for Christ's coming by allowing the redemptive power of Christ to take effect in our lives.

May our prayer of petition rise before you, we pray, O Lord, that, with purity unblemished, we, your servants may come, as we desire, to celebrate the great mystery of the Incarnation of your Only-Begotten Son. Amen.  (Collect)

Fr. Andrew Olowomuke