Be Not Afraid (Advent 1C)

1st Sunday of Advent, Year C | Dec 1, 2024

Additional homilies from this day in the liturgical season: 1st Sunday of Advent – 2015, 2018, 2021

See today’s readings here. Video recordings of the Sunday evening Mass, where Fr. Brian regularly preaches, are available on Facebook at Delaware Koinonia. The archive of all of Fr. Brian’s homilies can be found here: Salesian Sermons

---

So this past Thanksgiving weekend, I accomplished a rare pop cultural feat for me.

I went and saw not one, but two current movies in an actual movie theater while people are still talking about them.  I know.  I am proud of myself too.

Wicked and Moana 2.

Quite a combination if I do say so myself.

But it’s funny, because at the end of the day, I feel like both movies were preaching the same lesson.

A lesson that we hear echoed in our Gospel for this weekend.

What do we fear?  Who do we fear?

And what do we do in the face of that fear?

Francis de Sales used to write often that fear and anxiety were second only to sin in threatening our relationship with God.

And as I have gotten older, I understand that more and more.

Because fear is so limiting.

It limits our horizons of what is possible.  It stops us from saying yes.  To taking a leap.  To leaving our comfort zone behind.

It limits our compassion.  It can be stirred up against the other so that our fear morphs into anger that hardens into hate.  It distorts us into the ugliest versions of ourselves, ones in which there is always an enemy.  Ones in which the callous words we say, the blatant disregard for another that we trumpet, the cruel indifference in the face of another’s suffering is all justified by our fear.  

It limits our vulnerability.  For fear of what might happen if we trust.  If we try.  If we believe.

And it limits our potential.  For it tells us to keep it safe.  To stay low-key.  For we don’t want to draw attention to ourselves.  To stand out from the crowd.  For then we are a target.  Someone to be cut down and put in their place.

Maybe there is a reason why our Church year begins with a direct response to fear.

With Jesus telling us to stand erect and raise our heads.

To face the world as it is.

To face our fears as they are.

And refuse to succumb to them.

To refuse to simply escape through the bottle or the pill, the next game or the next hand, the credit card or the streaming service.

To refuse all attempts to run from our fears by convincing ourselves that if only we work harder, make more money, find the right person, or change who we are then we will be safe.  Nothing to harm us.  Nothing to fear.

To refuse to live in denial of the world as it is.  To tune out and disconnect from the world and its suffering.  To plead ignorance.  As if we don’t see the trials and tribulations then we cannot be afraid of them.  As if we do not see another’s pain, then we have no responsibility for responding to it.

Instead we are called to raise our heads and gaze upon the one who we await this Advent time.

The Son of Man.  The Son of Mary.  The Prince of Peace.  The Word made Flesh.

Emmanuel:  God with Us.

Who leads us out of the darkness of our fear into the light of his love.

Who leads us out of the darkness of our anxiety into the light of his peace.

Reminding us that love and love alone is the response to our fear.

For it is love that expands our horizons.

It is love that deepens our compassion.  

It is love that cultivates our vulnerability.

And it is love that grasps our true potential.  

For it is love that melts the barriers between each other.  It is love that reconciles us to our enemies.  It is love that transforms the other into our companion on this journey.

It is love that refuses to turn away from the world as it is.  It is love that keeps our heads raised high, to gaze upon this broken, beautiful world that we’ve made.  And to embrace it as it is, trusting God will work with us to transform it into what it is called to be.  

And so my friends.  Let us heed the message of the angels as we begin our Advent journey.

Be not afraid.

For the Lord of love has come.

May God be Praised.

---

IMAGE ATTRIBUTION: Saget, Father George. Christ in Glory, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=58795 [retrieved January 2, 2025]. Original source: Robert Harding Photographers, https://www.robertharding.com/.