Growing in Wisdom at Advent

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This year Advent coincides with the end of my theology course. Providentially, my last class is on salvation history, of which Christ is the fulfillment, for he came down from heaven and, having been conceived by the Holy Spirit he became man, being born of a virgin and laid in a manger for the purpose of delivering humankind from the bondage of sin.

What we know of Jesus’ birth comes from the Gospels, and again a hidden hand has been at work in my life because just yesterday a friend loaned me a copy of Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives, by Pope Benedict XVI. I didn’t ask for the book; my request was to borrow a couple of reference volumes on salvation history so that I could fill out the bibliography for the term paper that will comprise a third of my grade. Handing me the other texts, my friend placed the Benedict book on top and said the pope references salvation history in the genealogy of Christ.

By definition advent means arrival or birth; for Christians Advent heralds the start of the liturgical year. Beginning on Dec. 2, at Mass we will have our own concentrated class in salvation history, because the readings from that day until Christmas will speak of the promises God made to the house of Israel and Judah. That Jesus was the savior from the stump of Jesse as promised by the prophets is clearly outlined by the genealogy that begins the Gospel of Matthew.

 Yet the coming of Christ, and indeed his whole life, is a mystery, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches. The world prepared since creation to receive Christ, yet when he came he was not recognized and was misunderstood. Even Herod, who accepted that the mewling child in the manger was a king, sought to kill him because of the threat he posed to the Judean monarch’s power; but the grown Christ, defending himself against charges that would lead to his death, declared his kingdom was not of this world. All this raises the question of how I kill Christ in my life because he challenges the selfish ways in which I wish to live.

The Church teaches that there are four ways to read Scripture: the literal, the allegorical, the moral and the anagogical (related to eternal life). For many years I have heard the Advent stories in only the most literal sense – a savior was promised to the Jews, John the Baptist proclaimed that the Lord was coming in fulfillment of that promise, Mary became pregnant by the Holy Spirit and gave birth to a son named Jesus, who went on to preach and teach and die nailed to a cross by our sins, and rose again on the third day, breaking the power of sin and death and promising us a place in his father’s house.

This is a nice story, and of course true in the literal sense. It is the basis of our faith and our Church. Yet if we look at the allegorical sense of the story we see that through Christ’s birth, life, death, resurrection and ascent into heaven he did indeed fulfill the covenants God made with Abraham and Moses and David. And if we accept the infant narratives as written for our instruction, we will ask ourselves how we should live in light of the birth of our savior. And because ours is a faith of redemption, we must see how Christmas will take us inevitably to the cross of Christ and then, at Easter and Pentecost, through it to everlasting life.

It may not be a coincidence that Benedict’s book has four chapters and an epilogue. For me that will be one chapter a week between now and Christmas. In the epilogue Benedict discusses how the wisdom of the child Jesus grows; although divine, Christ also was human and therefore “he thought and learned in a human fashion,” Benedict writes; perhaps by following in the footsteps of the master I too will grow in wisdom this Advent.

Marie Mischel is editor of the Intermountain Catholic.