The name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. Amen. The text that we have for these for Advent and the same for Lent, in many instances, have a consistency and integrity, a a coming togetherness which we don't find generally as I see it during the year. But here today now notice, you have first of all that first reading from Isaiah, which expresses once again the joy that we have in our God. We are not forlorn wanderers.
We are not men and women confused by what happens to us because we have a god who's running the show. That's putting it very simply. That's the message from the first reading. Then we had the the wonderful Psalm of the good shepherd, which down the ages has been solace to many a broken heart. And not only a broken heart, but many a heart on the way to be broken, which may be even worse.
When everything else seems absolutely hopeless, that song has been absolutely a a lifesaver to many a person, man and woman, who might otherwise have been lost. Again, you have that great expression of confidence in god that we're his creatures, his running the show. Let's get out of the driver's seat as the AA people say. Now we can never get out of the driver's seat. There's a that's a one of those true and false things.
But the point is that it's one thing to know you're in the driver's seat, and it's another thing to know that there's a boss man over everything. Never forget it. We can't relinquish our autonomy. We can't relinquish our responsibility and just cast ourselves completely upon god and say, here I am, god. Now I don't have to do anything.
Now these views have all been proposed, but they've been rejected by the church. So we have to put this together that god saves me, period. Luther was right in that regard. I cannot save myself. I cannot lift myself by my bootstraps even from the the whips and the scorns of daily living.
I can rise above this little incident or that tragedy, but it takes something more than that to lift me out of the big areas of living. Look at your rate of suicides today. Washington has more psychiatrists than any city in the world and more fortune tellers and soothsayers and palm readers. Why? Then we come now to this wonderful passage that Saint Matthew narrates of our blessed Lord and his commiseration on the people that they brought him notice, they brought all these people.
And if we can construct the geography of this thing, it was no mean task. If he was on the eastern side of the lake and they had to go all the way around the lake, bringing the deaf and the dumb and the blind and the crippled to lay at his feet, no small task. No small task. I think of the white trains coming into Lourdes. I just happened to be there when it happened, and what that meant, and the care and the trouble, and seeing those thousands of people being brought in.
And that picture came up as I read this, and they laid them at Christ's feet. We're not told that they said anything. All we're told is that Christ cured them. Those who were brought to him. And then without anybody saying anything to him, Jesus says, look, these people have been been wandering around with me.
They're three days away from any food. What are we going to do? It was our blessed lord who thought of that and who saw it and who did something about it. Now another thing that I like to stress, notice how our blessed lord begins with facts. Did he did he need to ask the disciples to how many loaves and how many fish did they have?
If he could multiply the little handful that they had into enough food to feed a multitude, he certainly could have done without the loaves in the beginning and the fish says fish. But he chose to begin with what they have. He takes us as we are. And there, I think, is the tremendous lesson for all of us. We as I said, I'm going to keep saying it, this Advent season is ambiguous.
So much of the liturgy talks about Christ's coming and the future and preparing for his coming. In a sense, that's absolutely right if we're talking about his second coming. It's absolutely wrong if we're talking about Jesus Christ born of the blessed mother. We're not expecting a savior. He's already come.
Perfect past tense, not future tense. He's he has been here. We have a savior. We are the city of Jerusalem that the lord has come to save from its enemies, to restore to its all its magnificent beauty. We have a savior who has put meat into that good shepherd's song.
We have a good shepherd not looking for him to come but who has been here. And then when we read the New Testament as we've been doing and about Saint John and preparing for Christ as we will come later on to the the annunciation and then all these preparations for Christmas, as if Christ had not come. He has come. We have a savior. We have a savior.
You see, when we don't when we're in a situation in life where we don't have any great needs, this doesn't mean anything to us. When we're absorbed by some particular job that we're doing and our whole thrust is with that, we don't think of the same. We don't think of the Psalm of the good shepherd. We don't need it. Who's god anyway?
Who needs him? I mean, may need a typewriter more than I need him. It's easily possible, and we can all be absorbed in that kind of a thing. We can all be absorbed so profoundly in the little job at hand. That doesn't mean that job is unimportant.
We still have the opus dei, the work of the Lord. If I'm a bricklayer, I lay good bricks in a good way as a good artisan. I mean, just because I'm a theist doesn't make me a good bricklayer. But because I'm a theist, I ought to be a better bricklayer. But I can forget God in laying the bricks.
I can forget I need God when I think I need a typewriter more or something. So it's very easy in times of life to have no need of God. Now I don't want to stress this business too much of our that we that we go to God because we have needs. I do not. That's not the basis of religion.
But the fact of the matter is, so many of us think of God where when we're in a foxhole. When we're out in a storm, when the lightning's crashing around around us, and we imitate Martin Luther, then we go to God. So let's and let's not be ashamed of that. Let's only rejoice then when when we need him, God is with us. That the good shepherd is with us, that he has come and he has come not simply to be with us in a transient, intermittent way, but to be with us all day.
Behold, I am with you all days even unto the consummation of the world. That's what our blessed Lord said. Now let's take all of this to heart and live it. There is no place in the Christian life for sadness, for despair, for regret. These things, they come and they go.
Now again, I'm not arguing against good human emotions. Christ wept at the tomb of his friend Lazarus. He wept. Twice he wept in the New Testament. Far as my may be wrong, but I recall two instances.
But he wept. So I'm not arguing against emotions. I'm saying that we need an anchor to survive emotions. I mean we need an anchor to survive all the sentiments and the feelings that come to us and that can surge over us and that can inundate us and or be on the point of drowning us. This can happen, and then we need that firm gut conviction.
That's the word for it. Newman called it real assent. Well, that's beautiful, but we have a better word for it today, that I do have a savior to pick me up when I need most to be picked up and when there's nothing else in sight that can do it. The name of the father, the son, holy spirit. Amen.