An Advent Reflection
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Patriots have experienced a sort of political advent during the four years of the Biden-Harris administration.
Year by year, month by month, week by week, they waited – and prepared – for the day they would be released from an increasingly Marxist and anti-Christian government. They yearned for the re-birth of the country they loved.
They prayed, and did penance, for deliverance. Many fasted – either by spiritual choice or by physical necessity due to the harsh realities of Bidenomics. They tapped into the mysterious spiritual connection between sacrifice and redemption, denied by the Marxists.
And more people talked about God – and the possibility of gulags. They quoted Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: "Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened."
Then, after four long fear-filled years of Biden-Harris rule, many saw in the re-election of Donald Trump on Nov. 5 a sort of miraculous redemption. (Add to that, the miracles they saw in his surviving two assassination attempts.)
Trump had emerged as a leader promising to roll back the heinous political excesses of the Deep State and break the spellbinding effect of a fake news empire. He emerged as a leader inspiring the people to "Fight, Fight, Fight!"
Patriots all over the world – not just in the United States – breathed a collective sigh of relief, even a communal aspiration of belief in a personal God Who had answered their prayers.
God, it appeared, had ransomed a captive nation just as He had in the Old Testament. At least, God had granted US patriots a four-year lease to turn the ship around and turn themselves and their country back to Him.
"If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and will heal their land." – 2 Chronicles 7:14
Of course, Trump is no savior with a capital "S" – it would be blasphemous to say so. But the mood and movement of the past four years is unmistakably reminiscent of the Old Testament narratives, where generation after generation, the people of Israel longed and prayed for a Messiah to unshackle them from their sins and occupying empires.
The intense hopes and fears of the past four years cannot help but affect the fervor of this Advent season.
How can we not help but sing the stanzas of the ancient hymn O Come, O Come, Emmanuel with more relief and gratitude, given the recent historical events that have played out in our nation? How can we not help but see – and personally situate – ourselves in the sacred history of God's plan for us?
O come, O come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here,
Until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.
O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free
Thine own from Satan's tyranny;
From depths of hell Thy people save,
And give them victory o'er the grave.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.
O come, Thou Dayspring, from on high,
And cheer us by Thy drawing nigh;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death's dark shadows put to flight.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.
O come, Thou Key of David, come
And open wide our heav'nly home;
Make safe the way that leads on high,
And close the path to misery.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.
O come, Adonai, Lord of might,
Who to Thy tribes, on Sinai's height,
In ancient times didst give the law
In cloud and majesty and awe.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.
The well over thousand year old hymn – like the season of Advent itself – is more than just a preparation for Christmas, as important as that is; it is rooted in three "moments" of sacred history – Jesus in the past, Jesus in the present, and Jesus in the future.
In the Old Testament God prepares us for the coming of Jesus, the Savior. Isaiah foretold: "the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel."
Saint Peter, who Jesus tapped as the first pope, saw in the Hebrew Scriptures overall a preparation of what was to come. He said: "the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully ... when [the prophets] predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories."
The ancient hymn – like the season it grew from – also reminds us to prepare for, and facilitate, Jesus' renewed coming into our lives, into the Church, and into our nation in the present moment. For Catholics, this means appreciating more fully the presence of Jesus in the sacraments.
Third, the hymn stokes our awareness of the Second Coming when the faithful will be "cheered by His drawing nigh." Jesus will come into history once again; not just as a vulnerable human baby, but, in the final days, as Ruler and King in full glory and majesty. All will be seen in His light, and we will be held accountable for our lives and our deeds.
The movement of the hymn, and the season, is like the circle of the Advent wreath bringing God's sacred plan full cycle – past, present, and future.
And Trump's election – and the merciful reprieve from a Marxist regime it has granted – has reminded us during this holy season, what Chronicles teaches: "God sees us, hears our prayers, forgives our sins and heals our land when we turn from our wicked ways."
As we proceed through the remaining weeks of Advent, it may be helpful to imagine the difficult journey Joseph and an expectant Mary made southward from Nazareth to Bethlehem to "to be enrolled" by orders of Caesar Augustus.
They traveled the seventy-five mile trek on foot, across the Jezreel Valley, then uphill following a ridge toward Jerusalem, and finally Bethlehem.
Like them we are traveling to Bethlehem, too, asking God to "make safe the way that leads on high, and [to] close the path to misery."
We can also imagine the trek as we light each of the four candles on our Advent wreaths to keep track of our spiritual journey.
No doubt this is the perfect time to honor the birth of Our Lord, to pray He will more deeply enter into our lives and into those of our countrymen, and to rekindle our desire for His Second Coming.
This post-election Advent, in particular, will remind us that we are indeed living in a sacred and special "moment" of history, not to be taken for granted.
Donald Trump is the 47th president to be; Jesus Christ is King for all eternity.
Dr. Barbara Toth has a doctorate in rhetoric and composition from Bowling Green State University. She has taught high school in Poland and Oman and at universities in the US, China and Saudi Arabia. Her work in setting up a writing center at Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahmen University, an all-women's university in Riyadh, has been cited in American journals. Toth has published academic and non-academic articles and poems internationally.
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