Have we outgrown our Peter Pans and wings?
The popularly dubbed “King of Philippine Christmas Carols,” Jose Mari Chan wrote a song called ‘Constant Change.’ The initial verses go:
We’re on the road, We move from place to place
And oftentimes when I’m about to call it home
We’d have to move along, Life is a constant change
The friends we know we meet along the way
Too soon the times we share form part of yesterday
’Cause life’s a constant change, And nothing stays the same…
‘Constant change’ is a crucial message in this Advent season, especially the reminder and message for us in our Advent liturgical readings. This message of ‘change’ abounds in biblical readings. It can be gleaned in the prophecies on the coming of the Messiah, a core topic during the Advent Season.
Prophet Isaiah provides many ‘messianic prophecies’ prophecies about the Messiah. Isaiah 11, 1-10 is considered one of the best, if not the messianic prophecy par excellence in the book of Isaiah.
A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse,
and a branch shall grow out of his roots.
The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him,
the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the spirit of counsel and might,
the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.
He shall not judge by what his eyes see
or decide by what his ears hear,
but with righteousness he shall judge for the poor
and decide with equity for the oppressed of the earth;
he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,
and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.
Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist
and faithfulness the belt around his loins.
The wolf shall live with the lamb;
the leopard shall lie down with the kid;
the calf and the lion will feed together,
and a little child shall lead them.
The cow and the bear shall graze;
their young shall lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp,
and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.
They will not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.
On that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples; the nations shall inquire of him, and his dwelling shall be glorious.
In a nutshell, Prophet Isaiah tells of a coming Messiah, on whom the spirit of the Lord will rest, whose mantra will be the ‘fear of the Lord,’ and who will rule with righteousness and faithfulness. And with his coming, we are given a beautiful picture of ‘peace.’ There will be harmony in creation.
The future promised Messiah will be a shoot from the stump or stock of Jesse. This is interesting because the shoot is just a little, small, and young branch that springs or grows from a destroyed tree or cut tree, a stump. This means that a branch or tree must be cut off before a shoot can sprout to make a stump. To create a stock, a tree must be cut - there must be a mind of ‘destruction, ruin or damage.’ We must understand this historically, as well as the history of Israel. At the brink of destruction of the whole of Israel, Prophet Isaiah gives them hope that although Israel will be destroyed, they will not be totally obliterated and annihilated. Though it may seem that Israel’s destruction will be very significant that Israel is dead, like a tree stump, God will bring forth something new in them; in fact, from that seemingly dead stump, from a destroyed people, the Messiah will come. So, God will create something new from what seems to be a deplorable experience and state of God’s people. God will make a change, a change that will shape their future.
Change then is a necessity, a requirement for the arrival and coming of the Messiah. This is made more explicit in the biblical readings on the coming and preaching of the prophet John, son of Zacharias. In Matthew 3, John appears in the wilderness of Judea, preaching the coming of the one greater than him. And to make way and prepare that person’s coming, John preached ‘metanoite, eggiken gar in he basileia tou ouranon’ – ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’ [NRSVue]
Repentance is a common message we always hear. Still, the English word repent has a moralizing overtone, suggesting a change in behavior or action. Metanoite, however, goes deeper than that. The word ‘metanoen’ literally means ‘change of one’s’ mind’ and further means ‘have a serious change of mind and heart about a previous point of view or course of behavior.’ The message of metanoite is to change our ways of knowing, perceiving, and grasping reality and perspective. It means learning to change our attitudes, orientations, and ways of seeing things. [1] When John calls metanoite, he asks us to destroy a part of ourselves, to destroy yung mga nakagisnan na nating buhay and to redirect the course of our life to that coming Messiah. The requirement to get hold of the newness of that coming Messiah is a change of course in our lives, our basic direction, and our way of seeing things.
But in real life, this change only happens slowly. A change like this is gradual and laborious. It occurs in the depths of our minds and hearts very gently; we can barely notice the transformation of who we are. And it happens so quietly that we might think nothing is happening. As Timothy Radcliffe says, ‘Our transformation in God’s grace in a slow business.’ [2] Change and transformation start from that little shoot, the little branch that would spring up from the seemingly dead stump of a tree. But what is more important is that it is constant, a ‘constant change.’
A slow, constant, consistent change is one of the best ways to prepare for the Lord’s coming. In fact, it is only through that constant change that our lives can receive well the newness of life that the Messiah, Jesus brings. Instead of busying ourselves with parties and external decorations, getting swept away by the Christmas rush, AdventAdvent is a time to reflect and to stop if this constant change is really happening in our lives. Again, the song ‘constant change’ asks us: “Have we outgrown our Peter Pans and wings? We’ve simply grown too old for tales of knights and kings ’Cause life’s a constant change, And nothing stays the same.’ Have we outgrown our bad habits and unhealthy tendencies in life? Have we grown old, nabago ba ang pananaw natin sa buhay at sa Diyos sa mga Paskong nagdaan? Or nanatili pa rin ba tayong mga bata tuwing Pasko, nag aantay lang sa grasya ng walang effort para gumawa ng konting pagbabago sa buhay nation.
[1] See Robert Barron’s ‘Change Your Way of Seeing’ in his book, And Now I See: The Transformative Power of Christian Vision.
[2] Timothy Radcliffe, Why Go to Church? The Drama of the Eucharist (London: Continuum, 2008), 6.
Frederico Mercado is a newbie in reading religious novels.