It is the custom of our Faith to believe that when the Lord God Almighty created the first Man . . . and when He created the first Woman . . . it was a work of love; . . . it established a relationship of intimacy between God and the corporeal order; . . . it established a relationship of intimacy which mirrors the relationship which God has with the purely spiritual realm.  . . . We believe that God intended, at our creation, . . . God intended that His relationship between Man and Woman be exactly that which the angels enjoy.  It was intended, from the beginning, to be a relationship of a Father to His family; of a Mother to the fruit of Her Body; . . . a relationship of absolute trust, unconditional love, immaculate honor, and utter obedience.

    And so, when the first Man and the first Woman repudiated that relationship of trust, love, honor, and obedience by means of Original Sin, . . . the Book of Genesis tells us that the Lord God Almighty respected their decision.  The Lord God Almighty said,

Because you have . . . eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; . . . In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.  (Genesis 3:17-19)

Original Sin was not an accident.  We didn’t “fall into” sin.  We walked right up to it and claimed it!  Original Sin was an intentional decision not to be absolutely bound by our obligations to God.  And because Original Sin effected the dissolution of a relationship of obligation between Creator and Creature; . . . because Original Sin declared that a human being prefers to sustain itself apart from God, . . . the Lord God Almighty freed us to follow our own self-sustaining course . . . until our finite substance should expend all of its life-force and collapse into a heap of dust; … until our being should be extinguished at the moment it is no longer able to sustain itself.  . . . So, the result of Original Sin is not only moral dissolution; . . . it is personal dissolution as well.  . . . This is why we say that the result of Original Sin is Death; . . . the result of Original Sin is Death in every sense of the word.

    But it’s also the custom of our Faith to believe that the Lord God Almighty has provided humanity with a means to overcome the dissolution of Sin.  The Lord God Almighty has sent His Son -- His Living Word -- to be incarnate from the Virgin Mary; . . . The Lord God Almighty has sent His Son to assume our humanity completely; . . . to be a second Adam . . . a second Adam Who remains utterly obedient to the Father; . . . so that, even when Sin (not His own) brought Jesus to a shameful and agonizing death, . . . to a death upon the Cross, Jesus remained utterly obedient to God the Father.  . . . The result of Christ’s obedience was that Death did not become His Master; . . . Death became Christ’s Disciple.  Christ Jesus is risen from Death and is the Bread of Life which a man or a woman may eat of and live.  . . . And so, it is a custom of our Faith to believe that our Baptism into Jesus is an entry into Life!  And even though the consequence of Original Sin continues to be with us, . . . even though we remain dust and return to it again, . . . for those of us who are Baptized into the life of Jesus . . . our being is not extinguished.  For those of us who are Baptized into the life of Jesus, Death, the disciple of Christ, simply holds us in escrow.

    And so, here we are.  At His First Advent Jesus brought us to the very threshold . . . to the very brink of Heaven.  . . . And here we are.  Here we are at the very brink of Heaven while Jesus has gone ahead to prepare our place:  to air out our mansions and to fluff our pillows; gone ahead of us to be sure we have towels and soap and that the angels are present to greet us and bring us to our place at the Heavenly Banquet.  . . . Christ has gone ahead . . . and Christ will come again.  Our Redeemer will appear a second time; . . . there will be a Second Advent of Jesus, . . . not to deal with sin (we are told in the Epistle to the Hebrews); . . . there will be a Second Advent of Jesus, not to deal with sin, but to bring us through Heaven’s portal; into our rightful place among the saints in light who are the joy of the Father’s heart.  . . . But while we wait here at the edge of Light, . . . while we wait here in the twilight of Redemption, between the glorious effulgence of Salvation and the darkness of sin; . . . while we wait for Jesus, we cannot avoid the ambiguity of our situation.

    Saint Luke describes our situation as being similar to how things were at the time of the First Advent of Jesus,

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, in the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, [when] the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness

In those days the world belonged to the irresistible power of the heathen tyrant Tiberius Caesar.  Representing his interests in Judea was the military dictator Pontius Pilate who insured the local loyalties of the posturing, traitorous princes Herod, Philip, and Lysanias.  Looking after the interests of the Judean religious institutions, at the time, were Annas and Caiaphas.  . . . And then . . . off to one side so’s you’d hardly notice; all by himself . . . was God’s man:  John.  Off to one side of the movers and shakers of history is John the Baptist, . . . living in the wilderness region of Judea and preaching a message as wild as the place he called “home.”

    In these days the world belongs to the irresistible power, not of Tiberius Caesar, but of George W. Bush.  Representing his interests in the State of New York is George our Governor, Hillary and Charles being Senators of that state, in the high-priesthood of Frank and Katherine.  . . . And off to one side . . . so’s you’d hardly notice; . . . off to one side are God’s people.  Off to one side of the movers and shakers of history are all of us, . . . believing and preaching something Katherine can only regard as wild and unscientific.  Our situation, Luke says; . . . our situation is exactly the same as it was for the People of God in the day of John the Baptist; … our situation is that we are always in danger of becoming distracted by the movers and shakers of history; . . . we are always in danger of becoming distracted so that we forget who we are . . . we forget to Whom we belong . . . and we forget what we’re waiting for.  There’s always the danger, as we wait for Jesus in the half-light of Redemption, . . . there’s always the danger of wandering off into the dark; … of becoming distracted by the voices and concerns and the issues with which temporal powers and religious institutions are so taken.  There’s always the danger we can become fascinated again by Original Sin.  . . . We can become fascinated again by Original Sin and go wandering off into the darkness . . . and become lost … until we eventually collapse into a heap of dust.

    And so, today Saint Luke reminds us that we are waiting for Jesus.  Saint Luke, along with Baruch, Jeremiah’s secretary; . . . Saint Luke and Baruch remind us of what God has said to us by way of His prophet Isaiah and repeated by way of His prophet John.  . . . God has said, “Don’t become distracted by the issues and lifestyles of dead men and their institutions.  Turn your back on them and wait for Me.  Go out into the wilderness; . . . wait for Me in a place of silence and simplicity.”  . . . God tells Isaiah to tell everyone who desires to wait for Him; . . . God tells Isaiah that we should make of the place in which we wait for God a level plain without hills and without valleys to hide us from God; . . . that we should make of the place in which we wait for God so simple . . . that God will be able to look from way off in eternity . . . and see you with your arms held open to receive Him.

    Some time back, in an edition of The Observer-Dispatch, published in Utica; . . . some time back, there was a “Dennis the Menace” cartoon in which the tearful Dennis is looking at his goldfish floating belly-up in its bowl, and the child’s mother is saying, “Don’t worry, dear.  He’s gone to heaven.”  But after Dennis has had a moment to think about what his mother has just told him, . . . he looks at her and asks, “What’s God gonna do with a dead goldfish?”  . . . There is always someone who wants to tell us that Heaven is a place; that Heaven in an institution; that Heaven is a A; . . . but the child Dennis is quite right:  Heaven is really a Who.

    All of us will probably die before Jesus comes to bring us to Heaven; . . . before Jesus comes to bring us to God.  . . . You are dust, and to dust you shall return.  But it was God’s intention at Creation that we should all be corporeal angels; . . . that we should represent God to creation and to one another.  And while Sin has made things difficult for us, . . . God has given us the Sacrament, Holy Scripture, and His Holy Spirit to overcome corporeal and institutional distractions . . . to overcome the distractions of Sin . . . and to live as angels:  . . . to live as messengers of God’s ineffable wisdom and love.  . . . And if you live as messengers of God; . . . if God’s life lives within you because you know Heaven is not a What but a Who; . . . if you make of your life a place so simple that God can always see you with your arms wide open to receive Him, . . . the confidence of our Faith is that we do not become dead goldfish; . . . the confidence of our Faith is that even in death we wait for Jesus.  We wait for Jesus, Who shall return to where we wait for Him . . . and bring us to Life.