The first Sunday of Advent always reminds me of how poor my knowledge of the Old Testament is. That's because Advent is all about the preparation and expectation of the coming Messiah.

I can never remember if it was Rachael or Leah who was Jacob's favorite wife. Was it King Solomon or King Saul who built the first Temple in Jerusalem. Or how about this one; was it Phinehas or Hophni who was the bad priest in the time of Samuel. Ok, trick question; actually both of them were bad priests who were killed on the same day to fulfill the curse of God upon the disobedient and cheating "liturgy directors" of the Temple. You remember, don't you, both were using a three-prong fork to dig the meat out of the pot so they could claim the best and the biggest pieces of meat from the sacrifices. They wouldn't even let the Pilgrims keep the lard left over in the pot.

I could go on and on, but my point is simply to bring to mind the fact that the amazing stories of ancient Israel, with its Kings and prophets, its heroes and villains are part of something we like to call the "History of our Salvation". During Advent we should ask the question, "Why did it take so long for God to send His Son to our broken world?" Ever since Vatican II there came about the theory that the Old Testament lost its importance because the New Testament did away with the Old. The traditional practice of the "Jesse Tree" gives us a very different perspective. Everything from Adam and Eve to King David to the battles of the Maccabees should help us see why the Old Testament is so long and so important. It manifests that Spiritual blindness and moral weakness so evident in these history lessons. We ignore them at great peril. They are not just the stories of people of long ago. They are stories that repeat timeless lessons. We need Advent, and this time of study so we might see the blindness and weakness in our own lives. Have you ever felt like crawling under a rock or running away because a sense of guilt overcomes you? Pardon my esoteric enjoyment of the Mr. Bean episodes, but in a humorous way, Rowan Atkins, (Mr. Bean) always makes me laugh when he, as an adult acts like a kid. In the episode, Merry Christmas Mr. Bean, when he messes up a department store's Christmas creche and the store security man catches him he sneaks out hoping no one notices. But I digress.

The blindness and stubbornness of the Old Testament stories illustrate precisely why it took so long to play out the story of "Salvation History". The story of Jonah and the Whale or King David and Bathsheba are not just history lessons, but lessons of the heart. If we do not have the sense of frustration at human weakness or even anger that humanity fights against obedience to God then the overwhelming joy that we should have at Christmas alludes us. Christmas should have a sense of "At long last, He's here". Christmas holds the kind of joy a wife feels when her husband finally takes the pledge, or when a rebellious teenager finally gets off the couch and takes on responsibility. Advent provides a time to take the Old Testament seriously, so the Incarnation hits us with its full force.