Jesus the Thief
1st Sunday of Advent
In the Gospels, Jesus uses a large number of images describe himself, with which we are mostly familiar. He calls himself the Good Shepherd, the Light of the World, the Way, the Truth, and the Life. But in today’s Gospel, he uses an image that probably doesn’t make the top ten or even the top fifty ways we like to think about Jesus. In fact, in my homily two weeks ago, I said that Jesus was exactly not what he in today’s Gospel says he is. In today’s Gospel, Jesus refers to himself as a thief:
Be sure of this: if the master of the house had known the hour of night when the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and not let his house be broken into. So too, you also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of man will come.
Jesus presents himself as a thief. But I said two weeks ago that Jesus is not a thief, and I made that claim on Jesus’ own words in the Gospel of John: The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly (10:10). I’m willing to be corrected when I’m shown that I’ve gotten something wrong, but it seems that Jesus is speaking here out of both sides of his mouth. Is he a thief, or is he not?
The answer, of course, is that he is, because he says he is. But we must complement this image with the others he uses to see how he is a thief unlike every other thief. Jesus is a thief because he has come to break into our house in which we have locked ourselves, and where we have secured what is valuable to us, that he may steal and kill and destroy what we possess that does not bring us life. Jesus is a thief, but unlike other thieves, he does not steal for his own benefit, but only for ours.
I am happy to accept the truth of what I have just said, but it still makes me uncomfortable. I am more than willing to admit, in principle, that I keep things locked in my heart that I shouldn’t. But I would prefer my kind and gentle Lord to make me aware of them in a tactful and unobtrusive way, rather than by barging in, taking me by surprise, and ransacking at will.
Jesus uses a large number of images to describe himself, because they reflect the different ways he works. Sometimes he gives encouragements subtly in prayer or fraternally through each other. Sometimes his challenges come as great aspirations from within to a higher form of living. And sometimes they come violently from without. Sometimes he is the Lamb, and sometimes he is the Thief. And being his disciple means we must accept who he is, when he is, on his terms and not ours.
The best Christians are those who accept this fact of Christian existence. There are three authors from the 20th century who come to mind who knew this better than most: that God’s time is his own, that he acts when he wants and how he wants, and when he shows up, you won’t mistake him for anyone else.
Graham Greene once wrote: You cannot conceive, nor can I, of the appalling strangeness of the mercy of God.1 God’s mercy is strange because it is not what we expect. It is appalling because it does not merely miss our expectations, it openly defies them. We pray that God would step in, make the world change course as we would have it, only to be frustrated by his apparent contentment to just let things be. Evelyn Waugh described God’s carefully timed method as baiting someone with an unseen hook and an invisible line which is long enough to let him wander to the ends of the world and still to bring him back with a twitch upon the thread.2 But when the twitch is made, the reaction is harsh and the reel is short to bring the wanderer from their darkness kicking and screaming into the light of day. If the twitch can be seen for what it is, however, as an expression of the appalling strangeness of the mercy of God, then with Flannery O’Connor, we can say: I can, with one eye squinted, take it all as a blessing.3 What these authors and other Christians like them knew is that God acts how he wants and when he wants; and when he does, you won’t mistake him for anyone else.
We may still prefer other, softer images of Jesus, but as we begin the season of Advent, we would do well to spend at least some time contemplating Jesus as the thief who comes when we do not expect him. We should take stock of what we keep locked inside that is valuable and precious to us that the thief will be after when he comes. For what Christ does not say about himself is that he will come as the thief to some but not to all. He does not place any limits or put any qualifications on his warning: You also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come. The strange and severe mercy of God will reach us when we do not expect it, but Christ wants us to be prepared for it.
So, how should we prepare? Let’s listen to Saint Paul. Paul did not tell the Romans to prepare for Christ’s coming by praying more. Paul thought prayer was a good thing. He told the Thessalonians to pray without ceasing (1 Thes. 5:16). But today he tells the Romans to do something else: to work on virtue. He did not say to pray for virtue as if it would simply fall upon them from above, but to work for it. Notice the active, commanding verbs: Awake from sleep; throw off the works of darkness; put on the armor of light; let us conduct ourselves properly; put on the Lord Jesus Christ; make no provision for the flesh. If we can identify what the thief will come to take, then we should set out to work on the virtues that beat him to it: chastity to drive out lust; temperance to drive out gluttony; charity to drive out greed; patience to drive out wrath; generosity to drive out envy; diligence to drive out sloth; humility to drive out pride. If we pursue the virtues now, there will be less for the thief to take when he comes.
For the virtues to be ours, we need to put in honest work. But here is where the large number of images Jesus uses to describe himself comes to our aid. For yes, he is the thief, who will break into our house to expose what we have hidden at an hour we do not expect. But he is also the Way who shows us the path up the mountain; he is the Vine who causes us, his branches, to grow by his grace; and he is the Life, who has come that we may have life and have it abundantly. The virtues we need to live in freedom are the virtues he has and offers to us. This season of Advent is an invitation to cooperate with him, for his life to live within us, that when the Son of Man comes, he will not find works of darkness to expose to shame but only the light he himself has given.
There is one final point to make about Jesus the Thief. What he is really after, the treasure of surpassing value to him that he will turn over all else to find, is us. Jesus the Thief wants to steal us: to steal us from this house of ours, where will will always be lured and tempted by darkness, to bring us, rejoicing, into his own house, free to walk always in his light. We have no reason to fear this Thief who steals us for life. Jesus our Thief, come quickly and do not delay.
Homily preached November 26, 2022 at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen.
Graham Greene, Brighton Rock.
Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited. [N.b.: Waugh is here quoting G.K. Chesterton].
Flannery O’Connor, The Habit of Being.