O come, let us adore him!
O come, let us adore him!
O come, let us adore him, Christ the Lord!

The prophet Malachi tells us
that the Lord whom we seek is coming.

It is a message of Good News for the people of Israel,
but suddenly it becomes a warning:
Who will endure the day of his coming?
Who can stand when he appears?

His coming will not simply be a day of great joy and excitement.
It will also be a day of testing and trial
when God will purify us,
removing from us what ever needs to be wiped away.

God will make us better than we are now
and transform us into people who are free from sin
and selfishness.

But it may not be an easy transformation.
It may not be easy to recognize our own sinfulness.
It may even be painful to admit
that we are not as wonderful as we like to believe.

O come, let us adore him!
O come, let us adore him!

The Psalmist today invites us
to open what is closed,
not to build walls to protect ourselves,
but to lift up, O gates, your lintels,
to reach up, you ancient portals
that the king of glory may come in.

In our world today,
there are many who seek to shut up the gates
and wall off the ancient portals,
to keep out anyone who is not like us,
and us is defined rather narrowly.

We forget that our own ancestors
were once stranger and aliens
in this land,
and that were times when
some people wanted to keep people like us out.

O come, let us adore him!
O come, let us adore him!

The letter to the Hebrews reminds us
that Christ chose to become like us, his brothers and sisters
that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest before God
to expiate the sins of the people.

And in our Gospel today,
an old man and an old woman
recognized the Christ of the Lord,
the salvation,
which [God] prepared in the sight of all the people:
a light for revelation to the Gentiles,
and glory for [the] people of Israel.

They recognized the Christ
not in some powerful speaker,
not in some great storyteller,
not in a wonder worker
or miracle maker,
but in a 40-day old baby
brought to the Temple
by a young couple
who simply wanted to present their son to God,
as God had presented him to them.

O come, let us adore him!
O come, let us adore him!

While we may not see Christ in a 40-day old baby
brought to the Temple,
when Jesus was finishing his ministry
among the people of Israel,
he told them where he could be recognized.
Jesus told them to see him in the hungry and the thirsty,
in the stranger and the naked,
in prisoners and in the sick.

We also see him in this community gathered around the table of the Lord.
We hear him in the Word proclaimed form this ambo.
We know him in the Breaking of the Bread
and in the sharing of the Chalice of Salvation.

And on this World Day for Consecrated Life,
I hope that we also see Christ in the lives of consecrated men and women
here and around the world,
in priest, brothers and sisters
who dedicate their lives to Christ
and the Body of Christ in the world today.

If you have ever seen him,
then I invite you to join with me
in singing his praises:

O come, let us adore him!
O come, let us adore him!
O come, let us adore him, Christ the Lord!