2nd Sunday of Advent
Fr. Philip
Neri Powell, OP
St. Dominic Church, NOLA
The
Word of God speaks to John, calling him out of his desert exile to
preach the advent of Jerusalem's salvation, the imminent arrival of
the Messiah. John, both a prophet and a herald, travels the whole
region of the Jordan, “proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the
forgiveness of sins.” Our gospel writer, Luke, quotes the prophet
Isaiah, “A voice of one crying out in the desert: ‘Prepare the
way of the Lord, make straight his paths.'” This is the charge
given to John: ready the nation, prepare God's people; straighten
their minds; soothe their losses; temper their victories; and soften
their stony hearts to receive the consummation of all prophecy,
baptizing with water all those who repent of their disobedience, so
that their sins may be forgiven. Are you ready? Is your heart and
mind straightened and smoothed? Have you prepared yourself for the
coming of the Christ?
We
all know that Advent is meant to prepare us for the coming of the
Christ Child. This is that time of the liturgical year when we read
and hear all about the preaching ministry of John the Baptist. What
you might not know is why Luke quotes Isaiah's ancient prophecy and
connects it with John's contemporary ministry of baptism. In other
words, why – in the middle of telling us about the start of John's
ministry – does Luke bring in Isaiah's description of the Jews'
return from their Babylonian exile? The two events don't seem to have
much in common. Historically speaking, they don't; however,
prophetically speaking, the two are directly connected. In the 15
yrs. btw 597-582 BC, some 18,000 Jews were deported from Jerusalem to
Babylon by King Nebuchadnezzar. In 538 BC, the Persian king, Cyrus
the Great, defeated Babylon and gave the Jews permission to return to
their homeland, the kingdom of Judea. Isaiah's prophecy, quoted by
Luke, is part of a much larger prophecy called the Book of
Consolation (Isa 40-55). This is Isaiah's description of his people's
homecoming procession, their triumphant parade back to the land
promised to them by God. Who leads this procession? God Himself. So,
He makes the path back home straight, smooth; filling the valleys and
leveling the hills. After 60 yrs of hardship in exile, the Lord
brings His people home in style! John's mission is to bring God's
people to Christ, to make our way to salvation a smooth, non-stop
flight to the heavenly Jerusalem.
Earlier,
I asked you if you were ready for the coming of the Christ. Are you
prepared to receive him? Writing to the Philippians, Paul prays, “.
. .that your love may increase ever more and more in knowledge and
every kind of perception, to discern what is of value, so that you
may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the
fruit of righteousness.” Paul is praying that the Christians in
Philippi will continue to grow in that kind of love that brings them
closer and closer to knowing intimately God's will for them, so that
they will be able to distinguish good from evil, and remain wholly
innocent until Christ's return. How do the Philippians remain in
God's will until the Last Day? They work to produce “the fruits of
righteousness,” that is, they bring about, make manifest words and
deeds that demonstrate their right relationship with God. It's not
enough for them to think good thoughts about Jesus. They are exhorted
to produce outwardly, publicly evidence of their spiritual excellence
by imitating Christ in the world. And these superior words and works
will be spoken and done “for the glory and praise of God” and for
no other reason. Paul writes, “I am confident of this, that the one
who began a good work in you will continue to complete it. . .”
God
has begun a good work in you, in all of us, and He intends to
complete it. But His good work in each one of us cannot be completed
unless we do our share of the heavy-lifting. He will not save us
without our help. Over and over again, His people, Israel and Judea,
committed adultery with the neighboring gods, sacrificing their
righteousness on the foreign altars of oppression and injustice. By
falling to their knees before idols, they fell in their holy duties
to protect the innocent, the widowed, the orphaned, and the stranger.
By worshiping things of their own making, they degraded themselves as
things and sought to lift themselves up by pushing down those already
pushed out by poverty, disease, and ignorance. Our Lord began a good
work in His covenant with Abraham, but Abraham's children failed
again and again to take up that good work and work with God's grace
to make themselves into a blessed nation. For these failures, God
allowed them to be defeated, exiled, and lost among the pagans. Some
few remained faithful, and these He brought home. Because they worked
with the good work He started in them, these few He returned to their
promised land.
God
has begun a good work in you, in all of us, and He intends to
complete it. So, how can we use this Advent to prepare for His good
work to be completed? First, what good work He has started? For the
whole Church, this good work is the work of being Christ in flesh and
bone for the world. In other words, the Body of Christ must be the
BODY of Christ—the hands, feet, eyes, ears of the Lord, speaking
the Word, doing his will among the peoples and nations. For each one
of us, this good work is defined by our individual gifts used in the
service of the Body. What gifts has God given you? Has He given you a
talent? Use it for the gospel. Has He given you time? Spend it on the
gospel. Has He given you treasure? Invest it in the gospel. Next, we
need to discern what it is that stands in the way of our good work.
For Israel and Judea, it was their adultery with neighboring gods.
They learned that we all become what we love most. So, what do you
love among the idols of our perverse secular culture? Violence,
death, promiscuity, the financial bottom-line; self-gratification
before selfless service; untamed passions; or, do you claim to be a
god yourself? In your pride, do you long to become a god w/o God and
worship your own ego and id? God will allow it. He will also allow
the consequences of our idolatry.
Are
you ready? Are you helping John the Baptist in straightening out your
heart and smoothing down your mind? Christ comes to complete in you
the good work his Father started. Are you listening to his herald and
answering his cry for repentance? Ezekiel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, they all
warned God's people that their disobedience, their spiritual adultery
would lead them into the wilderness of exile and defeat. And so it
did. God brought them back to their promised land after two
generations of living among their enemies, after more than 60 yrs. of
purification and penance. Christ's Body, the Church—you, me, all of
us together—must be the voice crying out in the desert, calling the
world to repentance, calling it away from the edge of
self-destruction. But our call is hollow and weak if we ourselves
teeter on that same edge. A prophet must prophesy to himself first,
and so the Church must preach to herself first. The Advent of the
Christ Child is our time to get right with God, to get ourselves
realigned with His perfect will, to be filled again with the love
that created and re-created us in Christ. Look forward to his birth
at Christmas, but look inward as well, look inward toward his birth
in you, and love that child like he is your own, then, “all flesh
shall see the salvation of God!”
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