Preparing the way for the Lord

Homily for Advent – 2^nd Sunday Year B 2014-2015Isaiah 40:1-5,9-11; 2 Peter 3:8-14; Mark 1:1-8

Introduction

Why does John the Baptist tell the people: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths?”

To come here every weekend, I travel 8.2 miles from the door at Notre Dame Seminary where I live, to the door of this church.  And usually, if there is no traffic, it takes me about 15 minutes to get here.  That is because the roads are generally smooth.  I take Carrollton Avenue, get onto the I-10 interstate, then on to the Bridge, the General De Gaulle exit and I am here in Algiers.

Although the last few streets, Landry, Whitney and Opelousas are a bit rough, they are nothing compared to the bad roads in Uganda.  One of my mission churches when I was pastor in Uganda was about the same distance away.  But it took me nearly an hour to get there, because the dirt roads had a million pot holes, the swampy area had no bridge, and some places just had no road.

The roads in Palestine, were probably like the roads in Uganda needing repair, especially when an important guest, like a king was visiting.  Preparing the roads, therefore, was an image that the Jewish people would understand immediately.  And that is why John the Baptist uses it to explain his message. 

Scripture and Theology

His message is that the Saviour of the World is coming and so the people should prepare their hearts for him. The prophet Isaiah had warned about this already:

Every valley shall be filled in,

every mountain and hill shall be made low;

the rugged land shall be made a plain,

the rough country, a broad valley.

John the Baptist wants the people to put this image into practice: to fill in the valleys, to level the mountains, smoothen the rugged land and broaden the narrow country roads.  But they are to do this in their hearts.

To help them make this preparation, John the Baptist preached a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  In other words, for the people, preparing the ways and paths required two things: repentance and baptism.

Repentance meant that they turned from their old ways of sin and returned to the ways of the Lord. God has chosen the people of Israel as his own special people.  And he made a special agreement with them at the time of Moses; that he would be their God, and that they would be his people, following his commandments.  But time and again, they had reneged on their end of the deal; they had sinned over and over again and sometimes they had sinned very seriously, like when they turned to other gods.

And so, John, by his fiery teaching and by the example of his very austere life in the desert, calls the people to conversion.  They must once again honour the deal their forefathers had made with God, that is, to follow the commands of the Lord.  They had to change completely.

The second requirement was to show outwardly this decision to change.  The outward sign for showing their conversion was baptism in water, the baptism of John the Baptist.  Already in their traditions, ritual washing with water, was a sign of inner purification.  And as we heard:

People of the whole Judean countryside and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem

were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the Jordan River

as they acknowledged their sins.

And so, people prepared for the coming of Jesus, by interior conversion and by the exterior act of baptism in the water.  These are the people who will be the first disciples of Jesus.  In fact, Jesus picked some of his apostles, like James and John, from among this crowd.  The Baptist had done his part; he had helped the people prepare the way for the Lord, so that he might easily enter their hearts.

Christian Life

That message of preparation applies to us as well.  Just as the Jewish people prepared for his first coming which we remember at Christmas, we prepare for his second coming at the end of the world.  We do so throughout our daily lives and throughout the year.  But the Advent season, which ends in Christmas, is a special time to practice preparing for the Lord.  We say that we are preparing for Christmas, but in reality our Advent preparations are dress-rehearsal as we wait for the final coming.

Like John the Baptist provided his listeners with two concrete preparations, the interior conversion and the external sign of that conversion in baptism, the Church also does the same of us in the sacrament of confession.

As Advent and Christmas come towards the end of the year, this is a good opportunity to look back over and see which of our thoughts, words and actions are not compatible with the Lord’s ways.  We should examine our consciences and see what kind of potholes and broken bridges might be stopping the Lord from coming in or might be delaying his arrival in our hearts.  And then like the people who came to John the Baptist, we should fill in these potholes and rebuild the bridges, by making the conscious decision to return to the Lord’s ways.

One serious road-block to the Lord’s coming among us today is hate and anger.

·        At the international level, this hate and anger is expressed in the record number of wars in the world at this time.  Pope Francis has remarked that we might be already in the Third World War, but one happening in stages.

·        At the national and local level, our streets are full of various kinds of violence.  People kill others for the flimsiest reasons.  We take life, whether it is that of an unborn baby, or a full grown adult without giving it a second thought.

·        And then in our personal conversations and what we write on the internet, people speak with anger and hatred with such ease and frequency, that we seem to have forgotten the Lord’s teaching: “. . . I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment . . .  and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ will be liable to fiery Gehenna” (Mt. 5:28).

One way we prepare for the Lord’s coming is to leave behind a life of hatred and anger and take on a life of love and peace.

Like the crowds came to John to be baptized in the Jordan River as an external sign of admitting their sins and showing their conversion, we too need to go to the priest and through that ritual, demonstrate our conversion.  Moreover, confession is far superior to the baptism of John, because in our case, at the end of the process, when the priest declares “I absolve you from your sins,” your sins are actually forgiven by God.  While John with his baptism was only pointing to the saving work of Jesus, the priest, standing as God’s delegate, dispenses the forgiveness that comes from the saving work of Jesus.

Conclusion

“Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths,” is a task to be done both for the first coming of Jesus and for his final coming again, whenever that is.

If Christmas is the season to be jolly, Advent is the season to be ready and prepared.  One of these days someone might say to you: “Are you ready for Christmas?”  Of course they probably are referring to the Christmas decorations, shopping, dinner, which are all important.  But can you hear in this question, the call of John the Baptist: “Have you prepared the way of the Lord?  Have you made straight his paths?”  For you want the Lord to arrive sooner, rather than later, so that it takes him 15 minutes, not one hour to find you.