Homily for Advent – 2nd Sunday Year B 2017-2018
Isaiah 40:1-5,9-11; 2 Peter 3:8-14; Mark 1:1-8
Introduction
“Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.” That is what John Baptist does.
To come here every weekend, I travel about 8 miles from Notre Dame Seminary where I live, to this church. 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. And usually, if there is no traffic, it takes me about 15 minutes to get here. That is because the roads are generally smooth, except for the last few streets, Landry, Whitney and Opelousas, which we all agree need some work.
And yet even these rough streets are nothing compared to the bad roads in Uganda. When I was pastor in Uganda, one of my mission churches 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 less like I-10 and more like the roads in Uganda. And so, when an important guest, like a king was visiting, something special had to be done. Preparing the roads and making straight the paths, therefore, was an image that the Jewish people would understand immediately. And that is why the gospels use it to explain what John the Baptist is doing.
Scripture and Theology
Josh's message is that the Messiah is coming and so people should prepare their hearts for him. The prophet Isaiah from whom we read in the first reading had already pointed to the preparations needed for the Messiah, saying:
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 is the messenger sent by God to help the people put this prophecy into practice: to fill in the valleys, to level the mountains, to smoothen the rugged land and to broaden the rough and narrow country roads. But John is not asking them to be road contractors, but contractors of their hearts.
To help them make this preparation, we heard in the gospel that John the Baptist “proclaimed a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” What is this? John was asking the people to prepare the ways and paths for the Lord by doing two things: repentance and baptism.
The first action of repentance required them to turn away from their old ways of sin and return to the ways of the Lord. Many centuries before, 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, one who provided and protected them, and that they would be his people, a people that followed his commandments. But time and again, they had reneged on their end of the deal; they sinned over and over again and sometimes they sinned very grievously, like when they turned to other gods. To prepare for the coming of the Messiah, they had to reverse this trend and leave that sinful life behind.
We can think of repentance as being like when the road contractor, first clears away the old and broken tarmac or for a brand new road, clears away the trees and stones. These obstacles have to be taken away, for us to have a good road.
In the same way, John wants the people to remove sin from their lives, as they wait for the coming of the Lord. By his fiery teaching and by the example of his very austere life in the desert, he calls the people to conversion. They must once again honour the deal their forefathers had made with God, that is, to follow the commandments of the Lord. They must do a complete about-turn as the first step in preparing for the coming of the Messiah.
The second step then required them to show outwardly that they had made this decision to abandon sin. The outward sign for showing their conversion was baptism with water carried out by John the Baptist. Already in their traditions, ritual washing with water, was a sign of inner purification. That is why 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.
We can think this baptism as being like the contractor, after clearing the area, now pouring the good tarmac on the road. Baptism too adds something to the person who has repented and now undergoes this symbolic washing.
And so, people prepared for the coming of Jesus, by interior conversion and by the exterior act of baptism in 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 Jesus might easily enter their hearts.
Christian Life
As we heard in last Sunday’s readings, the season of Advent is a season to help us prepare for the two comings of Jesus, the first coming and his second coming. We Christians can look back and ask: "how they did it the first time? Can we learn something from what they did?" That is why the readings from Isaiah and John the Baptist are very helpful for us in this season of Advent. And today's twofold message of John the Baptist, preparing for the Lord's coming by conversion and by baptism, can easily be applied to us today.
For us today we are fortunate to have many tools to help us make that conversion. The Church has a practice called examination of conscience, in which we to look over our thoughts, words and actions and see which ones are not compatible with the Lord’s ways. Especially as we want to celebrate Christmas with clean hearts, Advent is a great time for us to compare our lives with the Ten Commandments, the Beatitudes, the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy and see how well we measure up. Are there great discrepancies between our ways and the ways of the Lord? Are there potholes and broken bridges in our lives that might be stopping the Lord from coming in or might be delaying his arrival in our hearts? If so, we must like the people who came to John the Baptist, fill in these potholes and rebuild the bridges, by making the conscious decision to return to the Lord’s ways.
Secondly, after reaching this decision, 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 go to what has been called our second baptism, the sacrament of confession. We go to the priest and through that ritual, demonstrate our conversion. Moreover, the sacrament of confession is far superior to the baptism of John, because in our case, at the end of the process, the priest declares in the name of God, “I absolve you from your sins,” and 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
If Christmas is the season to be jolly, Advent is the season to be ready. 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 Isaiah and 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 in your heart, not only at Christmas, but especially on the Last Day!
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