Homily Advent 2B: Preparing the way for the Lord

 Homily for Advent – 2^nd Sunday Year B 2020-21

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.  Given the bad roads in our area, we can understand what this image is all about.  First century roads in Palestine, were probably as bad.  And so, when an important guest like a king was visiting, they had to do something about the roads.  Preparing the roads and making straight the paths, was therefore an image that the Jewish people would easily understand.  And that is why the gospels use it to explain what John the Baptist is doing. 

Scripture and Theology

But John’s message of preparation for the Messiah had already been prophesied by the prophet Isaiah from whom we read in the first reading.  Using the similar image of road construction Isaiah had indicated that when the Messiah came, “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 fulfilled that prophecy by asking the people to fill in the valleys, to level the mountains, to smoothen the rugged land and to broaden the rough and narrow country roads.  Of course, we must realize that John was not asking them to become road contractors, but rather contractors of their hearts.

And so, 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.”  And we heard that “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.”  Thus the two ways of preparing the ways John asked 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 in a ritual that they had made this decision to abandon sin internally.  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.

We can think of this baptism as being like the contractor, after clearing the area, now pouring the good tarmac on the road.  For baptism too adds something to the person who has repented and is undergoing 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

We are given these readings during Advent for a special reason, to help us also prepare for the coming of Christ.  But unfortunately, our secular society skips over Advent, jumping straight from Thanksgiving to Christmas, sometimes even from Halloween.  We too sometimes buy into that mentality and fail to appreciate what Advent is all about.

As yet we heard in last Sunday’s readings, the season of Advent is a season to help us prepare for the two comings of Jesus, both the first coming at Christmas and his second coming on the Last Day.  We Christians are fortunate to have our Jewish ancestors to whom we can look back and ask: "how did they prepare for his coming the first time? Can we learn from what they did?"

The readings from Isaiah and John the Baptist tell us that they prepared for the Messiah’s coming by conversion from sin and by baptism.  Can we do the same?  Perhaps the most recognizable Advent song can remind us what Advent is really about, that we must repent from sin.  Perhaps when we sing “O come, O come, Emmanuel” our thoughts jump straight to Christmas.  But we must listen to the words that come immediately after, which say, “and ransom captive Israel, that mourns in lonely exile here . . .”  We too need to be ransomed from our sins.

For us today we are fortunate to have many more tools to aid our ransom.  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, with God’s help, we must like the people who came to John the Baptist, fill in these potholes and rebuild the bridges, by repenting of our sins.

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?”

If the image of road construction, does not speak to you, Bishop Barron suggests another image, a more modern image, a helicopter.  We can compare our preparations to preparing a level ground for the landing of the helicopter, that is carrying Jesus.  And so, when on the Last Day, the Lord comes whether by road or by air, will he find us ready?