Scripture:
Baruch 5:1-9
Philippians 1:4-6, 8-11
Luke 3:1-6
Reflection:
For the Second Sunday of Advent, our Gospel reading introduces us to John the Baptist. In our Gospel reading for this Sunday (Luke 3:1-6), Luke tells us that “the word of God came to John,” and that he “went throughout the whole region of the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins,” fulfilling the prophecy of Isaiah: “A voice of one crying out in the desert: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.”
Why did John preach repentance to “prepare the way of the Lord?” One way to look at it would be to scare the people to get right with God before the Messiah comes, especially if you think of the Messiah as some kind of avenging angel. But another way to look at it might be to consider that the way we really open our hearts to God is to acknowledge our own sinfulness and woundedness. When we are convinced of our own righteousness, or in denial about our need for healing, we actually wind up shutting Jesus out instead of letting Him into our hearts and lives.
To acknowledge our need for repentance does not mean we sink into shame and despair about ourselves. Instead, we turn back to God who can heal us. I love these words from our first reading from Baruch: “For God has commanded that every lofty mountain be made low, and that the age-old depths and gorges be filled to level ground.” God loves us so much to want to bring down the “lofty mountains” of defense that we put up to protect us from feeling vulnerable. He so wants to heal the “age-old” wounds which we may have been carrying for much too long!
Dare we live in hope? Dare we open our hearts and “make straight” the way for Jesus to come in and heal us? Dare we let God, in the words of our second reading from Philippians (1:4-6, 8-11), “complete” the “good work” begun in us and through us?
And moving outward from ourselves, would we dare to let God bring down those “lofty mountains” we have created between those we consider “us” and those we consider “them?” would we dare let the love of God in Jesus Christ heal the “age-old depths and gorges” of hate and fear and greed?
Again, in the words of our second reading; may our love “increase ever more and more in knowledge and every kind of perception, to discern what is of value,” so that we “may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ…” May we live for the day, in the words of Isaiah, when “the winding roads shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”
Fr. Phil Paxton, C.P., is the local superior of the Passionist Community in Birmingham, Alabama.