SECOND SUNDAY OF ADVENT B

[cappie]

Our God is coming. The time of exile—the long separation of humankind from God due to sin—is about to end. This is the good news proclaimed in today’s liturgy.

Isaiah in today’s First Reading promises Israel’s future release and return from captivity and exile. But as today’s Gospel shows, Israel’s historic deliverance was meant to herald an even greater saving act by God—the coming of Jesus to set Israel and all nations free from bondage to sin, to gather them up and carry them back to God.

Gospel of Mark begins in a time when what is left of Israel, the kingdom of Judea, is once again a conquered people, this time ruled by the Romans. Once again, they hope for God’s liberation. Isaiah’s words must have been very familiar to them. Indeed, Mark quotes from Isaiah 40, verse 3, in the very reading we have just heard.

John, however, is different from the images Isaiah calls to mind. In his own time, he was something of an eccentric. In today’s culture, he would have been a genuine curiosity. His wardrobe was the extreme of the natural fibres fashion trend. Imagine how he must have looked with the roughly textured camel’s hair, thrown over his body and belted with a strip of leather. His diet of locusts and wild honey surely conveyed some significant message to his culture.

If his dress and habits have a rough texture to them, listen to his message. John speaks of repentance rather than comfort. He preaches baptism for the forgiveness of sins. John is quite clear that one greater than he is coming. He is the prophet, not the fulfillment. It is the time to get ready. This is where we find ourselves this second Sunday of Advent.  

Advent is the season of preparation. The Advent wreath’s first candle has already begun to burn lower. Today we light the second. One fourth of the current year’s portion of preparation time has already passed. Now, it is time to address some significant questions. What are we preparing for? Who needs to be prepared? Who will prepare them?

What we are preparing for is the easiest question. Song and text make it clear that we are preparing for no less than the kingdom of God. Think of the words we pray so often: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.” That is what we prepare for and work for, today, and every day, here, and wherever we are.

Fortunately, we do not need to invest in camel’s hair and leather wardrobes, or check out a source for locusts and wild honey. We do, however, need to be very clear about who it is who needs to be prepared and who will do the work of preparation. The answer to the first question, of who needs to be prepared, is much bigger for us than it would have been for Isaiah. Isaiah spoke to those who believed themselves to be God’s chosen people. Abraham was the one whom God told that his descendants would be a witness to God’s presence in the world. They grew from a tribe of nomads into a small nation of sheepherders, farmers, and merchants. They may have been the main characters in the familiar stories that make up the Hebrew Scriptures, but they were very minor players in the empires that came and went in that part of the world.

In this time of the global economy, for us, the answer to who needs to be prepared is the whole world. It is everyone included in the instruction to “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

Now, let us consider the final question. Who will prepare the way? Isaiah and John have become the stuff of legends. The disciples are history. But we are gathered today as a community of believers. We believe that God so loved the world that he sent his only son that we might have eternal life. We believe that all who choose to truly repent will be forgiven. We believe that nothing of this earth can separate us from the love of God.

Like John, we are not the way, but we know the way. It would seem, therefore, that we are today’s prophets. We are the ones who can give voice to the good news that Christ has died. Christ has risen. And Christ will come again. We know what we are getting ready for. If we do not share that, who will?

 

[dUSt]