SECOND SUNDAY OF ADVENT
4 DECEMBER 2016
In
Israel 2,000 years ago, those who were seeking to encounter the presence of God
went to the Temple in Jerusalem. That is
where the Pharisees and the Sadducees held court. The Pharisees were the lay spiritual leaders,
while the Sadducees were the officials in charge of Temple activities. But that is not where people are going to
encounter God in today’s Gospel. They
are going past the Temple to go down into the desert. The desert is a place where there are very
few distractions. With few distractions,
the desert had always been a place of testing and encounter for the children of
Abraham. Moses and Elijah had encountered
God in the desert. Moses led his people
out of slavery into the desert, where they encountered God at Mount Sinai and
were tested for forty years. Jesus himself went into the desert and was tested there.
By drawing
people away from the Temple and into the solitude of the desert, John the
Baptist is proclaiming a completely new reality. The Temple will no longer be the place where
people encounter God. They will
encounter God in the person of Jesus Christ, whom John will baptize. John is dressed in the same rough garments
worn by the prophet Elijah. He eats
desert food – locusts that speak of God’s judgment and honey that speaks of
God’s mercy. He bluntly tells people
that they will be unable to accept the new reality of Jesus Christ unless they
repent. The Greek word he uses is metanoia, which implies a complete
change of direction. He points to Jesus
Christ as the shoot sprouting from the stump of Jesse. Just as that great tree traced back to the
father of King David had been cut into a stump, he insists that they use
spiritual axes to cut away anything that stands in the way of encountering
Christ. Claiming to be children of
Abraham will not be sufficient, because even the Gentiles will be called to
encounter the person of Jesus Christ.
That is why he calls the Pharisees and Sadducees a “brood of
vipers.” He knows that they have no
interest in changing their lives. They
have come out of curiosity. They are too
invested in the Temple and all that the Temple stands for.
On this
Second Sunday of Advent, John the Baptist is speaking directly to us. He tells us to prepare for the coming of the
Lord. The Lord has already come, and we
prepare to celebrate his first coming at Christmas. The Lord will come again at the end of our
lives and at the end of the world. John
is inviting us to go to where there are no distractions to encounter the
Lord. Without distractions, we will
understand that we must also repent. We must
let go of whatever separates us from the Lord Jesus Christ, as ancient farmers
would hurl the newly combined wheat into the air with their winnowing fans,
allowing the wind to blow away the chaff.
John’s
message is very counter cultural. It is
counter cultural in the sense that he wants us to take a good hard look into
our daily lives, see the evil that eats away at us, and get rid of the chaff. The best way to do this is to receive the
Sacrament of Reconciliation. We will
offer our Advent Penance Service a week from Tuesday, and we will offer many
more opportunities in the week before Christmas. His message is also counter cultural in the
sense that he invites us to take a break from the craziness of the “Holiday
Season.” There is nothing wrong with
hanging lights on trees, shopping for gifts, and preparing for Christmas
feasting. But those activities in
themselves cannot draw us more deeply into our relationship with Jesus
Christ. If we are willing to go into the
desert of silence and solitude, we will be tested. But, we will also encounter Jesus Christ and
know the incredible peace described by the prophet Isaiah. Wolves are not guests of lambs in the chaotic
and fractured world in which we live.
But God offers us a profound peace that the world cannot give when we
know the presence of Jesus Christ, who has come to save us.
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