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12/5 - 2nd Sunday of Advent 2021
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New Life is possible in Adversity
Each year, the second and the third Sundays in Advent center on John the Baptist, reminding us that if we want to prepare properly for the coming of Jesus we need to listen to the Baptizer’s message. The Evangelists realized the importance of John’s message. Hence, all four of them wrote about John’s preaching, while only two of them, Mathew and Luke described the nativity of Christ. Following the style of ancient historians, Luke dates the appearance of John according to the ruling powers of the day. His Gospel heightens the paradoxical affirmation of hope despite almost impossible odds. So, Christ’s imminent coming is announced in the first chapter, in the ominous shadow of Tiberius’s rule. The Evangelist notes that Pontius Pilate is procurator; Herod is tetrarch; Annas and Caiaphas are high priests—all names that bode more doom than deliverance. These men are the mighty and the dangerous, the important and the awesome. Annas and Caiaphas had been illegally put into their positions by the Roman authorities, and constantly used their power to line their own pockets and increase their own authority. Annas was even sometimes called a viper who hissed or whispered in the ears of judges and politicians to influence their decisions. Corruption infested the holiest of positions!
Yet hidden in the badlands of their dominion, a single voice is raised to preach repentance and forgiveness. John the Baptist, mindful of Isaiah’s promise that all shall see the salvation of God, grasps that the time is ripe. Here was this hidden man, John, a voice in the wilderness of time, who was given God’s word. “Make ready the way of the Lord.” Beyond the rise and fall of the great nations, lasting longer than all the violent dictators, who has survived? What reality is important? What word has lasted? Whose voice endures? It is good for us to answer and remember. More than all the victories of the Caesars, the pomp of tetrarchs, and the grandiosity of the highest priests, it was the outsider, the baptizer, who addressed all history. The truth, uttered in adversity, holds more power than all the slogans bellowed in triumph. To which side do we owe allegiance?
John’s baptism symbolized turning from the past and turning toward a new life with God in the future. And what was repentance? It was a turning from the new Jew’s pattern of sin in the past and turning toward God. John’s baptism offered to Jews, was, thus extraordinary. It was a “baptism of repentance,” a baptism for the forgiveness of sins committed by those who were Jews already, and it required repentance (metanoeo, a change of being), which implied a turning around to proceed in a new direction. True repentance is not just a 180 degree turn from the sin, but an all-out, full-bore, frantic sprint back toward God.
John called people to repent as a way of preparing their hearts and lives for the Lord’s visit. He is calling us, too, to get ready for something so great that it fills our emptiness with expectation. A smooth road means nothing to God, but a repentant heart means a great deal. Hence, the truly important goal for us is to prepare our hearts to receive the Lord. By emphasizing the last line of the quotation “All flesh will see the salvation of God,” Luke stresses the universal aspect of God’s salvation. Having begun the section with a list of rulers who did not bring wholeness or salvation, Luke ends with the expectation of a true Lord Who can bring these about. We don’t live in a perfect world, and we don’t look to this world to see God’s salvation. For salvation, we have to look to Jesus — Jesus present in Scripture, Jesus present in the Sacraments, Jesus present as we come together in Jesus’ Name, Jesus present in the lives of his followers.
Blessings;
Fr Tom Kunnel, C.O