The liturgy of the second Sunday of Advent is based on the following readings: Isaiah 40:1-5, 9-11; Psalm 84; 2 Peter 3:8-14; Mark 1:1-8.

The main theme of these readings is on God’s kindness, truth, justice and peace in a new heaven and new earth; a God who cannot forget his people.

On the contrary, he is like a very mindful shepherd who knows and cares for each one of his sheep. The Gospel reminds us that we must prepare the way of the Lord, taking the example of the boldness of John the Baptist; proclaiming his coming to all  and preparing it with lives that reflect that perfect future which only he can inaugurate in its fullness.

The doctrinal point made by this liturgy is the scandal of human mediation! The above excellent message has been entrusted to human beings to carry across. And the bitter disappointment that ensues when human beings apparently fail to embody this dream, leads some to angrily reject the proclamation of the message itself.

That kind of intellectual dishonesty has led a number of human beings to find other ways of realising their utopia.  But the lesson carried by this Advent period remains unchallenged: nothing on this earth can measure up to the immensity of the desire for total goodness that God has placed in the heart of man.

God has loved and trusted man. That is why he did not send angels to prepare his Son’s path; he knows how they would have done an excellent job! But he sent a man called John Baptist! Surprisingly, he continues to choose men and women who share Christ’s humanity, with their human limitations, and peculiarities to do the same job as John did. 

The same God of all consolation, who comforted his people in their Babylonian exile, continues to assure us of his presence in our daily business. He watches our ardent hope for a world where justice and peace will reign with assurance that all is not in vain.

And Advent teaches us a lesson hard to believe that the form of world, distorted by sin, is passing away, and that God is preparing a new dwelling and a new earth in which righteousness dwells, in which happiness will fill and surpass all the desires of peace arising in the hearts of men. Utopia? No, it is biblical.

The second reading presents us with the picture of a universe finally consumed by fire, in which the message proclaimed by John is still mandatory:  repentance leads to purity of heart, ready to receive the one who comes with power.

This is the humble and hidden power soliciting our response, but in reality it is the power that will know no resistance when he comes again.

From a pastoral point of view, our liturgy is calling for something not so easy in our post modern community: the holiness of life and a life of prayer.

The Gospel stresses the point that for the one baptized in the Holy Spirit, it is simply a contradiction to settle for a life of mediocrity, marked by a minimalist ethic and a shallow religiosity. 

This kind of appeal is not simple in our time. We all know very well that a  Christian who gives witness to the priority of the things of the spirit and of the eternal over the temporal, risks to cut as strange a figure in our modern world as John the Baptist did in his own time.  Hence, many Christians are prey to the temptation to conform, and are fearful of being seen as different, of being excluded or made fun of. Yet the Advent season reminds us that to fail to offer this witness with our words, with our actions, with our attitudes and choices which might appear in contrast with those of our contemporaries is to fail to make straight the way of the Lord into our lives.

The season of Advent encourages us to go by our baptism and behave like prophets. To leave this function to the ‘professionals’ is not to have understood the grace, the role and the essential commitment of each individual Christian. We must all accept and fructify the graces that we have received gratuitously from Jesus Christ for his greater glory.

Ends