A VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS

SECOND SUNDAY OF ADVENT

Bar 5:1-9; Ps 126; Phil 1:4-6,8-11; Lk 3:1-6

Making Ourselves Ready for the Lord

The prophet Baruch ushers us into the Second Week of Advent with a call to Jerusalem to get ready for the coming of the Lord. The coming of the Lord will see them restored to their land in Jerusalem. He wrote the Book while they were in exile in Babylon. Baruch was a faithful servant, scribe, and friend of Jeremiah the Prophet. He followed Jeremiah to Egypt at the destruction of Jerusalem and stayed with him until his death. Knowing that the Lord revealed his desire for his people to go into exile in Babylon and live and prosper there through Jeremiah, he must have gone to Babylon after Jeremiah’s death. Today’s passage is his prophecy of the restoration of Jerusalem that was then in mourning at the deportation of her children to Babylon and other nations. “Jerusalem, take off your dress of sorrow and distress, put on the beauty of the glory of God forever, wrap the cloak of the integrity of God around you, put the diadem of the glory of the Eternal on your head: since God means to show your splendour to every nation under heaven, since the name God gives you forever will be, ‘Peace through integrity, and honour through devotedness.’” The word of God was summoning Jerusalem to dress up to receive the Lord's visitation. It was a call to Jerusalem to act by faith, to believe in the word uttered by the prophets of the Lord.

A call to dress up to meet our God is always a demand for us to live by faith in the word of God. The preparation to meet someone of importance is to act as if the person is already here and now present. Preparation is to remove everything that would present you in a bad light before your visitor. That is what the prophets are calling us to do this season, to eliminate unfaithfulness or disobedience to the word of God from our lives and present ourselves in a way pleasing to God. The prophet’s call to Jerusalem to arise and stand on the height, to look towards the east in anticipation of the coming of her children, is to all of us. We arise when we take to heart the words of God and allow them to illuminate our minds and hearts with hope in what God promised. We stand on the heights when we believe the prophetic messages. The word of God gives us a vantage position to see what is still in the future. To facilitate the restoration of God’s people to Jerusalem, he decreed the flattening of each high mountain, and hill, and filling of the valleys to make the ground level. We are to use the graces made abundant for the season to curb our excesses and correct our defects. The fact that God decrees this fine-tuning in our behaviours implies he would work with us to achieve the best in us for his glory.

The grace for the Philippian Christian community to achieve the needed fine-tuning of their Christian life is what Paul said he prays for them to receive from the Lord. “My prayer is that your love for each other may increase more and more and never stop improving your knowledge and deepening your perception so that you can always recognise what is best. This will help you to become pure and blameless, and prepare you for the Day of Christ, when you will reach perfect goodness which Jesus Christ produces in us for the glory and praise of God.” It is for this fine-tuning of our Christian life that the Church recurrently puts this holy season of Advent and the accompanying ancient prophecies of the coming of the Messiah before us. We are to pay closer attention to what was promised and accomplished by the word of God. Doing this recurrently advances us into the mystery of Jesus Christ.

We must constantly prepare a way for the secret coming of Jesus Christ into our hearts so that we may be ready and worthy to receive him when he comes in glory and power. St. John Chrysostom explains to us the threefold coming of Jesus Christ.  The first time he came was as a child in the remote village of Bethlehem, which we commemorate at Christmas; the third time he will come in glory and power at the end of time is what we anticipate, the second he comes in grace and secret in the hearts of the faithful is what we celebrate every day. The second coming is between the first and the third as a path leading from his first coming to the third. Thus, the voice of John the Baptist urging us to prepare for the coming of the Messiah is beneficial to us in preparing for his secret coming in grace within our hearts. “A voice cries in the wilderness: Prepare a way for the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley will be filled in, every mountain and hill be laid low, winding ways will be straightened and rough roads made smooth. And all mankind shall see the salvation of God.” The Baptist still speaks to us in whatever reminds us of our sins and unfaithfulness to the grace of God. He calls us to repent from our sins, confess them, and do penance. We are to take the word of God to heart this season, to stand on the height, the vantage point it provides for us to see and receive the presence of God among us.  

Let us pray: Almighty and merciful God, may no earthly undertaking hinder those who set out in haste to meet your Son, but may our learning of heavenly wisdom gain us admittance to his company. Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.