Second Sunday of Advent
This is known as 'John the Baptist's Sunday'. He is the last of the great biblical prophets, the towering figure of the Advent season. We are told that he was an austere figure, preaching 'a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins'. What does repentance mean in our context today?
A voice of one calling in the desert,
'Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.
Every valley shall be filled in,
every mountain and hill made low.
The crooked roads shall become straight,
the rough ways smooth.
And all mankind will see God's salvation'.
What obstacles have we placed in the path of our Saviour? What prevents him from coming into our lives? We can address this question on three levels: (1) on a personal, individual level; (2) on a social level; and (3) on the level of Church.
(1) On a personal level, this reading can work as an 'examination of conscience'. The mountains and the valleys of Isaiah are no longer external, geographical features. Rather they represent attitudes within each one of us, sinful out-posts, that are hostile to the message of the saviour. They represent our fears and our obsessions, our grudges and our addictions, our prejudices and our unforgiven hurts. They represent the internal obstacles that impede the path of the saviour on his journey to change our hearts.
(2) As a society, it is almost a cliché now to say that we have destroyed Christmas with our vulgar commercialism. The world of commerce has hijacked this great feast and used it to further its own financial ends. As society loses its religious sensibility, commerce rushes in to fill the resulting void. We have surrounded the feast now with such mountains of material dross that we will have difficulty in recovering the original message. This is but another mountain that Christians must lay low. The Baptist's clearest message was contained in the way he lived: God is found in simplicity. Happiness depends on our learning to trust him alone. He, or it, will never be purchased.
(3) From the point of view of Church, what are the chief obstacles in the path of the would-be believer today? Here in Ireland, the recent scandals are a huge obstacle, obviously. But there are other, less obvious obstacles there too. I will just make one observation in this regard: our expectations may be wrong, or unrealistic. We can never again expect full churches on Sundays, as we had them in the 60s and 70s. We will no longer have those long queues for confession that we had up to 20 years ago. Many of those who packed our churches were there for social rather than religious reasons. And I don't mean that in any bad or judgmental way. The conventions of their day compelled them to attend church. When that heavy hand of convention was lifted in the 1980s, these people felt the freedom to walk. That is a positive development. Because many of our faithful people cannot come to grips with this reality, the Church for them today is a source of depression rather than a comfort. This is a real obstacle between them and the Christ child who comes bearing peace at Christmastime.
The season of Advent is oriented towards the future. It concerns itself with expectation, with hope-filled anticipation. Its focal point is the 'breaking-in' of God's Kingdom. I will leave you with a reflection by a true prophet, an authentic 'John the Baptist of the later 20th century', Archbishop Oscar Romero, of El Salvador, South America. It was written just a short time before his assassination in 1980 in San Salvador:
It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying
that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted,
knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation
in realizing that. This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well. It may be incomplete,
but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference
between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.
Amen.