SECOND SUNDAY OF ADVENT
Cycle “B”: Mark 1, 1-18
Introduction: Three figures dominate the liturgy of Advent: the prophet Isaiah, John the Baptist, and the Virgin Mary. At Christmas, Jesus Christ will have the place of honour. For today, let us listen to the Baptist’s words and take them to heart.
Celebrating the Holy Eucharist is a cause of great joy, like looking forward to being with someone we love. And this joy has the special quality of being marked by the merciful love of God. We ask him to keep us always receptive to his reconciling for-giveness.
The Homily:
John the Baptist was the precursor of Jesus. John had no power base, no financial backing, no party machine to support him, no TV prime time he could buy; no corpo-rate sponsorship. He had one strength, and only one – he was called by God who spoke through him. God needed a man who was shorn of all pretensions, all sophistication and self-absorption. That is why John came to his mission from the desert. Sand and searing heat, lizards and scorpions the only living things creatures, there is nothing for it but to hang solely on God’s providence. It was in the desert that God drew from John that pure integrity of personality, founded on in-vincible conviction that enabled him to point the finger at the duplicity of people, the moral inconsistency of the religious leaders, and the squalid living of the political authorities.
John is as relevant today as he was two millennia ago. He introduced himself as the one crying in the wilderness to prepare the way of the Lord. He identified himself with his commitment, apart from which his personality had no meaning. His commitment was based on the programme mapped out by the prophet Malachi long before:
“Look, I shall send my messenger to clear a way before me. And suddenly, the Lord whom you seek will come to his Temple; yes, the angel of the covenant for whom you long, is on his way, says Yahweh, Sabaoth.”
John himself was born into a priestly caste, and to the great chagrin of the priests and Levites, he calls for a purity more profound than that produced by mere ablutions. This purity, rather, is gifted by God through the remission of sins. That is why John had to proclaim a baptism, a baptism of repentance. “Repent,” cries John, “change your attitude.” According to the psychologist, Carl Jung, “John is urging the crowds to undergo the huge emotional displacements and rearrangements of ideas, emotions and attitudes that have to take place for a person to begin recovery.”
Turn your gaze once more to the wild, forbidding, mercilessly hot expanse of the Judean desert, and see emerging from it the ascetical yet towering figure of John the Precursor. He brings with him all that the desert can offer, which reminded his Jewish listeners of the great Exodus of their ancestors from Egypt. It was in the desert that the people of Israel first experienced freedom from bondage, and where she was moulded into becoming the people of God; but where she also experi-enced her first infidelity.
Today’s text from the Second Isaiah is placed by all four Evangelists on the lips of the Baptist; it is a desert text. The desert ideally is a place for prayer, of solitude, of communion with God. Moses, Elijah, the Baptist, Paul, and indeed, Jesus - all came to their mission from the desert. It is said that Egypt is the gift of the Nile. But the de-sert is the gift of Yahweh to every man and woman. In the midst of our busy sched-ules, dealing with people, difficult and easy, of all ages, working together as a team, eating at the same table – we can become isolated, lonely, even broken.
This is the raw material of a great life. This is the time to offer our loneliness and bro-kenness to God; and He will turn our loneliness into solitude, and our brokenness into something beautiful. Then we shall throw our pride and pretensions to the hot searing winds of the desert to be shrivelled and blown away, and learn to touch the wholesome body of God. Only when we have been through that phase of total isolation in that way, can we emerge with any significance to ourselves, our rela-tionships and our work. From then on, our lives become substantial and our words meaningful. But if we prefer to remain in our isolation and locked up in ourselves, we shall never emerge from the desert, but die in our dryness, the desert claiming our bodies.
Let me end with the story of a modern day man, told in the first person. “One summer Saturday morning, when I was twelve, I was waiting for my friend Juanita to come over. We had planned a morning together, but she was taking a long time coming. I was fretting and complaining, and generally making a nuisance of myself. In fact, I was becoming rather obnoxious to everyone else in the house. Finally, my father said to me, “Get a book, a blanket, and an apple, and get into the car.” I wanted to know why, but he only repeated the order. So I obeyed. My father drove me about eight miles from home to a canyon area, and said, “Now get out. We cannot stand you any longer at home! You aren’t fit to live with. Just stay out here by yourself today until you understand better how to behave. I’ll come back for you this evening.” I got out, angry, frustrated and defiant. The nerve of him! I thought immediately of walking home; eight miles was no distance at all for me. Then the thought of meeting my father when I got there took hold, and I changed my mind. I cried, and threw the book, apple, and blanket over the canyon ledge. I had been dumped, and I was furious.
But it is hard to keep up a good rebellious cry with no audience; so finally there was nothing to do but face up to the day alone. I sat on the rim, kicking the dirt and trying to get control of myself. After a couple of hours, as noon approached, I began to get hungry. I located the apple and climbed down to retrieve it – as well as the book and the blanket. I climbed back up, and as I came over the top I noticed the pinion tree. It was lovely and full. I spread the blanket in the shade, put the book under my head, and began to eat the apple.
I was aware of a change of attitude. As I looked through the branches into the sky, a great sense of peace and beauty came to me. The clouds sat in still puffs, the blue was endless, and I began to take in their spaciousness. I thought about the way I had acted and why Dad had treated me so harshly. Understanding began to emerge, and I became more objective about my behaviour. I found myself getting in touch with my feelings, with the world around me. Nature was my mother, holding me for comfort and healing. I became aware of being part of it all, and I found myself thinking about God. I wanted harmony. I wanted to hold the feeling of mystery. I wanted to be a better person. It was a prayerful time, a time of deep silence. I felt in communion with much that I could not know, but to which I was drawn. I had a great sense of discovering myself as great, of seeing the world as great, of touching the holy. This sense lasted a long time, perhaps a couple of hours. I found I liked being alone, enjoyed the rich emptiness, held the stillness. It was as if I had met another person – me – who was not so bad after all. By the time my father came to get me, I was restored. Daddy did not press me about the day. He asked no questions, and I gave him no answers. But I was different, and we both knew it. My father had dumped me into solitude and had challenged me to grow. Before I got out of the car, I thanked him. And from then on, especially during the summers, I would take a day to go off alone. I loved those times of solitude, of contemplation, of prayer. I loved the person, the world, the God I met that day. This habit of seeking solitude has stayed with me all these years. (Brennan Manning, A Stranger to Self, Dimension Books, 1982, pp. 69 – 71).That is the message from the desert: “Behold, I put before you life and death. Choose life.”
PRAYER: (New Zealand Prayer Book) O God, it is your will to hold both heaven and earth in a singular peacefulness. Let the design of your great love shine on the waste of our wraths and sorrows, and give peace to your Church, peace among nations, peace in our homes, and peace in our hearts.
Scripture for Sunday's Liturgy of the Word:
Isaiah 40:1-5, 9-11
Psalm 85:9-10, 11-12, 13-14
2 Peter 3:8-14
Alleluia Verse: Luke 3:4, 6
Mark 1:1-8
A reflection on today's Sacred Scriptures:
Today, on this Second Sunday of Advent, John the Baptist takes center stage. It's the Gospel about this wild man in camel skin who ate wild honey and locusts. What a sight he must have been! Thousands of people flocked to the desert to see this strange person and to hear his message, PREPARE YE THE WAY OF THE LORD! It was very much like the prophecy of 'Second Isaiah' that we hear in today's first reading. Those words came from God hundreds of years before, announcing an end to the Babylonian captivity: "Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God! Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill shall be made low. Then the glory of the Lord will be revealed."
This was a message for the Jews of John's time to look again at a carpenter of humble appearance in their midst named Jesus who was already making a stir in the synagogues of Galilee and Judea. They must repent of their sins and be baptized.
Crowds of Jews from the cities rushed out to the desert to see this odd, fascinating figure called John the Baptizer. True, a number of them took to heart his warnings to repent of their sins. They even let this strange man baptize them in the Jordan. But how many others just laughed at the show and forgot about him the following week?
John's message is very important for us today. How will we react? To what extent are we to blame for the unrest, violence, and disconnectedness of our societies? We are farther from peace than ever before. Yes, God's message is always one of peace. What does He have to say, that we should do?
How can we make this Advent a time for new vision and understand the stupendous truth of God coming to earth as a little child? Even though there will be thousands of glittering Christmas lights all around us, how can I get excited at another breakthrough into our dark world of the dazzling light of Jesus, our Lord and Messiah? It takes deep reflection to appreciate what happened then and is offered to us again in our time. What humility it took for God to come as an ordinary poor man! For thirty whole years, no one noticed Him except a few poor shepherds and some foreign scholars we call the "wise men." The Lord expects much more from us.
Advent is a dangerous season if we see it merely with the eyes of an increasingly irreligious society. Advent is a time to prepare to really see the coming of the Messiah as both historical event and as present miracle. I must work every day at improving my spiritual vision through reading and prayer, so that a kind of miracle can happen to me personally.
This Second Sunday is an important one, for it calls forth from all of us, new efforts at heeding the voice of John the Baptizer. John preached a message of repentance for spiritual blindness. He proclaimed the coming of Light into darkness, a Light by which, through works of Love and Justice, we could build a highway toward eventual Peace. Advent is a time for penance, and a renewal of heart.
Cycle “B”: Mark 1, 1-18
Introduction: Three figures dominate the liturgy of Advent: the prophet Isaiah, John the Baptist, and the Virgin Mary. At Christmas, Jesus Christ will have the place of honour. For today, let us listen to the Baptist’s words and take them to heart.
Celebrating the Holy Eucharist is a cause of great joy, like looking forward to being with someone we love. And this joy has the special quality of being marked by the merciful love of God. We ask him to keep us always receptive to his reconciling for-giveness.
The Homily:
John the Baptist was the precursor of Jesus. John had no power base, no financial backing, no party machine to support him, no TV prime time he could buy; no corpo-rate sponsorship. He had one strength, and only one – he was called by God who spoke through him. God needed a man who was shorn of all pretensions, all sophistication and self-absorption. That is why John came to his mission from the desert. Sand and searing heat, lizards and scorpions the only living things creatures, there is nothing for it but to hang solely on God’s providence. It was in the desert that God drew from John that pure integrity of personality, founded on in-vincible conviction that enabled him to point the finger at the duplicity of people, the moral inconsistency of the religious leaders, and the squalid living of the political authorities.
John is as relevant today as he was two millennia ago. He introduced himself as the one crying in the wilderness to prepare the way of the Lord. He identified himself with his commitment, apart from which his personality had no meaning. His commitment was based on the programme mapped out by the prophet Malachi long before:
“Look, I shall send my messenger to clear a way before me. And suddenly, the Lord whom you seek will come to his Temple; yes, the angel of the covenant for whom you long, is on his way, says Yahweh, Sabaoth.”
John himself was born into a priestly caste, and to the great chagrin of the priests and Levites, he calls for a purity more profound than that produced by mere ablutions. This purity, rather, is gifted by God through the remission of sins. That is why John had to proclaim a baptism, a baptism of repentance. “Repent,” cries John, “change your attitude.” According to the psychologist, Carl Jung, “John is urging the crowds to undergo the huge emotional displacements and rearrangements of ideas, emotions and attitudes that have to take place for a person to begin recovery.”
Turn your gaze once more to the wild, forbidding, mercilessly hot expanse of the Judean desert, and see emerging from it the ascetical yet towering figure of John the Precursor. He brings with him all that the desert can offer, which reminded his Jewish listeners of the great Exodus of their ancestors from Egypt. It was in the desert that the people of Israel first experienced freedom from bondage, and where she was moulded into becoming the people of God; but where she also experi-enced her first infidelity.
Today’s text from the Second Isaiah is placed by all four Evangelists on the lips of the Baptist; it is a desert text. The desert ideally is a place for prayer, of solitude, of communion with God. Moses, Elijah, the Baptist, Paul, and indeed, Jesus - all came to their mission from the desert. It is said that Egypt is the gift of the Nile. But the de-sert is the gift of Yahweh to every man and woman. In the midst of our busy sched-ules, dealing with people, difficult and easy, of all ages, working together as a team, eating at the same table – we can become isolated, lonely, even broken.
This is the raw material of a great life. This is the time to offer our loneliness and bro-kenness to God; and He will turn our loneliness into solitude, and our brokenness into something beautiful. Then we shall throw our pride and pretensions to the hot searing winds of the desert to be shrivelled and blown away, and learn to touch the wholesome body of God. Only when we have been through that phase of total isolation in that way, can we emerge with any significance to ourselves, our rela-tionships and our work. From then on, our lives become substantial and our words meaningful. But if we prefer to remain in our isolation and locked up in ourselves, we shall never emerge from the desert, but die in our dryness, the desert claiming our bodies.
Let me end with the story of a modern day man, told in the first person. “One summer Saturday morning, when I was twelve, I was waiting for my friend Juanita to come over. We had planned a morning together, but she was taking a long time coming. I was fretting and complaining, and generally making a nuisance of myself. In fact, I was becoming rather obnoxious to everyone else in the house. Finally, my father said to me, “Get a book, a blanket, and an apple, and get into the car.” I wanted to know why, but he only repeated the order. So I obeyed. My father drove me about eight miles from home to a canyon area, and said, “Now get out. We cannot stand you any longer at home! You aren’t fit to live with. Just stay out here by yourself today until you understand better how to behave. I’ll come back for you this evening.” I got out, angry, frustrated and defiant. The nerve of him! I thought immediately of walking home; eight miles was no distance at all for me. Then the thought of meeting my father when I got there took hold, and I changed my mind. I cried, and threw the book, apple, and blanket over the canyon ledge. I had been dumped, and I was furious.
But it is hard to keep up a good rebellious cry with no audience; so finally there was nothing to do but face up to the day alone. I sat on the rim, kicking the dirt and trying to get control of myself. After a couple of hours, as noon approached, I began to get hungry. I located the apple and climbed down to retrieve it – as well as the book and the blanket. I climbed back up, and as I came over the top I noticed the pinion tree. It was lovely and full. I spread the blanket in the shade, put the book under my head, and began to eat the apple.
I was aware of a change of attitude. As I looked through the branches into the sky, a great sense of peace and beauty came to me. The clouds sat in still puffs, the blue was endless, and I began to take in their spaciousness. I thought about the way I had acted and why Dad had treated me so harshly. Understanding began to emerge, and I became more objective about my behaviour. I found myself getting in touch with my feelings, with the world around me. Nature was my mother, holding me for comfort and healing. I became aware of being part of it all, and I found myself thinking about God. I wanted harmony. I wanted to hold the feeling of mystery. I wanted to be a better person. It was a prayerful time, a time of deep silence. I felt in communion with much that I could not know, but to which I was drawn. I had a great sense of discovering myself as great, of seeing the world as great, of touching the holy. This sense lasted a long time, perhaps a couple of hours. I found I liked being alone, enjoyed the rich emptiness, held the stillness. It was as if I had met another person – me – who was not so bad after all. By the time my father came to get me, I was restored. Daddy did not press me about the day. He asked no questions, and I gave him no answers. But I was different, and we both knew it. My father had dumped me into solitude and had challenged me to grow. Before I got out of the car, I thanked him. And from then on, especially during the summers, I would take a day to go off alone. I loved those times of solitude, of contemplation, of prayer. I loved the person, the world, the God I met that day. This habit of seeking solitude has stayed with me all these years. (Brennan Manning, A Stranger to Self, Dimension Books, 1982, pp. 69 – 71).That is the message from the desert: “Behold, I put before you life and death. Choose life.”
PRAYER: (New Zealand Prayer Book) O God, it is your will to hold both heaven and earth in a singular peacefulness. Let the design of your great love shine on the waste of our wraths and sorrows, and give peace to your Church, peace among nations, peace in our homes, and peace in our hearts.
Scripture for Sunday's Liturgy of the Word:
Isaiah 40:1-5, 9-11
Psalm 85:9-10, 11-12, 13-14
2 Peter 3:8-14
Alleluia Verse: Luke 3:4, 6
Mark 1:1-8
A reflection on today's Sacred Scriptures:
Today, on this Second Sunday of Advent, John the Baptist takes center stage. It's the Gospel about this wild man in camel skin who ate wild honey and locusts. What a sight he must have been! Thousands of people flocked to the desert to see this strange person and to hear his message, PREPARE YE THE WAY OF THE LORD! It was very much like the prophecy of 'Second Isaiah' that we hear in today's first reading. Those words came from God hundreds of years before, announcing an end to the Babylonian captivity: "Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God! Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill shall be made low. Then the glory of the Lord will be revealed."
This was a message for the Jews of John's time to look again at a carpenter of humble appearance in their midst named Jesus who was already making a stir in the synagogues of Galilee and Judea. They must repent of their sins and be baptized.
Crowds of Jews from the cities rushed out to the desert to see this odd, fascinating figure called John the Baptizer. True, a number of them took to heart his warnings to repent of their sins. They even let this strange man baptize them in the Jordan. But how many others just laughed at the show and forgot about him the following week?
John's message is very important for us today. How will we react? To what extent are we to blame for the unrest, violence, and disconnectedness of our societies? We are farther from peace than ever before. Yes, God's message is always one of peace. What does He have to say, that we should do?
How can we make this Advent a time for new vision and understand the stupendous truth of God coming to earth as a little child? Even though there will be thousands of glittering Christmas lights all around us, how can I get excited at another breakthrough into our dark world of the dazzling light of Jesus, our Lord and Messiah? It takes deep reflection to appreciate what happened then and is offered to us again in our time. What humility it took for God to come as an ordinary poor man! For thirty whole years, no one noticed Him except a few poor shepherds and some foreign scholars we call the "wise men." The Lord expects much more from us.
Advent is a dangerous season if we see it merely with the eyes of an increasingly irreligious society. Advent is a time to prepare to really see the coming of the Messiah as both historical event and as present miracle. I must work every day at improving my spiritual vision through reading and prayer, so that a kind of miracle can happen to me personally.
This Second Sunday is an important one, for it calls forth from all of us, new efforts at heeding the voice of John the Baptizer. John preached a message of repentance for spiritual blindness. He proclaimed the coming of Light into darkness, a Light by which, through works of Love and Justice, we could build a highway toward eventual Peace. Advent is a time for penance, and a renewal of heart.
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