The liturgy of the second Sunday of Advent challenges us to prepare the way of the Lord in our hearts so that we may receive Jesus as our saving God on Christmas.
- Scripture Readings:
I. OT Reading [Bar 5:1-9]: Prophet Baruch introduces Yahweh, the God of Israel, preparing the way for, and leading the Babylonian exiles to, Jerusalem. Hence, the prophet invites the weeping Jerusalem to rejoice and go to high places to watch the return of the exiles. Baruch’s prophecy announces the return of the whole human race to God. During this Advent season, we, too, are asked to return to the Lord from our slavery to sin.
II. Epistle Reading [Phil 1:4-6, 8-11]: Paul advises the Philippians to prepare themselves for Christ’s Second Coming by practicing Christian love and by leading pure and blameless lives.
III. Gospel Reading [Lk 3:1-6]: John the Baptist, challenges the Jews to prepare their lives for receiving their long-awaited Messiah. They are to prepare a way in their hearts for their Messiah by levelling the mountains of pride and the valleys of impurity, injustice, and sinfulness. The external immersion he conducted at river Jordan was only an external expression of the internal conversion he was demanding from the people. Baptism of repentance preached by John has two fundamental aspects: (1) identification of sins, (2)
repentance over sins. John wanted everyone of the land to be prepared for the
messiah's coming through repentance.
Baptism of Repentance:
The baptism conducted by John the Baptist at River Jordan was not a ‘proselyte baptism’, converting Gentiles into Jews where the Gentiles would be immersed in a body of water to symbolize death and burial to someone’s Gentile past, and then would be raised up from the water to symbolize being “born again,” raised to a new life as a Jew. This baptism symbolized turning from the past and turning toward a new life with God in the future.
This “baptism of repentance,” was to receive the forgiveness of sins committed by those who were Jews already, and it required repentance (metanoia, a change of mind), which implied a turning around to proceed in a new direction to be introduced by Jesus, the Lamb of God where the repetend sinner’s the heart changed, and life transformed. As with prophet Baruch, John presents the image of the mountains and valleys being made flat and smooth as a sign of Israel’s repentance and moral transformation.
Fulfilling the prophetic words of Isaiah, John the Baptist’s preaching assisted in ensuring that in the lives of everyone who was baptized, “Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth” (Is. 40:4; Lk 3:5).
The Fathers of the Church have called the Sacrament of Reconciliation our “second baptism,” in which we’re brought back to the Jordan and cleansed interiorly as we were on the day of our Christening. Advent, like Lent, is a season given to us so that we may repent of our sins and be reconciled with God and His Church by receiving the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
Preparing “the way”: If a king were planning to travel, work-crews would be dispatched to repair the roads, thus the roads for the king’s journey would be straight, level, and smooth. John considered himself as the work-crew or predecessor of Christ and he insisted on the preparation of lives by mending not your roads, but hearts. The quotation, “making straight the paths of the Lord,” means clearing the path of sin, which is the major obstacle preventing the Lord from coming into human lives. The valleys and hills here stand for the
estrangement of man from 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.
John the Baptist’s cry to straighten pathways could mean bypassing or avoiding the crooked paths namely involvement in secret or habitual sins or in a sinful relationship, dishonest practices at work or at home, harbouring grudges or hatred, failing to be reconciled with others, deep-seated resentments, persistent fault-finding, unwillingness to forgive, bullying attitude, pride and egocentrism or to dismantle unfair housing policies, employment disparity, economic injustice, or racial and ethnic biases in social life. Amen.
Fr. Jerry Vallomkunnel MCBS