December 7^th 2014.  Second Sunday of Advent

Gospel: Mark 1:1-8

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

Don Fabio’s reflection follows the Gospel reading ...

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GOSPEL Mark 1:1-8

The beginning of the Good News about Jesus Christ, the Son of God. It is written in the book of the prophet Isaiah:

Look, I am going to send my messenger before you; he will prepare your way.
A voice cries in the wilderness: Prepare a way for the Lord, make his paths straight.

And so it was that John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. All Judaea and all the people of Jerusalem made their way to him, and as they were baptised by him in the river Jordan they confessed their sins. John wore a garment of camel-skin, and he lived on locusts and wild honey. In the course of his preaching he said, ‘Someone is following me, someone who is more powerful than I am, and I am not fit to kneel down and undo the strap of his sandals. I have baptised you with water, but he will baptise you with the Holy Spirit.’

The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

Kieran’s summary . . . In the first reading the Prophet Isaiah tells the people of Israel that their time of exile is over. All of us are in a state of exile in the sense that we are in various states of sin, discontent, dissatisfaction with our lives, conflict, unhappiness, lethargy. How do we escape from this state of exile? In the Gospel we are told that there is “Good News”. John the Baptist preaches a baptism of penitence for the forgiveness of sin and he tells us that Jesus will baptize us with the Holy Spirit. This is indeed Good News because it announces that our exile is over! Jesus is coming into our lives and he alone forgives sin. The water of John the Baptist accomplishes external cleaning, but only Jesus can touch our spirits and heal us within. The exile that each of us experiences is the exile due to sin, due to going our own way, due to our self-referential lives. In the Old Testament, two verbs are reserved for God alone: “to create” and “to forgive”. We can change the external circumstances of our lives as much as we like, but the only solution to our exile is to allow the Lord to come to us and pardon us for  the ways we separate ourselves from him. Isaiah tells us that the Lord is coming with power. How does he manifest his power? By shepherding his flock! By picking up the lambs and looking after the mother ewes! This Advent let us allow the Lord to come and minister to us. Let us devote time to prayer, reflection and acts of penitence so that we will not miss the Lord when he comes to us with his tender pardon.

Isaiah announces that the end of the exile is near. The people of Israel are to return to their land. All of us are in exile and we need to return to our true home. Where is this home? How do we get there?

St Mark will be accompanying us for the forthcoming year, and on Sunday we read the very first lines from his Gospel. “The beginning of the Good News about Jesus Christ, the Son of God”. This verse using the very same term found in the opening words of the Greek version of the book of Genesis, “In the beginning . . ” And the story of Jesus begins with good news. To understand better this good news, let us look at the first reading from Isaiah. The prophet is announcing the end of the days of exile. “Console my people, console them. Speak to the heart of Jerusalem and call to her that her time of service is ended, that her sin is atoned for, that she has received from the hand of the Lord double punishment for all her crimes.” The oppression is now over and better days are about to begin. Isaiah is told to climb a high mountain and relate the joyful message to Zion. What is this good news? Isaiah is to announce the return from exile, but he is also to relate a message of a much deeper and far-reaching sort. And this message is relevant for each of us today. The human being is typically in a state of exile. Redemption involves a return to an original state. We are all lacking in fullness; we feel dissatisfied with where we are to some extent; we are all in need of being restored to our own true land and to feel at home with ourselves. The people of Israel are in a similar state of exile and Isaiah announces to them that the Lord himself will come. The return from exile is a great thing, but the happier news is that the Lord himself will come to take care of us. He will come and exercise his dominion, revealing his power to everyone. And the way in which he will manifest his power is striking! He will be a shepherd to us and gather the lambs in his arms! When the Lord comes, he will establish a relationship of tenderness with us.

The real exile we all experience is the exile of being in a state of sin. Only God can bring us home from this exile by forgiving us at the depth of our being

The text of the first reading is explicitly cited in Sunday’s Gospel. “Look, I am going to send my messenger before you; he will prepare your way. A voice cries in the wilderness: Prepare a way for the Lord, make his paths straight.” John the Baptist appears and proclaims a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. In the first reading the Lord had told Isaiah that Jerusalem’s sin was atoned for and that she had already received double punishment for all her offences. The punishment for sin was finished and the time of the pardon had come. Often we implore the Lord to free us from our various exiles and resolve our problems, but the basic thing we need is pardon and the wiping away of our sin. The fundamental message of John the Baptist was the forgiveness of sin. The people were baptized by him and confessed their sins. The real issue in life is to find pardon, to find the one who loves us over and above any guilt that we might have. In the Old Testament there are two verbs that are set aside for God alone. One is bara’ which means “to create”, an action this is exclusively reserved to God. The other verb, salah, means “to forgive”. Only God is capable of authentic forgiveness.

Sometimes we think that if we change our external circumstances, then everything will be all right. But what we need desperately is the touch of the Lord’s pardon within

All of us seek a better situation of life, a better “box” in which to live. But the changing of our external circumstances will not bring about that which we really need, which is to be loved completely and unconditionally. John the Baptist announces a baptism of water that prefigures a baptism of the Spirit. Water washes our bodies and signifies all of the external acts that we can do in order to say, “Lord forgive me! I have made a mistake! Accept me in my weakness! Take me as I am! Purify me!” Water cannot touch us within, but when the Lord comes he touches us at the level of our very spirit, the deepest part of us. The Spirit of Jesus enters us at our most intimate level and he enters as forgiveness, acceptance, love. The Church has a host of saints who console us and inspire us. All of these saints are filled with the sense of the pardon of God, with a profound awareness of the love of God for each of us. The Holy Spirit speaks to our hearts and says, “The time is over! You no longer have to handle the sad and irresolvable matter of sin. Tribulation is over! The Lord is here! Pardon is here!” When a person is visited by the Holy Spirit, he is visited by the Spirit that regenerates, the Spirit who is love.

This Advent let us straighten the ways so that the Lord can enter. Let us devote time to prayer and reflection, acts of penitence, so that we will be attentive to him when he comes with his pardon

In this time of Advent we are challenged to pay attention to what is going on in our lives, to straighten the paths, take care of our relationship with the Lord, cultivate habits that help to keep us in contact with Him, devote time to prayer, exercise the acts of penitence that every Christian is asked to undertake in order to combat our lethargy. Our Lord is coming and he loves us! Let us be attentive to his coming! He takes the lambs in his arms, we are told, and all of us are lambs that need to be carried by Him, forgiven by Him. As Isaiah says, the Lord leads the mother ewe to its rest. How the Lord wishes us to bring to fruition many things in our lives, but in our haste and fretfulness we do not bring them to birth. The Lord gives us the time we need to bring our works to joyful completion. His coming permits us to do all things, for his coming is our pardon.