PREPARE! BE READY!
THE BEST IS YET TO COME!

Second Sunday of Advent (Year A)
Isa 11.1-10;
Rom 15.4-9;  
Mt 3.1-12

As the Light of the advent candle goes to the second candle today. The spirit is upon us to bring us hope, to light upon the way of the Lord, making his path straight, to transform or refine us. Those who are baptised have hope for they are guided by the spirit. It is the spirit that brings life. We must therefore live our lives in Christ.

Today’s Gospel presents the great Advent figure of John the Baptist, boldly making his appearance as an ardent and eccentric preacher in the desert of Judea.  John the Baptist seems a very serious person, lacking a sense of humor – a no-nonsense guy.  He has been characterized as a Bible-thumping, fire and brimstone preacher, eccentric as he wore his simple camel hair clothes and fed on locusts and wild honey…likely not the kind of person you could invite home for dinner with your family. 

Did Saint John the Baptist dress to shock?  Well, we will never know.  But his effectiveness as a challenging prophet among the people of Palestine certainly began with his appearance.  This man John wore a garment made of camel-hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey.  We hear in the gospel that people came from Jerusalem and all of Judaea to see him;  no doubt some of them drawn by tales of his dress and his diet.

The Baptist’s message was no less dramatic or compelling.  Some who held their religious leaders in little regard must have been thrilled to hear John dismiss the Pharisees and Sadducees as a “brood of vipers”.  His language was full of action and destructive drama – axes laid to trees, branches thrown on the fire, barns being cleared of rubbish.  John’s prophetic vision of the Messiah is a vision of a messy, violent conclusion to centuries of wasted opportunities and sin.  The One who is to come will put an end to all nonsense, excuses and delaying tactics.  So the message is to repent, quickly.

How can we reconcile these dramatic and violent expectations with the pastoral idyll offered by the prophet Isaiah in our first reading?  Isaiah, you remember, looked forward to a time when the wolf lives with the lamb, the panther lies down with the kid, calf and lion cub feed together.  This prophecy envisages a time when they do no hurt, no harm, on all my holy mountain.  It all sounds so peaceful and tranquil.  However, what Isaiah describes is a revolution.  The laws of nature are being overturned by the arrival of the kingdom.  The peace between animals normally hostile to one another is a sign that even in the natural world, the coming of the kingdom will overturn established rules.

John the Baptist openly proclaimed that the One to follow him was more powerful than himself, and that now is the time to get ready! And, when you think about it, that’s the way that God often works:  God often surprises us with something more than we could have hoped for or imagined.  We can be confident about the future, about better things to come, because we can look to the past and see how God has been at work.  In the first reading from Isaiah, we hear the prophecy of a “shoot sprouting from the stump of Jesse” – new and luxuriant growth – after the destruction brought about by King Ahaz in his weak and unfaithful rule over the country.  Isaiah looked for a human king, but we have the fuller picture in the person of Jesus who proclaimed the Kingdom of Heaven…more than we could have ever hoped for!

Saint Paul urged the Romans, and urges us, to look ahead with some optimism.  Everything that was written long ago in the scriptures was meant to teach us something about hope…  Our Christian attitude should be one of expectation, for however dreadful the process of God’s final sorting-out of the world may be, the goal to which we are aiming is one that can fill us with optimism.

Today we look forward to a better future for ourselves and our world.  World-wide challenges exist:  health pandemics, violence and mistrust, prejudice and racism, a lack of the basics of life, selfishness, major environmental issues, etc.  This Advent John the Baptist points us to Jesus and reminds us that “better things are to come…repent, change…the Kingdom is at hand!”  Don’t stay stuck in the past; have a change of heart, let Spirit of Jesus transform our world.He is the Best(Jesus) …and the best is yet to come

Fr Joseph Osho