Advent 2 Sunday
“‘The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
“Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight.”
Summary
“We’re all doomed! Or are we?
The human psyche is designed to look for danger and to be suspicious of change; so it is not surprising that, in every age, some have believed that the world is going to hell in a handcart. In Christ’s day, as in ours, there is evidence to support this view: distress among the nations, people living in fear and foreboding.
It was the same for Jeremiah, his writing is packed full of warnings but in today’s passage, 33:14-16, we glimpse the hope of a fresh start: The tree of Jesse, representing the family tree of the rulers of Israel, is now a mere stump, having been cut off by Babylonians and Assyrians. Yet Jeremiah speaks of a shoot, springing up from the stump, offering hope.
And, in Luke 21:25-36, Jesus also sees signs of growth and newness, as he points to the new leaves on the fig tree.
Advent is about endings but it is also about beginnings: inviting us to ponder what needs to end if something new is to spring forth.
In the midst of change, Christ tells us not to be weighed down with worries but to stand straight and raise our heads; to be alert for the signs of God’s reign, signs of generosity and understanding, signs of justice and reconciliation. In encouraging these signs to flourish, we too become a sign of God’s reign, a sign that a new world is possible.
First Reading
Malachi 3:1-4
‘See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight—indeed, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?
For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap; he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years.’
GOSPEL
Luke 3.1-6
‘In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah,
‘The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
“Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight.
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;
and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”’
