ADVENT: MOMENT OF REPENTANCE, REPARATION AND RECONCILIATION
The Season of Advent is a moment of repentance, reparation and reconciliation with God, ourselves and our brothers and sisters. These are the “3Rs” of the Advent Season. It is a moment of peace that comes from giving and receiving forgiveness from God and others. The theme of our celebration this second Sunday is peace through reconciliation.
In other words, the season of Advent is a season of Grace and in the spirit of the season, we are encouraged to take advantage of the season and its grace. It is a grace to invite us to reconciliation with God, with our brothers and with ourselves.
THE SENSE OF PREPARING FOR CHRISTMAS
There is a concept of “homecoming” or “coming home” about Christmas. Millions of people travel every year during Christmas to rejoin their friends and family to celebrate this most joyful feast of the year. It is a homecoming celebration of the Son of God, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ more than 2000 years ago. It is the feast of Christ’s Second Coming at the end of time. And above, his coming daily into our lives through; the sacramental celebration especially the Eucharist, through prayer (personal or communal), through His Holy Word and the daily events, experiences and history of our lives.
OUR THEMES
The readings of the second Sunday of Advent invite us to a profound peace in God through repentance of sins. Hence, the second purple candle of the Advent Wreath is lit today. The coming of God or the intervention of God in our broken humanity is a demonstration of God´s love to restore or reconcile us to the fullness of grace in Christ Jesus. The readings also invite us to a spiritual preparation to welcome Our Lord and Saviour into our lives.
FIRST READING: ISAIAH 40:1-5, 9-11
Prophet Isaiah offered consoling messages to the Israelites exiled in Babylon. He assured them, that God was coming to save them and to open up the way into the future. When there will be a homecoming to resettle in the Holy Land of Israel, the Holy City of Judah: Jerusalem. However, this entails disposition and preparation to repent of sins and evil ways and follow the lead of God.
The first reading from Prophet Isaiah 40:1-5, 9-11, offers hope and reconciliation to a nation devastated by their sins God´s moments of grace, mercy and forgiveness. An invitation to make right all errors and anomalies.
The Psalmist in Psalm 85 announces the Lord’s salvation is near to us with a deep sense of the forgiving love of God. When he declares: “Lord, let us see your kindness, and grant us your salvation.
SECOND READING: SECOND EPISTLE OF ST. PETER 3:8-14
Saint Peter´s doctrine about the delay of the Parousia, the Second coming of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. This eschatological teaching is very important to Advent preparation. Since the delay of Christ´s coming is for God´s salvation to reach all. Hence, Peter reminds us that with God time and eternity do not count. What counts is taking advantage of God´s patience to repent. That is while we live our lives we must lead a life of holiness and godliness, waiting for Christ´s coming into our lives at any time
Thus, St. Peter in 2 Peter 3:8-14 invites us to be opportunists who take advantage of God´s time of patience, mercy and grace, ¨that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like one day. The Lord does not delay his promise, as some regard “delay,” but he is patient with you, not wishing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. ¨
THE GOSPEL: MARK 1:1-8
In the Gospel of Mark 1:1-8, John the Baptist re-echoes prophecy of Isaiah, invites us to repentance and forgiveness while at the time bearing witness to the Christ who is to come.
Reconciliation is the focus of the celebration of the second Sunday of Advent. It is what leads us to lasting peace with God, others and ourselves. However, reconciliation is both a consolation and a challenge that is why we must be prepared!
John the Baptist prepares the people for the homecoming of their Saviour Jesus Christ through a baptism of repentance of sins.
THE CENTRAL THEME OF THE GOSPEL OF TODAY.
1. “I send my messenger before you and he will prepare your road for you”. This is from Malachi 3:1, in its original context it is a threat of God´s purges of his temple of priests who failed in their duty.
2. In the context of John the Baptist, it refers to cleansing and purifying the worship of the temple before the Anointed One of God emerged upon the earth.
3. So then, John emerging to preach a baptism of repentance and Christ’s coming is a call to purification. As such, Advent is a moment of preparation and purification to celebrate worthily the feast of Christmas.
4. By implication wherever Christianity comes it brings purification. In other words, Christianity cleanses society and purges it of evil.
5. For Christians to be agents of change and transformation in society. They need the wilderness or desert experience of John. A place of solicitude, quietness and prayer and Advent is the most appropriate time to do that.
6. John´s garment woven of camel’s hair and a leather belt about his waist is a true sign of an austerity lifestyle of detachment from worldly life and material things. It is a call to simplicities and avoidance of luxury living that kills the soul and spiritual Christian life.
7. It is worth noting John´s exemplary living through a dietary simplest meal of locust and wild honey. His words match with his actions as he preached the gospel of repentance.
8. Before John´s appearance in the desert, in Israel for three hundred years the voice of prophecy had been silent. Hence his message was effective because he told people what in their hearts they knew and brought them what in the depths of their souls they were waiting for.
9. Equally, his message resounds with people and for the people because he was humble and pointed to someone beyond him: the Messiah, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour.
10. John the Baptist prepared the way for Christ by raising expectations. Once Jesus had arrived, there only remained for John to quietly disappear from the scene.
John asked nothing for himself but everything for the Christ whom he proclaimed. Christmas means for us Christians putting Christ at the centre of our lives and everything. Therefore, Advent is a moment of grace to become Christ-oriented. Especially, as we prepare for his homecoming: Immanuel-God with us!
THE BAPTISM OF REPENTANCE
John the Baptist proclaims a baptism of repentance amid the political tumour and religious burdensome of his time. He invites us to seek the forgiveness of sin. It is the only way to personal renewal for the Advent of Christ coming.
It is through reconciliation that we can have everlasting peace and restoration. Therefore, the central message is to prepare a pathway of grace and righteousness.
Fundamentally, the preparation of the way or path of the Lord is a radical call to a radical change of minds, hearts, mentality and ways of doing, seeing and thinking. It is an inside-out transformation of every aspect of our lives.
A PREPARATION FOR ADVENT
(a) We are challenged to prepare a highway in their hearts for the Messiah to come in.
(b) By levelling the mountains and hills of pride or the sins of ego, self-importance obstructs our true conversion.
(c There is also the challenge of filling up the valleys of unforgiving, impurity, injustice and neglect. In the same manner, we fill up the valley of our failures with the grace of God.
(d) We must also straighten the crooked paths of religious indifference, hypocrisy and watered-down of moral truths and values. By letting the grace of this time of the Advent season and the Gospel message penetrate our hearts.
(e)We are to equally smoothen out the rough edges of hardness, lack of empathy and insensitive to the plights and needs of others. The roughness or ruggedness of wickedness or evil denies us the grace, mercy and peace of the Lord in our lives.
FUNDAMENTAL QUESTIONS
How conscious are you of your spiritual preparation for the coming of Christ at Christmas?
What are the mountains, hills, valleys, crooked or rough edges of sins in your life that must mend before Christ comes?
Do you see the Advent season as an opportunity for repentance, reconciliation and renewal to augment the grace, mercy and peace of God in your life?
THE NUTSHELL OF TODAY’S GOSPEL AND CELEBRATION
Advent pulls our hearts to God. It is a time to begin anew. Advent is a time to be still and listen again to your Word. All of this is to say that we must prepare the way of the Lord in our lives and our hearts. It is beautiful, then to ask the Lord this |Second Sunday of Advent the grace to take advantage of this moment of Grace, Forgiveness, and Peace to be reconciled to you, others and ourselves.
OUR PRAYER
Lord Jesus Christ, the prophet Isaiah and John the Baptist herald your homecoming with a sense of urgency to be prepared and purified of all sins. Help us prepare adequately for Christ’s rebirth in our lives and hearts and be a pointing instrument of God´s channel of grace for all to turn to Christ. Amen.
