ADVENT II - A - 16 MATTHEW 3. 1-12
“A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and
a branch shall grow out of his roots,” thus Isaiah predicts the coming of
Messiah some 700 years before the birth of Christ.
Israel longed for the day when God’s anointed one
would appear. But the One whom God sent to be the Savior and Redeemer was not
just for the benefit of Israel, as St. Paul points out, “the root of Jesse
shall be the Gentiles hope,” making the Lord’s anointed a universal Savior.
Between the infancy of Jesus and his entry into
Israel’s history as the last redeemer is an interval of 30 years spent in the
obscurity of a Galilean village. While Jesus dwelt unknown in Nazareth, there
appeared suddenly like a new Elijah John Baptist. The Jewish expectation was
that Elijah would herald the coming of Messiah.
For some, John Baptist was Elijah, and he fulfilled
the prophecy of Isaiah as the “voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare
the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.’ His means of preparing the
people to meet the promised one was by preaching repentance and baptizing those
who confessed their sins.
Who was this John Baptist and where did he come
from? He was the son of the priest Zachariah. The same Zachariah Luke tells us
was informed by the angel Gabriel while serving in the Temple that he would
have a son in his old age. The news came as a shock to the old priest, so much
so, that he hesitated to believe the news. For his unbelief he was struck dumb
and unable to speak until John was born.
Elizabeth was John’s mother. She was a cousin to the
Blessed Virgin Mary. Mary visited Elizabeth near the time of John’s birth and
Luke reports that the babe in Elizabeth’s womb leaped for joy at Mary’s
presence for she was carrying the Christ child.
We hear nothing of John as a child and nothing as an
adult until he appears in the wilderness proclaiming, ‘Repent, for the kingdom
of heaven has come near.’
By the manner of his dress, as Matthew describes
him, it possible that John could have been a member of the Jewish sect such as
the Essenes. They were a community of ascetics who lived an austere life in the
wilderness and whose sole purpose was to prepare for the coming of the kingdom
of God.
There had
been no prophets in Israel for over 400 years. Thus John’s unannounced and
unexpected appearance drew large crowds from the surrounding area. People were
curious. They wanted to know who he was and what he was up to. John’s dress was
typical of a prophet and he sounded like a prophet.
Many of those who came down to see and hear him
responded to his message. His message was simple “repent.” To repent means
literally to do an about face; to turn around. It implies a radical change of
one’s spirit, mind, thought, and heart. At the Jordan, it was accompanied by
the confession of sin and the act of baptism, and was intended to be followed
by a life filled with fruits worthy of the change.
When John saw the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for
baptism he knew they had come for the wrong reason. They were insincere. There
was no true repentance on their part because of their self-righteousness and
their pride blocked any chance of a change of heart.
The only thing that would make John change his mind
about them would be if they really behaved differently. Going through the
motion of baptism was not enough. Real repentance meant a complete and lasting
change of heart and life. John even attacked their confidence in their ancestry
implying that the kingdom of God was open to all.
The Advent season, although short in days, holds
lessons for eternity. Like John’s warning to the Pharisees and Sadducees who
placed their confidence in the fact that they were God’s chosen people, we
cannot rely simply on the fact that we are Christians.
Our baptisms have marked us as belonging to Christ
forever. Therefore we are held to a higher standard than those who are not. Our
life in Christ should be one that bears fruits worthy of repentance; a life
lived consistent with the kingdom of God.
As Christians we need to hear John’s words as if we
were hearing them for the first time. If a fruitful life does not follow our
baptisms, no number of sacramental acts and or spiritual discipline will be of
use.
We live between Advents. Each new day is a time to
prepare for the day when He shall come again in power and great glory to judge.
John did his part. He prepared the way, not knowing
what it would actually look like when God’s kingdom arrived. Likewise, we are
to do our part in anticipation of that day when the fullness of God’s kingdom
will be ushered in. We do this by witnessing to our faith in Him who died and
rose again in ways that demonstrate that His life, death, and resurrection have
indeed changed our hearts, the way we think, and the way we act.
Admittedly Advent can be a time when we are tempted
to jump to the end. Christmas is so wonderful with all the lights, spirit and
food. Its all too good to pass up. These four weeks of Advent, however, anchor
us in the “now” while we look forward. Our focus is not only on the coming of
Christ into our lives, but on us and how prepared we are for His arrival.
Where do we find ourselves on the road to
fruitfulness? Where do we begin? As always, we begin at the beginning - where
we are. That’s where God finds us. We
look at our relationship with Christ and see it as it actually is, and then we
commit ourselves to transforming it so that it is consistent with the kingdom
of God.
Advent is an opportunity for each of us to reflect
on our Christian pilgrimage, our personal walk to Bethlehem, but more than
that; to reflect on a lifetime journey from the crèche to the cross to an
unfading crown so that when Christ comes again, He will find in us a mansion
prepared for himself. AMEN+
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