Second Sunday of Advent (B)

We hear a lot about the Christmas spirit this time of year.  I’d like to make a case for Advent.  To get in, and stay in, the Christmas spirit we have to understand the importance of Advent.  Little encouragement is given to supporting Advent.  Even before Thanksgiving, we are pushed toward getting into the Christmas spirit (which usually means, “buy, buy, buy!”).  But, if we pay attention to the readings every Sunday, I think we can develop a better appreciation of Advent.  Here is what I think Advent is all about.

Advent has a heart which is open to the unexpected.  Isaiah had an imagination.  To a people trapped in a sad and desperate present, far from their homeland, he offered a vision of a future that gave them hope.  One day this prophet stood up and began to promise that a new day was coming, that God was coming to rescue them, and they were to get ready: “In the desert prepare the way of the Lord!  Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God!”  They were to take down any obstacle that would prevent God’s approach, and flatten out anything that would obstruct their view of seeing God coming in glory, and in power.  He gave a rousing call to live in watchful expectation for a God who has not forgotten the people.

Suddenly, at the very end of the reading, there is a dramatic change in image from proclaiming a God of might “who rules by his strong arm” to imagining a God of great tenderness.  “Like a shepherd he feeds his flock; in his arms he gathers the lambs, carrying them in his bosom, and leading the ewes with care.”  What a wonderful imagination Isaiah had – an Advent vision.  It could set forth power and gentleness in the same breath.  Isaiah’s imagination could carry a people into the future.  And still can.

Peter also had an Advent imagination.  He, too, was waiting for the arrival of the Lord.  The community he spoke to had lived through a time of persecution and hardship, seeing Rome burning at the time of Nero, so he brings fire into his vision of the coming of God: “And then the heavens will pass away with a mighty roar, and the elements will be dissolved by fire, and the earth and everything done on it will be found out.”

This vision is meant as a call to reform.  It sees a God who is waiting on us to get our act together.  Peter says that, for God, “one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years are like one day.”  In other words, Peter wants to remind us that God is very patient with us, waiting for us to come to repentance, “conducting ourselves in holiness and devotion.”  Advent will carry over into living in a way that makes us “eager to be found without spot or blemish before our God, at peace.”  Advent, then, can leave us exuberant, not exhausted; at peace, not perplexed. 

And then we have the image of John the Baptist.  Mark presents him as “a voice crying out in the desert” to the people of his day: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.”  John was waiting for the one who had the power to change the world.  “One mightier than I is coming after me.”  And all that needs to be done is to repent and live in readiness.  John continues to call across the ages, to give us a vision for Advent.

The Word of God offers a vision that pulls us onto our feet and into the future.  The Word of God sets before us a God as tender as a shepherd who feeds his flock and lifts them to his bosom; as patient as one for whom a thousand years are like one day and who waits as long as is divinely possible for us to change; as burning with love as the fire of the Spirit that makes all things new, especially our battered, broken down, beaten-up hearts.  God’s Word is spoken to tired hearts that occasionally need to be carried, to weary people whose imaginations sometimes falter.

For the present, it is our task to hear God’s voice.  And to live in a way that we practice for that day even now, because God comes even now, calling our names.  “Body of Christ.  Blood of Christ”.  God is calling to us, coming in a way that calls us to intimate communion.  “Receive this and be the Body and Blood of Christ in the world.” 

Paul A. Magnano

Pastor