Bar 5:1-9
Ps 126:1-6
Phil 1:4-6, 8-11
Lk 3:1-6
St. Jude Thaddeus Catholic
Church, Burkburnett, TX
St. Paul Catholic Church, Electra, TX
Christ the King Catholic Church, Iowa
Park, TX
In this second week of Advent, we are continuing
our preparations to celebrate the coming of Jesus Christ. There is a common
thread running through our Scripture readings reminding us of our Advent
journey. In each one, God speaks to us about travel, a path to follow, or roads
to walk. The theme winding through our readings is one of a ‘new exodus.’ We recall
that under Moses, the Israelites became a nation after they left Egypt in the
first Exodus. Centuries later, they sinned against God repeatedly, were
conquered by Assyria and Babylon and sent into exile. The prophets of the Old Testament
predicted that at some point, God would repeat the Exodus event. But this time,
instead of calling His chosen people out of Egypt, He would call them to
Himself from all the nations to which they had been scattered.
Our first reading from the Old Testament
prophet Baruch quotes Isaiah 40 almost word for word in his prediction of the
new Exodus. God would gather His children from all directions and clothe them
in glory. He commanded that mountains be flattened, that gorges and valleys be
filled in, that the path for God’s children be made smooth and level. This
imagery describes what actually happened in highway-building practices in
ancient times. Builders would make roads as level and smooth as possible to
facilitate travel. When kings or emperors would make special trips, these roads
would receive extra attention. Baruch is revealing to us that God’s chosen people
will be royalty and He is building a road for them to return home to Him. Therefore,
we understand the new exodus and God’s highway for His royal children as a
spiritual reality, not in a geographical sense. Coupled with Luke’s account of
John the Baptist in our Gospel reading, we can clearly see that his “way of
repentance is the true ‘highway’ by which Israel will begin to travel back to
the new Temple, which is Christ himself.”[1]
In the context of Advent, we interpret St.
Paul’s exhortations to the Philippians as encouragement for us to faithfully
continue our Advent penances as we prepare for Christmas. St. Paul prays for us
to increase in love, knowledge, perception, and discernment of our actions so
that when Jesus comes, we will be found pure and blameless. “To practice acts
of self-denial during a time of year when most people are engaging in rampant
self-indulgence in food, parties, and shopping requires self-discipline and God’s
grace.”[2]
But striving to live in the true spirit of Advent enables us to see through the
superficiality and empty busyness that infects the holiday season. True
Christians are not focused on the materialism and ‘stuffitis’ that surrounds
us. We should be focused on the coming celebration of the birth of Jesus
Christ, striving to be found more pure and blameless in His eyes. Our Advent should
be a prayerful season where we spend more time and effort decking our souls
with virtue than in decking our halls with holly.
St. Luke highlighted the Gospel message of
repentance preached by St. John the Baptist. Like Baruch, John used the words
of Isaiah 40 that prophesied a ‘new exodus.’ Again, we heard the imagery of
road-building. Now, we know that the primary problem of the people in the time
of John the Baptist was not the transportation system. In fact, the
Roman roads were quite good and many survive to this day. Their problem
was not lack of roads or distance – it was spiritual estrangement from God. The
same is true for us. It is for this reason that John the Baptist preached
repentance from sins as the road home – the highway to God. ’Every valley
shall be filled’ refers to hope, encouragement, and new life promised to
the poor and oppressed - the lowly who feel forgotten by God or think themselves
unworthy of God’s attention. ‘Every mountain and hill shall be made low’
refers to the need for humility of the proud - the repentance that the strong
and arrogant must undergo to receive salvation. The ‘winding roads and rough
ways’ refer to the twists and turns of the human heart, distorted and
mangled by sin.[3]
Our wounded human hearts need to be straightened and smoothed by honest and
truthful confession of our sins.
John’s ‘way of the Lord’ is not a road for Christ
to walk. It is the road we are to walk to reach Him. Every one of
us is on that road, whether we are aware of it or not. Everyone will meet with
Christ in the end. The question is: what that meeting will be like? A new
exodus – an exodus out of sin is what the Church is calling for us to do in
this season of Advent. Those of us who feel lowly and downtrodden by life need
to exercise hope and faith, lift up our heads, and remember that everything in
this life is temporary – look instead to Jesus, our eternal destiny! Those of
us who think we have it all together need to swallow a big dose of humility and
make an honest examination of conscience. But, most of all, we all need to
straighten out our interior crookedness. In this second week of Advent, it
would be right and just to commit to receiving the Sacrament of Penance this
week, making an appointment if necessary. It is in sacramental confession
where we speak simple truth, where the twisted is made straight, and the rough
is made smooth.
St. Joseph, Light of the Patriarchs, Pray for
Us!
[1]
John Bergsma, The Word of the Lord: Reflections on the Sunday Mass Readings
for Year C, (Emmaus Road: Steubenville, OH, 2021), 14.
[2]
Bergsma, 16.
[3]
Bergsma, 18.
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