Wednesday Dec 3, 2008
2nd Sunday of Advent - Cycle B - 2008 -- Isaiah 40:1-5, 9-11
Comfort, give comfort to my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her service is at an end, her guilt is expiated; indeed, she has received from the hand of the Lord double for all her sins. A voice cries out: In the desert prepare the way of the Lord! Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God! Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill shall be made low; the rugged land shall be made a plain, the rough country, a broad valley. Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. Go up on to a high mountain, Zion, herald of glad tidings; cry out at the top of your voice, Jerusalem, herald of good news! Fear not to cry out and say to the cities of Judah: Here is your God! Here comes with power the Lord God, who rules by his strong arm; here is his reward with him, his recompense before him. 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.
Second Reading2 Peter 3:8-14
Do not ignore this one fact, beloved, 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. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, 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. Since everything is to be dissolved in this way, what sort of persons ought you to be, conducting yourselves in holiness and devotion, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved in flames and the elements melted by fire. But according to his promise we await new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Therefore, beloved, since you await these things, be eager to be found without spot or blemish before him, at peace.
Gospel Cycle BMark 1:1-8
The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God. As it is written in Isaiah the prophet: Behold, I am sending my messenger ahead of you; he will prepare your way. A voice of one crying out in the desert: "Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths." John the Baptist appeared in the desert proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. People of the whole Judean countryside and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the Jordan River as they acknowledged their sins. John was clothed in camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist. He fed on locusts and wild honey. And this is what he proclaimed: "One mightier than I is coming after me. I am not worthy to stoop and loosen the thongs of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit."
My sisters and brothers in Christ,
The Prophet Isaiah in the first reading speaks of comfort for his people. God is coming. We should make no mistake about that in our personal lives. We believe in God and we believe that God comes into our lives today and that God will come at the end of time to judge the living and the dead. For some, this can sound scary--but there is nothing to fear. We are invited to love God because God loves us.
Yes, we are invited to change the ways we live! That should not surprise us at all. God wants us to be fully alive, to give up all that is sinful and to embrace virtue. Probably most of us want to do that. In the process of trying to give up sin and live with virtue, we find how difficult it can be in our personal lives. Even after years of struggle we often find ourselves still living with sins and defects in our lives.
The Lord Jesus will assure us that He comes to save us, not to condemn us. Our challenge as followers of Christ is to keep trying and to trust Him completely. Sometimes we can get discouraged. We may have celebrated few Advents or many Advents and yet we can find ourselves not totally given to God.
Our second reading today, from the Second Letter of Peter, reflects this reality. We must strive to be ready for the Lord. We never deserve God's love, yet we know that God loves us. We can never conquer sin with just our own strength, yet God always promises His strength. The secret of our Christian life is to trust completely in Jesus Christ even as we struggle to be faithful to all that He asks of us.
Advent should be a time of joy for us. We recognize that once again we shall celebrate and remember the birth of Jesus, the birth of God who has chosen to take on our human nature, the birth of the Redeemer.
We could take just a few minutes today and sit in silence and let our hearts rest in this great mystery of our faith: God become man, God redeeming us because He loves us.
May the Advent help us open our hearts even more to the Lord and continue with total confidence our struggle against sin and our striving for virtue.