DOCTRINE AND FAITH
(Baruch 5, 1-9; Fillipians 1, 4-6.8-11; Luke 3, 1-6; 2nd Sunday of Advent, Year C, 5th December 2021)
On this second Sunday of Advent the Church invites us to trust and commitment: to trust, because God promises abundance of graces, he promises the coming of his own Son; commitment, because this coming must be prepared.
The first reading, taken from the book of the prophet Baruch, is an invitation to trust. Foretells the wonders God wants to accomplish. Jerusalem is in mourning, because she was devastated and her children were led into exile. But the prophet invites us to put off the garment of mourning and affliction” and to put on the splendor of glory, because this splendor comes to her from God forever. This is a spiritual splendor. The prophet says: Wrap yourself in the mantle of God’s justice. God wants to communicate his justice, holiness, and perfection of love to Jerusalem. Therefore, we must prepare to receive these gifts from the Lord. The prophet also predicts the return of the exiles in Jerusalem: Arise, 0 Jerusalem, and stand on the high ground and look towards the east. Jerusalem must look towards Babylon, where the Jews had been led into exile. They walked away from you, pursued by the enemies. This is the miserable fate of prisoners of war, who are led to where they do not want to go. Now God brings them back to you in triumph as on a royal throne. Here we have a very consoling announcement, a reversal of the situation, which fills the heart desires of the Jews. The prophet then explains that God has prepared the ways for this prodigious intervention that he is about to carry out: God has established to smoothen every high mountain and secular cliffs, with the sea the valleys and level the earth. God prepares the way for exiled Israel to return to his land safely and happily. God will lead Israel with joy to the light of his glory, with the mercy and justice that come from him. All these predictions made by God inspire confidence; invite us to trust in his mercy and his generosity,
In the Gospel we see that the promises made by God are about to be fulfilled. Luke specifies the time of their fulfillment in a very solemn way. In fact, in the whole of the New Testament there is no passage that defines the historical framework of events as accurately as this one by Luke. The evangelist gives us, first of all, the temporal indication: In the fifteenth year of the empire of Tiberius Caesar. Then he defines the political situation of the moment in the Near East: Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod the tetrarch of Galilee, Philip, his brother, tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitide, and Lysania tetrarch of the Abilene. He also remembers that Anna and Caiaphas were high priests in Jerusalem at that time. The moment is solemn and decisive: God is about to intervene. How? The word of God came down on John, son of Zechariah, in the desert. John had the inspiration to go to the desert, to devote himself to prayer, contemplation, and to search for God’s will. The word of God descends on him and prompted him to preach a baptism throughout the Jordan region. It is a baptism of conversion for the forgiveness of sins. Hence, God’s intervention consists, at first, of a commitment of preparation. He says as it is written in the book of the oracles of the prophet Isaiah: The voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight! Let every ravine be filled up, every mountain and every hill let down; the tortuous steps are to be straight; the impervious places leveled. It is only after this preparation will it be possible to see God’s salvation (Every man will see the salvation of God!).
According to the oracle of Isaiah, the voice of John the Baptist encourages serious commitment of preparation. And we ought to listen to it in the weeks leading up to Christmas. There are need to prepare the way of the Lord, straightening the paths, filling the ravines, lowering the mountains and the hills, making straight the winding paths are all material realities, which in a way indicate a spiritual preparation. Make his paths straight! We must straighten our paths, which will later be God’s paths: in fact, God will come to meet us through the paths that we will have traced. And what does it mean to straighten our paths? It means making our conduct to conform to God’s will. Many a times, we trace the tortuous paths in our life, and then our encounter with God is not possible. Let every ravine be filled. When we are depressed and disheartened, we are like in a ravine, we are hopeless, then we must fill this ravine, putting ourselves in an attitude of confident expectation. The Lord is about to come: we must not be lacking in confidence. Every mountain and every hill be lowered. Here it is a question of assuming an attitude of sincere humility, distancing ourselves from pride and every form of self-sufficiency. We always depend on the goodness of the Lord; therefore, we must not have attitudes of pride and haughtiness. John the Baptist’s preaching invites us to make examination of conscience: what, in these weeks of Advent, can we correct in our attitudes? In personal attitudes, the way of the Lord must be prepared through prayer. Do we pray enough, or do we neglect prayer? In attitudes towards others, starting with our family, the way of the Lord must be prepared through love and service. Are we really full of affection, charity and concern for our family members? Do we also know how to dedicate ourselves and be ready to help others? In this season of Advent, what can we do to improve the situation of those around us?
In the second reading, Paul invites us to trust. To the Philippians, who are praised for their cooperation in the dissemination of the Gospel says: “I am convinced that he who has begun this good work in you will bring it to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. Paul makes the Philipians aware that the good work was not begun by them, but by God. It is God who took the initiative in this work, and will also bring it to completion. Then the Apostle wishes the Philippians in particular the grace of spiritual discernment: I pray that your charity will be enriched more and more in knowledge and in every kind of discernment, so that you can always distinguish the best. In this time of Advent, the grace that we must ask of the Lord is that he opens our eyes and so that we can see what we can do for his service and the good of our brothers. In fact, we are often spiritually blind and do not see the good that we can do that would be a source of so much joy for us. Finally, Paul wishes the Philippians to be filled with those fruits of justice which are obtained through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God. We must be aware that all our efforts and works are made possible by the grace of God. This awareness puts us, at the same time, in humility and trust. In humility, because we cannot attribute to ourselves those fruits of justice of which Paul speaks, we must attribute them to the grace of God. In trust, because we are guided and comforted by the grace of God. Therefore in this Sunday’s liturgy we are invited to understand our preparation for Christmas, living in trust and generous commitment. +John I Okoye
(graphics by Chukwubike O Charles)
