2^nd Sunday of Advent (B); 12-06-2020

Is 40:1-5,9-11.  Ps 85.  2 Pt 3:8-14.  Mk 1:1-8

Deacon Jim McFadden

            Last Sunday we began Advent with the anticipation of Christ within our hearts and community at a deeper level.   In this  Second Sunday of preparation for Christmas, we focus on hope.  We hear this refrain in our first reading from the prophet Isaiah: “Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill shall be made low;/The rugged land shall be made plain, the rough country, a broad valley” (Is 40:4).  As one  reads newspapers and digital media, one does not hear too many messages of hope, however.  Indeed, many of us are feeling just the opposite.   In the midst of a global pandemic that is ravishing our country and the world at large, feelings of impatience come to the fore.   Some  are enmeshed by impertinence, denial,  and individualist bravado.   One understand all of this, especially these feelings of sadness and despondency.

            But, the readings from today encourage hope, which is the second theological virtue.  As people of faith, we have this stubborn quality that believes that God is persistently showering his grace towards us no matter what our failings are, no matter what our existential reality is.  As disciples of the Risen Christ, we are obligated to hope, which is not wishful thinking, but is the assurance that God is a constant loving Presence even when we are not

 (cf. 40:6-8).

            Before we can embrace the reality of this Good News,  we have to deconstruct the Bad News; we have to come to grips with our shortcomings.  This is not easy interior work because as Albert Einstein once said, “The consciousness that created the problem, can’t solve it.”  Like John the Baptist, foretold by Isaiah, we have make ourselves an outsider to see how much our individualistic, self-referential, secular culture permeates our lives.

            Several years ago, a contemporary John the Baptist, Pope Francis said that the world has become “a throwaway culture when money not human beings is at the center of society.  (Instead, the center) of every economic and political system …must be the human person, who is made in the image of God.   When the person is displaced and the god of money arrives, then we have the inversion of values…When that happens, economic systems must make war in order to survive.  Thus weapons are manufactured and sold and, in this way the economic system sacrifices human lives at the feet of money…An economic system based on money also needs to plunder nature in order to sustain its own frenzied pace of consumption, which has devastating effects on climate change.  Brothers and sisters, Creation is not a possession we can dispose of as we please and its certainly not the private preserve of a few; but, it is a gift, it’s a precious  present that we are meant to be stewards” (Pope Francis at the World Meeting of Popular Movements; October 28, 2014).

            These are hard words to hear and raise the question: Is the Holy Father talking to us?  We’re challenged to embrace a candid self-examination of conscience.  To be sure, If we are going to be people of genuine hope and not wishful thinkers, we must extricate ourselves from this kind of cultural illusion that our Holy Father has described.  That’s what John the Baptist did when he went to live in the desert.  He stood on the side and believed in the Truth, who is Jesus, and pointed to him, the Lamb of God, who shows us the Way back into the world that God intended in Genesis 1-2. 

            Once we admit to our shortcomings, once we smooth out the roughness of our pride  and self-absorption, then, and only then can we become people of hope and make room for Jesus who comes to liberate us.  How is this liberation going to happen?  John puts it this way: “I have baptized with water; he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit” (Mk 1:7-8).  Isaiah and John the Baptist started this process of conversion and repentance.  The Savior whom we wait for in hopeful anticipation, he will be able to transform our life to its very core through the power of the Holy Spirit, with the power of his love. 

            That’s why we are people of hope and will not give into negativity or despair because we know, we experience that the Holy Spirit infuses our hearts with God’s love—the inexhaustible force of being cleansed and purified, of new life and freedom.  And, this transformational dynamic can happen right in the middle of a pandemic! 

            Can this happen to us?  Of course it can!  Just look at the Blessed Virgin Mary, who is our Mother because she is the Mother of the Church.  At the Annunciation, Mary allowed herself to be used as God’s instrument to bring salvation into the world.  Once she said, “Yes”, the Word then became Flesh and his Power entered the world to overcome sin, death, and the power of Satan. 

People of God, we know the story of Salvation History and how it ends.  That’s why we can put this pandemic in perspective because we are people of hope!  Amen.