Prepare a Way for the Lord

The Sunday Gospel

Fr Silvester O’Flynn OFM Cap.

Two great prophets stride into our liturgical readings for the Second Sunday of Advent, Isaiah and John the Baptist. We usually think of prophets as people who foretell the future but that is only partially true. The real meaning of prophecy is revealing and proclaiming God’s presence in dark and difficult times.

Last Sunday we reflected on hope as the great virtue of Advent. Hope is one of the three theological virtues, along with faith and charity, which keep us rooted in God. Hope is the strong root that keeps us going even when faith can see no clear answers and love struggles in the face of injustices and hurt. Hope is stronger than optimism. Optimism may be based on a false foundation such as a hunch or a superstition. Hope is rooted in nothing less than God’s presence even at the worst of times. God’s time will come. In today’s second reading, Peter tells us how God’s calendar is different to ours, for with the Lord a day can mean a thousand years, and a thousand years is like a day.

Situations can change overnight. Most of us clearly remember a few months in 1989 when the Berlin Wall was smashed and communist rule was overthrown in one country after another without a shot fired. Who could have foreseen it?

Isaiah

The greatest of the prophets (God’s ‘revealers’), Isaiah, provides today’s first reading. The Jews were quashed, exiled in Babylon for 50 years. They hung up their harps, so joyless was their depression. Then, overnight there was a new king, Cyrus, who announced that they could return to Jerusalem. “Her time of service is ended, her sin is atoned for.” Isaiah tells them to prepare a way for the Lord, get ready for the return to their homeland. He compared the road home to a new highway through the wilderness.

In Adolf Hitler’s time the ‘final solution’ was like Babylon revisited. Many of the inmates of the concentration camps lost all belief in God. How can you believe in God if this mad, murderous regime is allowed to exist? But there were heroic believers, prophets, who assured the prisoners that the voice of the prophets was louder than that of the thundering demagogue, Hitler. One brave prisoner scratched these words on a cell wall: I believe in the sun even when I see it not; I believe in love even when I do not feel it; I believe in God even when He is silent. That is hope.

John the Baptist

John the Baptist is a link between the Old Testament and the New. His time was like our own in many ways. Although there were very dedicated people and reform groups like the Essenes, yet by and large religion had lost its vitality. Mediocrity prevailed. The legalistic people, scribes and pharisees, had choked all joy out of religion. The clerical people who ran the temple were into a money-making racket, fleecing the pilgrims with all sorts of taxes. Excessive legalism and authoritarian clericalism…sounds a bit familiar. We are the untouchables.

There had been no outstanding prophet for hundreds of years until John the Baptist. His primitive appearance and association with the wilderness struck a chord with peoples’ deep memory of God leading their ancestors through the wilderness into freedom. He buoyed up their hope that someone special was coming after him. His task was to prepare the people through repentance of their sins and a ceremony of washing.

Prepare for Christmas

John the Baptist recalled Isaiah’s roadworks and we too can take that imagery to challenge our conscience in preparing the way for Christmas.

Do I have crooked ways to straighten where I have deviated from the commandments and ideals of Christ? Are there winding ways where I am not fully honest with God…with others…with myself?

Every valley must be filled. These valleys are the low times when I wandered from God’s presence and support. Confidence in God has been low. I have allowed the bad news take over my thinking. I have not given adequate time to prayer. The light of faith is very dim.

Every mountain must be laid low. These mountains are the huge obstacles which I imagine are insurmountable. I lack the confidence of the psalmist. “I lift up my eyes to the mountain. From where shall come my help? My help shall come from the Lord who made heaven and earth.”

What hills must be flattened? Pride makes me look down on others. I subject them to my judgement. I boss them. I need the grace of humility.

Rough ways must he made smooth. The jagged edges of my personality irritate others…when I am insensitive, lacking in generosity or unwilling to compromise.