Second Sunday of Advent B
December 4, 2011
Reading I: Isaiah 40:1-5, 9-11
Responsorial Psalm: 85:9-10-11-12, 13-14
Reading II: 2 Peter 3:8-14
Gospel: Mark 1:1-8
The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God.
THE PROCLAMATION
OF
JESUS CHRIST
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
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.”
Such a wealth of images: best to sit with them by yourself to feel the mood. Be warned, we're in for a rocky ride this Sunday.
I am going to try to make a sketch-map of the track. It's pretty long, so I'll be brief.
First reading from Second Isaiah: The prophet Isaiah preached in a period when foreign powers were threatening and actually invading Israel and Judah. His oracles are full of calls for change. Eventually Jerusalem itself was destroyed by the Assyrians and the population deported to Babylon, taken off into slavery.The second part of the Book of Isaiah dates from some 30 years later in Babylon when another prophet sees the coming of the Persian conqueror, Cyrus, as an intervention by God to free the slaves and let them go back home. Hence he proclaims a road, a freeway, an autobahn, across the wilderness – hills levelled, valleys filled – we know the feeling of speeding along that smooth tarmac.
This delivery from slavery in Babylon was the second Exodus. We know about the first well enough: Moses leading the people out of the city, stretching out his rod over the marshlands, the waters drying up to expose a dry path for them to walk right through the sea, through death itself! The god of Israel is a saving god. And strangely, there is never an end to the need of a saviour.
The Gospel of Mark intends us to see John the Baptist as proclaiming a THIRD EXODUS.
John is portrayed as a phenomenon: he 'appeared' in the desert. (The fourth gospel is equally matter-of-fact when it says: There was a man, one sent from God, whose name was John.) The whole of the south (Judea) went out to him. Later he was up north, baptising where the river leaves the Sea of Galilee, but for now he would have been near Jericho, where Joshua led the people across the river the first time.
“People of the whole Judean countryside and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem.” Now that is a deliberate exaggeration, but what a statement! John had a tremendous impact. Even the Pharisees came down to see what he was about, and he called them “Brood of Vipers'.
It's hard to overdo the picture of the Baptist, as wild – or as simple - as he was. Crude dress; eating just for survival; sleeping rough under the stars, and lashing his listeners in the fiercest language. Mark keeps to general terms: repentance [change] and forgiveness. Matthew and Luke quote his warnings and threats: Now is the time; the axe is laid to the root; the thrasher works his winnowing fan blowing off the chaff, and so on.
In today's passage from Mark, suddenly the mood changes. As on a stage, when the lights go down and all the actors and the scenery disappear from sight, leaving one soft spot shining on an actor just beyond the footlights. It is the same one who fiercely dominated the stage just before, a terrifying presence. Now in the stillness he is seen as a small crouching figure. He whispers. We strain to hear.
"One mightier than I is coming after me.
I am not worthy to stoop and loosen the thongs of his sandals.
I have baptised you with water;
he will baptise you with the holy Spirit.”
This is
not a statement of humility on John's part. It is full of awe, as
though suddenly he saw through his own bombastic preaching, and
realised where the truth lay. “Another will come. Compared to
him I am nothing – in spite of the power I have to chastise the crowds withy my tongue. I did the
ritual thing, washing sin away in the river. He will wash sin away
with the holy Spirit!”
The
lights go up and we must leave, trying to absorb the meaning of
those words: “He will baptise you with the holy Spirit”
John proclaimed the Third Exodus in the style of the other two, though without the politics, a little more personal, focussing on personal conversion and forgiveness of sin for the purifying of society, pointing the finger at the people of the Jerusalem and their leaders. But this third and final Exodus will be different, a baptism of the Spirit, a totally individual and personal thing that happens in the heart, and seeps outwards from the individuals to their neighbours, eventually to affect change in the very fabric of society.
This is pre-evangelisation in the gospel framework. Should begin by taking people where they are? We should certainly begin with ourselves, and that means with our community, our 'church'. Clearly our church as an institution is enslaved, chained by its hierarchical structure, its tradition of dogma, its wealth in real estate and its position in society. It is not free to do or say anything relevant to this evolving world.If ever thee was need of an Exodus, of a saviour god.
There are many voices calling for change, but some are more like John than Jesus. They threaten the establishment; they demand that the leaders learn to listen to the people (even as they declare the leaders incapable of hearing anything outside their own convictions); they predict a fierce winnowing, and the axe laid to the tallest trees.
Others are among the many Jesus figures who come to mind, those who learnt to listen through what they endured. Among my favourites, some very large figures like Mahatma Ghandi, Nelson Mandela, Charles de Foucault, Roy Bourgeois, a host of writers in theology, sociology, history and the sciences...
and those who are small unquenchable candles even here on Catholica and beyond - those who can stand up and speak the truth to power: YOU ARE WRONG, and suffer the personal humiliation again and again of being identified among the victims of that scourge we cringe from even naming.
In the Rally on the steps of Parliament in Melbourne at noon this Sunday people will go onto the street and be seen, people who are convinced in their deepest truth that they must call for the civic authority to clean up the church of God – because, God knows, it needs it. This is not an easy thing to do, but it must be done. The Spirit of God's truth demands that what is hidden be revealed, for too many still suffer as victims crushed by lies or those with power. Their experience of personal ruin is devalued or denied in full, and the rot goes on.
What was the Baptist calling for in "repentance for the forgiveness of sins", and why does the gospel say they were forgiven "as they
acknowledged their sins"? Truth demands that truth be told. Simple as that.