MARYTON CARMEL LIVERPOOL
Blog Post
Second Sunday of Advent
Maryton Carmel • December 7, 2019
The call of John the Baptist
As we reflect each Advent on the coming of the Word of God into our world, sharing our humanity for love of us, it is fitting that we reflect on this same Word, presented to us in the scripture readings of the Church's liturgy. The readings for the second Sunday of Advent present us with some strong challenges. In the Gospel we are introduced to one of the key figures of the Advent liturgy, John the Baptist. Known as the forerunner of Christ who prepared for his mission in the desert by prayer and austerity of life, he thunders out his message by calling on us to repent. ‘Transform your lives’ he said, ‘turn yourselves inside out, become thoroughly other than you are, because the reign of God is here. Radically change your lives, your attitudes, your behaviour, show by the way you live that you put God first. Just because you are the children of Abraham does not guarantee your salvation. "God can raise up children of Abraham from these very stones." John's call to repentance is highly relevant. Unless there is a constant review of our life we can easily grow complacent.
In the first reading Isaiah speaks of God's Holy One on whom the Spirit of God rests, "a spirit of wisdom and insight, a spirit of counsel and power, a spirit of knowledge and of fear of the Lord." God's Holy One, Christ, brings the irreconcilables together symbolised by the 'wolf' living with the 'lamb' and the 'calf and the lion' feeding together, surely one the most powerfully gentle images in the Bible. If we want to love God and want to follow him, we are left under no delusion that we too must work for the irreconcilables, for the reign of God is a reign of Justice, Love and Peace.
St Paul completes the picture in the second reading by urging us to be tolerant with one another "following the example of Our Lord Jesus Christ so that united in mind and voice we may give glory to the God and Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ." Advent demands of us the total conversion of our lives.
COME, LORD JESUS, COME