2nd Sunday of Advent

Gospel Reading: Luke 3:1-6

1 ln the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar's reign, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judaea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of the lands of Ituraea and Trachonitis, Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene,
 2 during the pontificate of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah, in the wilderness.
 3 He went through the whole Jordan district proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins,
 4 as it is written in the book of the sayings of the prophet Isaiah: A voice cries in the wilderness: Prepare a way for the Lord, make his paths straight.
5 Every valley will be filled in, every mountain and hill be laid low, winding ways will be straightened and rough roads made smooth.
6 And all mankind shall see the salvation of God.

Meditation

On the second and third Sundays of Advent, the church gives us John the Baptist as a model of someone who knows how to wait. In this first passage we have Luke's summary of the mission of John the Baptist. It is none other than the mission of Jesus him­self and of all preachers of the gospel.

In verses 1 and 2 St Luke invites us to meditate on God's word which comes to John in the wilderness, bypassing the powerful ones of the world.
Verse 3 is a concise summary of John's (and Jesus') preaching.

Prayer

'I thank you, Father, for hiding these things from the learned and the
clever and revealing them to mere children.'  Luke 10:21

Lord, we forget your way of doing things. We think it is important to seek the favour of the great ones of the world, as if their patronage is necessary for the spread of your gospel, while we neglect the wisdom of the poor.
But your word has always bypassed

• Tiberius Caesar reigning for 15 years,
• Pilate, the great governor,
•  those powerful tetrarchs Herod, Philip and Lysanius,

and come to a humble person, living in the wilderness.

Lord, we remember a time when we were in the wilderness:

• our family relationships were at their lowest level;
• at work everything seemed to be going wrong;
• violence and crime ruled in the country;
• our prayer life was as dry as dust.

Yet within that very wilderness there was a voice within us, crying out that things would turn out right. We felt so sure of this that, even in the midst of all that desolation, we prepared a way for your coming and made the paths straight so that we would be there to welcome you.

We saw some deep valleys and wondered how we would ever get across them, but we knew that every one of them would be filled in. There were high mountains before us; they would all be laid low. The road was winding, so that every time we turned a corner another one appeared; it would be straightened.

As for the rough roads that had our feet sore and bleeding, they would become smooth as glass. We knew for sure that we would experience your salvation. Thank you, Lord.

We live in a world where no one cares.' Secondary School principal

Lord, we pray that in our heartless world the church may, like John the Baptist, fulfil what is written in the book of the sayings of the prophet Isaiah,
and be a voice crying out to those who feel themselves in a wilderness that you have not abandoned them, that every valley will be filled in, every mountain and hill laid low, winding ways will be straightened and rough roads made smooth.

'If all people are God's children, why are we rejoicing when our sons and daughters are safe while death and destruction is wreaked upon inno­cent people?' Religious Superiors of the USA after the Gulf War

Lord, we still need John the Baptist to teach us your will that all must see your salvation.

'A critical ingredient of the Caribbean today is collective self-knowledge as the vital pre-condition to collective self-possessiveness’   Lloyd Best

Lord, give us the grace to know that what we are doing is written in the books of the sayings of the prophets.