by Fr Joachim Robert
Baruch 5:1-9
Psalm 125
Philippians 1:3-6, 8-11
Luke 3:1-6
Theme: Prepare The Way for Christ
Dear friends,
As we celebrate 2nd Sunday of Advent today, the first stanza of today’s Responsorial Psalm invites us to dream. It says:-
“When the Lord delivered Zion from bondage, it seemed like a dream. Then our mouths were filled with laughter, on our lips there were songs.”
And here, dear friends, the people of Israel dared to dream the dream that God had for them from the beginning of creation. Because, at the beginning of creation, God wills everything to be good and He made everything good. In that area of dreaming, dear friends, we are called to dream together with God. Because, sometimes or some way in the path of salvation history we come to realise that what God dreamt for us, because of our ‘incooperation’ with God, because we have not cooperated with the grace of God, we have fallen short of the dream that God had for you and I.
And that is why last Sunday as we began our journey of Advent, I asked us to reflect on 4 things:-
to STOP which is to Seek, to Think, to care for Others and to Pray.
Dear friends, because whenever we STOP, we become more vigilant in what is happening around us.
And today’s journey on the 2nd Sunday of Advent, invites us to look at our shortcomings and to also to smoothen the areas of our lives because as we prepare this path for Jesus, we are called to repent and we are called to forgive. And as the Prophet Isaiah says, as his address to the people whenever he proclaimed that the Babylonian exile is close at hand and they are supposed to be returning back to Jerusalem, he says:-
“A voice cries out in the wilderness – prepare a way for the Lord, make his path straight. Every valley will be filled in, every mountain and hill will be laid low, winding ways would be straightened and rough roads made smooth; and all mankind shall see the salvation of God”.
Here, dear friends, God through the Prophet Isaiah invites the people to dream again and to lead them back to what God wills for them. And as we look at the areas of our shortcomings, the valleys of our lives which is representative of the shortcomings of our behaviour and our attitudes before God, and we can list a whole list of them. And as we look at a few lists:-
The 1st thing is:-
Sometimes in our attitude before God, we choose not to pray, or we have laxed in praying or perhaps we pray little. And whenever we don’t put enough time to ask what is God’s will for us, if we don’t seek out his will and his plans for our lives, dear friends, we become insensitive to the dream that God has for us.
And sometimes as well we do not give sufficient importance in our spiritual life but being focused on all the ways of the world that we don’t find time to connect with God and to ask for his discernment. And as we give too much importance of our material life, we become blinded of where we ought to go.
And the other area is possibly is the lack of charity towards our neigbour. Because the dream of God is for us to have a community that is full of love. But because of our own preoccupations, because of our own selfishness, we become insensitive to the people around us.
And the other thing, dear friends, is to be attentive to our brothers and sisters who are in need. And those people who are in need need not necessarily be people who are materially poor but people who are emotionally disconnected, people whom we have not spoken to for a long time, people whom we have not engaged with because of some issues or some hiccups that have come along the way.
It is a time for us, dear friends, to ask ourselves: “Is that what God’s dream is for us?”
And as we look at our own shortcomings, as we look at the valleys of our lives, we need to acknowledge that God has greater vision, God has greater plans especially for us during this time of Advent which leads up to Christmas.
And like John the Baptist, we too are called to open ways of hope in the deserts, in the hearts of people.
The 2nd thing is that:-
We need to remember today that God smoothens the path of the roughness of our lives as it says:
“Every mountain will be laid low, winding ways will be straightened.”
And here, dear friends, every mountain of our arrogance, of our pride, of our rudeness, of our insensitivity toward others tells us that if we do not smoothen those areas in those mountains in our lives, then we will be unable to allow the Lord to enter in our lives. Because if we cling on to our own pride, our own ego, our own insensitivity, we do not open ourselves to allow the grace of God to work in and through us. And for that, dear friends, we need to embrace humility, we need to embrace meekness and our willingness to listen towards one another.
And as we prepare, as we prepare our hearts for Jesus, as we say: “Come Lord Jesus”, let us ask God to eliminate the obstacles and prepare a way for him. As I mentioned, dear friends, as God dreams for us, every Advent and Christmas is a time for us to dream together with God, in the way of how he wants us to be full of love, full of mercy, and full of compassion in the way we treat our brothers and sisters, because in that way we can grow as a community. And St Paul in his letter to the Philippians says today:-
“Every time I pray for you, I pray with joy, remembering how you have helped to spread the Good News from the day you first heard right to the present.“
And this is the kind of community, this is the kind of relationship that the Lord wills for us, dear friends, but are we willing to take this time of Advent to respond with love, generosity and gratitude?
Because each time as we look at ourselves, the Saviour waits for us. The Saviour waits for us to come into our lives so that he is able to transform us, to lead us in this life of grace and he continues to give us this time of grace to be transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Because he wants to infuse us, dear friends, with love that comes from him. With the dwelling that God is among us. And if God is among us, our community, our families, our lives continue to exude the love, the compassion and the mercy of God.
And as we prepare ourselves towards Christmas, to dream once again together with God because our dreams were far distant than God’s dream for us, and that same way, dear friends, let us take this time of Advent, a time of grace, a time of preparation, to orientate our dreams together with God so that God’s dream in us may be accomplished, God’s dreams for humanity may be fulfilled.
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