SECOND SUNDAY OF ADVENT

[cappie]

In this week's Gospel, Matthew describes the work and preaching of John the Baptist. John's preaching of the coming of the Lord is a key theme of the Advent season. As John's message prepared the way for Jesus in the first century, we, too, are called to prepare ourselves for Jesus' coming. We respond to John's message by our repentance and reform of our lives. We are also called to be prophets of Christ, who announce by our lives, as John did, the coming of the Lord.  Venturing into the wilderness to be with John reminds the crowd of their ancestors’ struggles, allowing them to hear John’s call to repent not as judgement but as an invitation to come home.

To repent doesn’t mean to simply be sorry. In the New Testament, to repent means to begin seeing differently, to begin thinking differently, both of which lead to acting and living differently. To repent is to change, but not for the sake of change itself. Rather, when we change, we start to live differently, because as we enter a new mindset or as we develop a new way of seeing, we become aware that our actions are out of step with God’s dream for all creation.

And what is God’s dream for all creation?   Before time began, God had a dream.  A dream that began in eternity past, a dream that was fulfilled by Jesus. God's dream was that the love that makes the Trinity what it is, would be shared with all men and women.  A dream that began in the Garden of Eden and continued down through the ages, through Abraham and Sarah, through Isaac and Rebekah, through Joseph and Mary and down to today. 

God dreams for the world to be a place where we view each other with compassion and with love,  of community where we love one another as neighbours with all our heart, soul, and mind, and that God calls us to live into this dream, not next year, not ten years from today, but this advent.

It is a desire that John himself expresses with the phrase that always comes after the verb “repent.” He does not just shout, “Repent!” and then stop there; John links the call to repentance with the “why” of repentance: the kingdom of heaven has come near. For those of us who follow God in the Way of Love, it is Jesus who defines our new way of seeing, our new mindset, and our way back to God. Deciding to try to live and love like Jesus is what Christian repentance is all about. What if we choose to hear John’s call not as a threat of impending condemnation, but as an invitation to live into God’s dream?

God invites us all to dream something beyond what we can presently see – the suffering of refugees, the homeless, the hungry, and those who have lost loved ones through acts of violence. God does not ask us if we are there yet, but rather whether we are headed in the right direction.

We, as children of God, need to listen to the voice of the one crying out in the wilderness – the voice that reminds us of God’s dream. We need to take the time to seek God’s vision for us – to ask, “What does God want us to be and to do?” We need to choose one – just one, for now – element of our lives where we see the need for repentance and take advantage of the opportunity to change direction.

Writing, to the Romans, Paul has a similar message. Jewish converts must follow ‘the example of Christ Jesus’, in the tolerance and generosity they show, as they recognise in the Church’s embracing of ‘the pagans’ what God foretold in the promises of ‘the Scriptures’.

We who have glimpsed God’s dream must now share that hope. Like John, we must strive to renew the hopes of an exhausted world. With practice, we can be like Isaiah, who can see beyond the mess and dream of a world in which all are ready for the arrival of God.

“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”  - “Repent, live God’s Dream.” This is John the Baptist’s invitation for us to come home and to be the people God has created us to be.