SECOND SUNDAY OF ADVENT A

[cappie]

On this second Sunday of Advent, we find ourselves on the banks of the River Jordan with John the Baptist. There is no good news – no Gospel of Jesus, without John the Baptist. Jesus himself describes John as the greatest of prophets. John took his mission, which was to declare the imminent arrival of the coming Messiah, very seriously. John feared no one.. He was, however, totally devoted to the One for whom he came to prepare the way, saying to his followers, “ I baptise you in water for repentance, but the one who follows me is more powerful than I am, and I am not fit to carry his sandals; ”  John proclaims, “ Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is close at hand.” Crowds from Jerusalem and the surrounding regions flock to hear John and to be baptized in the Jordan. Why do they flock to hear John? Perhaps they have become disheartened by the quality of their lives and welcome the call for change.  To repent, to return, is to follow the prepared way of the Lord that leads out of our separation and back into reconnection with the God who made us and loves us beyond our understanding.

John is out in the wilderness – far away from the places of power. He sees the world through the lens of wilderness experience and calls to mind the fact that God’s people endured the wilderness – with all its confusions, ill-will, and foolishness – as they fled from Pharaoh’s tyranny. For years, they struggled with God’s call on their lives, often abusing it with their own disobedience. This is a man who won’t stop reminding people of the reality of faithlessness despite all that comes from God’s gracious leading. Venturing into the wilderness to be with John reminds the crowd of their ancestors’ struggles, allowing them to hear John’s call to repent more as invitation than judgment – 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.

One illustration can be found in our reading from Isaiah – God’s dream is for the world to be a place in which peace and equity – rather than fear and hatred – rule the day. God dreams for the world to be a place where we view each other with compassion and with love, where all of creation is full of the mercy and the peace of God.  

John does not just shout, “Repent!” and then stop there; John links the call to repentance with the “why” of repentance: the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Deciding to try to live and love like Jesus is what Christian repentance is all about.

John’s call  “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is close at hand’ is not an ominous 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, 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 heed 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.

Following Paul’s counsel, 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.