SECOND SUNDAY IN ADVENT C

[cappie]

Prophets  call us out when we stray from God and when we have lost sight of truth. At best, they are a nuisance; at worst, they are meddling. Who needs these messengers of discomfort and sacrifice? What are they good for?  

Today there is one called John, son of Zechariah—John the Baptist, some call him. He’s no ordinary prophet. He is always running around, “Repent this! Prepare that!”   And yet he persists. John quotes Isaiah to tell us he’s come to build a road home for us, a way out of the wilderness of sin and alienation from God. It’s a road we’ll follow Jesus down, a journey we’ll make, as today’s First Reading puts it, “rejoicing that [we’re] remembered by God.”   

We need prophets.  Today we are  people who look around and see destruction and desolation. There are people who have no voice, no rights, no hope . Prophets are truth-tellers to a world longing and praying and looking for glimpses of hope.

Prophets are harbingers of hope and hope is found in the one whose coming we await. The message foretold by John breaks into our world  and shatters the dark of despair with the light of love.

 As the late Rachel Held Evans reminds us, “Biblically speaking, a prophet isn’t a fortune-teller or soothsayer who predicts the future, but rather a truth-teller who sees things as they really are—past, present, and future—and who challenges their community to both accept that reality and imagine a better one.”

We need the voice of one crying out in the wilderness because  in the wilderness, the needs are raw and real, sweet words and hollow sentiment are not enough. We need prophets when we have grown so full of ourselves that we neglect to see the orphan, the refugee, the migrant, the widow, and the stranger. Prophets to call us back to God, back to a place where hope is found not only in church, but in the world around us.

Like Jesus and John, we are tasked   to be open to a hope-filled future to which God calls us. Now more than ever, our communities, our nation, and our world are in desperate need of the glimmer of hope found in Jesus Christ. Now more than ever, we need to not only hear the cries of the prophets, but also to take on the mantle of the prophets.

We, as the church, the people of God, the followers of Jesus, are called to claim our prophetic birthright and be the voice of the voiceless, the hope of the hopeless, the love of the loveless.

Often in the church, we can feel small and powerless, wondering how we will survive, being concerned about ourselves rather than those in need. But God’s prophetic grace often falls not on the powerful or the mighty, but on ordinary people who turn the world right-side-up. We are called to remember that we are not a group of people who believe all the same things; we are a group of people caught up in God’s plan of redemption and salvation with Jesus in the centre.

The question facing us as Christians, who seek to follow where Jesus leads and to heed the call of John  is “Are we willing to be prophets?” Are we willing to let God’s light shine through us so much so that we can show the world a new and better way?   Because that is the Good News that we have to share; that is the prophetic vision that has the power to transform our world. 

  There is still darkness and despair and shattered dreams. There are still sins to be forgiven and enemies to turn into friends. It may not look like it, it may not sound like it, it may not feel like it, but in Jesus Christ, love has already won. The light of love and the glimmer of hope has broken through the gloom. The crooked places have been made straight, the valleys and mountains made smooth, the rough places made plain. Look and you will see the salvation of our God breaking through in a thousand pinpricks of light.

So, tune your ears to the voices crying from the wilderness, pay attention to those who speak of Good News and forgiveness and repentance and hope. Be the prophet who points to Jesus coming once more into our world.

This is what the Advent readings are all about: We recall God’s saving deeds—in the history of Israel and in the coming of Jesus. Our remembrance is meant to stir our faith, to fill us with confidence that, as today’s Second Reading puts it, “ the One who began this good work in you will see that it is finished” until He comes again in glory.