Year A Second Sunday of Advent 5 December 2010
Isaiah 11: 1-10 Psalm 72: 1-7, 18-19 Romans 15: 4-13 Matthew 3: 1-12
Isaiah 11: 1-3 “A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. 2 The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him— the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of might, the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the LORD—3 and he will delight in the fear of the LORD. He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears;”
Way back in the time of Isaiah there was this prophecy about the coming Messiah who would come from the ancestral line of Jesse (ie King David). I have been wondering lately why God so often promised things which took such a long time to be fulfilled. To some extent we need to know that there is a plan and that God has good things in store for us, but the waiting is certainly painful and many times the majority give up before the promise is fulfilled.
A promise gives us direction and defines our path. A young friend of mine (who is on the list of those receiving this reflection), has just recently become engaged. She and her boyfriend were very particular about their “dating”. They only “dated” with the prospect of their relationship being discerned in the context of marriage. No doubt they’d been enjoying their life as a young couple, both involved in career studies, but since they have become engaged their life has taken a definite turn. Their journey now is less of discernment and more of preparation for the reality of their life within the marriage covenant.
In a similar way God gave a word of promise. In our journey of faith, we need these promises to shape our paths and give our faith direction. We are believers and accept that Christ died to save us from our sin, but we need to remember that there is a promise from God that Christ will come again.
I really do feel that many of us have forgotten the promise. We accept the sacrifice of Jesus and are baptised but as far as our faith life taking a definite direction, it is more like poorly trained child swimmers striving to tread water. We splash about and sometimes make a bit of noise but we don’t seem to have a direction or a purpose. Honestly, can you see this in your own life?
It isn’t that we don’t have a sound faith – we do, but we need to remember the promises of God and let them shape our lives.
Romans 15:4 “For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope.”
We need to be reading our Bibles and become familiar with the promises of God. These things have been carefully recorded and, as it says in Romans, they are written to teach us. The letter to the Romans was written in times when Christians were being persecuted and put to death in very cruel ways. These Christians need to be encouraged to have hope. They were enabled to endure all their sufferings because their life had direction and purpose in Christ and hope in the promises of God.
Matthew 3:1- 1 “In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea 2 and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” 3 This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah: “A voice of one calling in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.’”
John the Baptist was one who proclaimed the promise of God. Although many were still hoping in the coming of the Messiah, I would imagine that there were some who may have given up believing that a Messiah was ever going to come. Then at that point in history along comes John to remind them all. He calls them to repent – why? because many of them were like poorly trained child swimmers treading water. They were people of faith but their lives had lost focus and direction – which is why John’s message involves exhorting them to make straight paths in preparation for the Lord.
The message is the same for us. We now look toward Christ’s 2nd coming and he has been a long time coming. We’ve become so absorbed by the doctrines of the world that we’ve lost focus on the absolute truth of God. It doesn’t matter how popular the worldly way of thinking maybe, it will lead to death. We need to hear the reality, “Christ will come again”.
When Christ does come will you stand without fear as his wrath invades the land? Will you walk a path that you know is God’s will? John warned the Sadducees and Pharisees about the coming wrath.... and yet I suspect this message is as much for end times as it was for them personally. This is what he says to them: Matthew 3:7 “ But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? 8 Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. 9 And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham.”
The message is that we cannot rely on our traditions or heritage to save us. We can’t just say that “we are Christians”. We need to know that Christ dwells in us and that we are lead by the Holy Spirit.
By the Holy Spirit we are taught to have an attitude of Christ. In each of our readings we learn a bit about the attitude of Christ. From Isaiah and the Psalm we learn that Christ is wise and understanding. He judges not by what he hears and sees but with righteousness. He judges in favour of the poor and needy and cares for those who are the weak. Our 2nd reading exhorts us to accept one another just as Christ accepted us.... there is a lot of sacrificial love in that.
Our Gospel reading from Matthew tells us that it is Jesus who baptizes us with the Holy Spirit and with fire. This is the same Holy Spirit, which if we will allow his work in our lives, will encourage us with hope. This hope in the promise of God and the encouragement that it gives empowers us to endure. And so finally...... we need to live our lives in the reality of the promises of God. This means we need to prepare.
Like John the Baptist we have a message to proclaim. “Prepare the way for the Lord”. We need to proclaim it to ourselves, to each other and to those outside the Church.
The purpose of God in revealing his promises is to encourage us in hope so that we can endure through all that may happen in the meantime, but it is also to remind us to prepare. Prepare the way for the Lord – make straight paths for him!
Romans 15:13 “ 13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
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