2^nd Sunday of Advent, Year B
Isaiah 40:1-5, 9-11
Psalm 85:9-10, 11-12, 13-14 (8)
2 Peter 3:8-14
Mark 1:1-8

December 10, 2023

Isaiah the prophet speaks of a voice that cries out.  Today’s gospel speaks of a voice crying out in the desert.

Isaiah prophesizes at a time when the nation of Israel had been defeated and many of the Israelites are in exile.  The voice cries out, “In the desert prepare the way of the LORD!  Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God!”

God is preparing to end the exile and to bring his people back to Israel.  They need to prepare for the day when “Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill shall be made low, the rugged land shall be made a plain, the rough country, a broad valley.” 

These were words of comfort to his people, that their exile was at an end, their guilt expiated.  Those delivering these words would be seen as heralds of “glad tidings” and “good news.”  God has not abandoned them.  He is about to save his people.

God did indeed set the Israelites from exile in Babylon just as He had set them free from slavery in Egypt.

However, the Israelites continued to wait for the promised Messiah.  The wait seemed very long.  The Lord is patient for “with the Lord one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like one day.”

600 years later Jesus came as the long-expected Messiah.  Now we wait for the Second Coming of Jesus.  It may seem delayed but that is because The Lord is patient and giving us plenty of time.

Plenty of time to what?

To repent and seek the forgiveness of our sins.

John the Baptist came as “a voice of one crying out in the desert.”  He proclaimed “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”

Hearing his voice, many “acknowledged their sins” and were “baptized by him in the Jordan River.”

John performed a great task for the Lord but he knew that one mightier than him was coming.  John baptized for the forgiveness of sins.  Jesus comes to offer a baptism with the Holy Spirit. 

In the Baptism that Jesus brings an indelible mark is placed on us.  We are forever changed if we allow our baptism to be fruitful within us.  At Mass the bread and wine are transubstantiated into the Body and Blood of Jesus.  Do we let God transform us?

Part of what we need transformed within us is our sins.  How are our sins removed? 

They are removed by the sacrifice that we celebrate at the altar.  It is not a new sacrifice.  It is the same sacrifice that Jesus offered 2,000 years ago on the Cross when He freely gave his life for us so that our sins might be forgiven.  God makes this sacrifice present for us today.

The world needs to know this. 

How many people don’t know significance of Jesus offering himself as a sacrifice on the Cross and that it is the same sacrifice that we celebrate here at this altar.  What Jesus offered for us, we offer up to God. 

Even today the world needs to hear a voice that heralds the good news that Jesus died for us. 

Do you realize what it means that Jesus gave his life for you?

I try to be a voice of good news to you of what Jesus does for us.  Are you willing to be a voice to the world?

I love teaching about our faith.  I feel called to be a voice crying out to the world.  Yet, at times I wonder if anyone is listening.

Do you listen and embrace what you hear?  When our faith teaches that Jesus died for us, do you receive this as anything more than one historical fact among many? 

When we hear that good news that Jesus died for us, if we understand the significance of this, it becomes not just something we learn.  It is meant to be an encounter with the Lord.  And we are to be transformed by the encounter. 

Jesus’ death is an act of love.

In dying for us, Jesus wants us to have personal relationship with him.  God is not some remote being that shows up just in time to save us.  God wants us to have a personal relationship with him where He is part of our lives everyday.

This is the good news that I share with you.  In turn, are you willing to let God use your voice to tell the world that Jesus has died for us?

As we remember the First Coming of Jesus at Christmas and look forward to the Second Coming at the end of the ages, know that Jesus wants to come into your hearts at this very moment.  Make room in your life for him and share the good news with others.