{"id":893,"date":"2012-12-10T11:24:46","date_gmt":"2012-12-10T16:24:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/?p=893"},"modified":"2012-12-10T11:27:56","modified_gmt":"2012-12-10T16:27:56","slug":"homily-2nd-sunday-of-advent-12912","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/homily-2nd-sunday-of-advent-12912\/","title":{"rendered":"Homily 2nd Sunday of Advent 12\/9\/12"},"content":{"rendered":"

2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C<\/a>
\nBaruch 5:1-9
\nPhilippians 1:4-6, 9-11
\nLuke 3:1-6
\nDecember 9, 2012<\/p>\n

As we ended the last liturgical year and began our season of Advent our readings pointed to the End Times.\u00a0 We called to do so with hope of the glory of Heaven but we don\u2019t always feel that way when we think about our own readiness.<\/p>\n

Today, the gospel readings begin to turn to the events leading up to the earthly ministry of Jesus.\u00a0 Today, John the Baptist calls for the people to \u201cprepare the way of the Lord.\u201d\u00a0 This is exactly what Advent is all about.<\/p>\n

John the Baptist preached called for a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.\u00a0 It might seem like a difficult message to accept but it\u2019s not meant that way.\u00a0 John the Baptist sees the coming of the Lord as a joyous event.<\/p>\n

John speaks of how the Lord will make things right.\u00a0 Jesus is our Savior.\u00a0 The first part of this gospel where it lists the government leaders may seem to just provide a setting.\u00a0 That was my thinking about it when I first looked at it this week.\u00a0 Then, one of the commentaries said that it isn\u2019t just to give a time or speak of a place.\u00a0 The people it lists are powerful figures of the time but they are not the ones who make things right in the world.\u00a0 Jesus is our Savior and so we celebrate his birth with great joy.<\/p>\n

All of our readings today speak of a joyous attitude in the midst of difficult times.\u00a0 In the gospel, the earthly difficult lies in the fact that the Israelites are subservient to the Romans.<\/p>\n

In Paul\u2019s letter to the Philippians, he opens with his praying with joy for the Philippians.\u00a0 Paul writes this from prison.\u00a0 He could be sad and discouraged by his imprisonment but he is not.\u00a0 Rather he finds joy in the Philippians.\u00a0 That joy leads to confidence that God will continue to bless them and \u201ccontinue to complete\u201d what he has begun in them.<\/p>\n

Baruch worked with Jeremiah and offers our first reading today in the time of the Babylonian Exile, a time of great distress and sadness for the Israelites.\u00a0 In their distress, they would have dressed in mourning and misery but Baruch tells them to stop this and \u201cput on the splendor of glory from God forever.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Baruch does not tell them to be ready to be joyful when God sets them free.\u00a0 He tells them to do this now.\u00a0 We are not to wait for good things to be joyful.\u00a0 We can be joyful simply because God loves us.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s keeping you from being joyful? \u00a0Sometimes being joyful isn\u2019t all that easy.<\/p>\n

I think about when we face the death of a loved one.\u00a0 We are sad because of the loss.\u00a0 We mourn and grieve.\u00a0 That\u2019s natural but when we believe in Jesus and the Resurrection we can find joy in knowing that our loved one may receive the gift of eternal life.<\/p>\n

It can be hard to be joyful when we are overburdened by work.\u00a0 We might find joy in knowing that our work and ministry can help make the world a better place.<\/p>\n

It can be hard to be joyful when we face challenges to living our faith from others but we can find peace and joy in knowing that Jesus faced the same thing.\u00a0 So, as we face this, we know we walk with Jesus and he with us.<\/p>\n

War and violence is difficult and trying but we find some peace in knowing this is not God\u2019s way.<\/p>\n

This brings us to an important distinction about peace and joy.\u00a0 When people hear the world peace, the focus often turns to a world without any war or violence.\u00a0 That is the ideal.\u00a0 \u00a0When we think of joy we think that it means we don\u2019t have any problems and are happy and smiling. \u00a0These are earthly interpretations of peace and joy.\u00a0 We should seek this time of both peace and joy.\u00a0 But God\u2019s peace transcends earthly peace.\u00a0 God\u2019s joy transcends human difficulty. \u00a0Now, if everyone truly and fully accepted God\u2019s peace and joy, there would not be any war or violence.\u00a0 But not everyone has accepted it so the wars and violence continue.<\/p>\n

But in the midst of the wars and violence, we can look beyond what we see in this world to see what God sees, hope, and from this we find God\u2019s peace and joy. \u00a0I don\u2019t mean to make it sound too simple.\u00a0 It isn\u2019t.\u00a0 We face real challenges in our earthly lives.\u00a0 We can face what might seem like insurmountable odds.<\/p>\n

No matter what we face, God walks with us.\u00a0 That is our joy.<\/p>\n

What challenges do you face that make it difficult to know God\u2019s joy?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C Baruch 5:1-9 Philippians 1:4-6, 9-11 Luke 3:1-6 December 9, 2012 As we ended the last liturgical year and began our season of Advent our readings pointed to the End Times.\u00a0 We called to do so with hope of the glory of Heaven but we don\u2019t always feel that …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘Homily 2nd Sunday of Advent 12\/9\/12’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMTPk-ep","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=893"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":896,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893\/revisions\/896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}