Jesus sees fit to go out of the bosom of the Father to announce the Good News to the poor and to bring in the new heavens and the new earth. 

It seems that John, like Jeremiah, has the Lord’s word in his heart as a fire one cannot put out. It makes the son of Zechariah and Elizabeth go out to the desert.  

John preaches there to the people that they should repent so that their sins may be forgiven. And this prophet who is like Elijah in being forceful and in what he wears appears to draw many. For all those from Judea and Jerusalem go out to him.

Do they take him for a man of truth, in whom there is no guile? Does he seem to them to be one that does what he preaches? Are they in awe of him, since he leads a life that is not usual and fits the repentant? All the same, they go out to him, receive his baptism in the Jordan river and confess their sins.

Go out of the Old World of Old Men 

We Christians should also leave behind society and go out to the desert. We are to examine our collective conscience and confess our sins to prepare the way of the Lord. This is a way to wait for and hasten the coming of the Lord. Of the new heavens and the new earth, in which justice dwells.

But to leave behind society and to go out to the desert need not mean geographical change of place. We can stay in society, so long as we do not live in the way it does. That is to say, we have to welcome the Good News and live by it. And this asks for change of mind, heart, behavior.

Hence, we can no longer lock ourselves up in our own interests. Or in our safe dens. For we are not to be like the snails that fear what they may find out there (SV.EN XII:81).

And above all, we must put on the Lord Jesus and be of those he calls blessed as he is.

Lord Jesus, grant that we, who live in you by your death, die in you by your life and that our lives be hidden in you and full of you and that we live like you so that we may die like you (SV.EN I:276).  Make us go out to you and live by your Good News and live what we recall in the Eucharist. As we live since you feed us with your body, so may we help others live as we help them in their needs. May your own life that you share with us give us strength to help others to the point of emptying ourselves. We shall thus get to live like you and die like you as we love others to the end as you do.  

10 December 2023
Second Sunday of Advent (B)
Is 40, 1-5. 9-11; 2 Pt 3, 8-14; Mk 1, 1-8