In the Deuterocanonical Book of Baruch (note: Baruch was a companion to Jeremiah, who accompanied Jeremiah into Egypt and reportedly died there), we hear Baruch addressing the Jews in the Diaspora, during the Babylonian Captivity. Baruch tells them not to live in despair, but to cast off the veil of despondency that covers them. Why? Because God will clothe them in glory and return them to their native land of Judah. All of the earth will behold that they are God’s beloved. In a passage that mirrors that of 2nd Isaiah 40, God will go before leveling mountains and filling in gorges so that their journey home will be done with ease with no obstacle in their path.
In Luke’s Gospel, John the Baptist is introduced as the one who will make the way smooth and guide them to the salvation of God. John’s message is clear, namely, that people are not condemned to live trapped in misery, powerless to free themselves from sin. John introduces the people that they are empowered to change their lives. Instead of lives of fatalism in which outside forces control their destiny, John tells them that they have control over their own destiny.
During this Advent, how do we find ourselves. Do we feel trapped, not unlike the Jewish people in the Diaspora by the circumstances over which we believe we have no control? Do we find ourselves, like those whom John the Baptist addressed, held captive by whatever sin dominates our lives? Or do we find ourselves, like John the Baptist, one through whom God tells people that we are not condemned to live trapped but are offered freedom by God to live lives of hope and joy? No matter where we find ourselves this Advent, we are told to be hopeful, to place our despondency and fatalism aside, for God loves us and desires to heal the brokenness of our lives so that we can be free, happy, and at peace.
Readings for the Second Sunday in Advent:
Jerusalem, take off your robe of mourning and misery;
put on the splendor of glory from God forever:
wrapped in the cloak of justice from God,
bear on your head the mitre
that displays the glory of the eternal name.
For God will show all the earth your splendor:
you will be named by God forever
the peace of justice, the glory of God’s worship.
Up, Jerusalem! stand upon the heights;
look to the east and see your children
gathered from the east and the west
at the word of the Holy One,
rejoicing that they are remembered by God.
Led away on foot by their enemies they left you:
but God will bring them back to you
borne aloft in glory as on royal thrones.
For God has commanded
that every lofty mountain be made low,
and that the age-old depths and gorges
be filled to level ground,
that Israel may advance secure in the glory of God.
The forests and every fragrant kind of tree
have overshadowed Israel at God’s command;
for God is leading Israel in joy by the light of his glory,
with his mercy and justice for company.
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar,
when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea,
and Herod was tetrarch of Galilee,
and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region
of Ituraea and Trachonitis,
and Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene,
during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas,
the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the desert.
John went throughout the whole region of the Jordan,
proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins,
as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah:
A voice of one crying out in the desert:
“Prepare the way of the Lord,
make straight his paths.
Every valley shall be filled
and every mountain and hill shall be made low.
The winding roads shall be made straight,
and the rough ways made smooth,
and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”
