FROM THE PULPIT SECOND SUNDAY OF ADVENT YEAR B. REFLECTION By Fr. Benoit Mukamba, CSSp.
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FROM THE PULPIT
SECOND SUNDAY OF ADVENT YEAR B.
SCRIPTURE: Isaiah 40: 1-5, 9-11; Psalm 85: 8-13; 2 Peter 3: 8-14; Mark 1: 1-8.
REFLECTION: GOOD TIDINGS
Fr. Benoit Mukamba, CSSp.
“Good tidings” in the Hebrew original, is a verb that gave the New Testament writers the noun “Gospel”. The “good tidings” is the good news of the impending God’s intervention in human history. In the context of today’s passages of the Holy Scripture, the “good tidings” is the return of the people of Israel from exiles. The prophet sees the approaching return from exile as life changing event. Isaiah envisions this return from exile as a new Exodus not because history repeats itself but that God’s mighty acts in history follow a consistent pattern because God is true to himself and his purpose of salvation. Hence, Prophet Isaiah and other prophets of Exile and finally John the Baptist were compelled to speak by the same Spirit of the Eternal God.
John the Baptist became the “voice that cries in the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord'' (John 1: 23; Isaiah 40:3). The coming of the Lord is the “good tidings”, the good news. What is good about this news, about the Lord’s coming? God’s intervention is a life transforming event for the best. “Every valley shall be lifted up/ and every mountain and hill be made low/ and the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain”(Isaiah 40: 3-4). The above imagery represents a change of heart on the part of God’s people both in the Old and New Testament. God intervenes in human history when humans cannot help themselves. The people of the first reading were the Chosen People. They celebrated their deliverance from Egypt every Passover. But they still pushed God aside, even out of their lives. They had become wealthy. They thought they had less need for God than ever before. It was almost as though they forgot about God and themselves. Full of themselves, they made treaties with the pagans and worshiped their gods. They diluted Yahweh’s faith and profaned the Holy Land. Then there came their fall; they were defeated and taken captives in foreign land. It was as though God let them go to be like the other nations since they had manifested their penchant for pagans’ ways of life.
While in exile, the Israelites discovered that they could not save themselves from their sins and its consequences. The same with us Christians, we need the grace of God in order to be saved. That life of God was manifested to us in Jesus Christ whom John the Baptist pointed to us. Jesus is the good tidings of God’s salvation to us.
The preaching of John the Baptist on this Sunday means a call to repentance as an indispensable evangelical preparation. John administered a baptism of repentance and promised a baptism of the Holy Spirit that Jesus will give. It is said in Latin, “Nemo dat quod non habet”, literally meaning "no one gives what they do not have". Jesus gives the Holy Spirit while John can only prepare people to receive him. Repentance is a starting point to openness to the grace of God because it is an abandonment of any attempt to save ourselves. Repentance is acknowledging God’s power in our lives. It gives us the proper disposition to welcome the Holy Spirit that Jesus Christ gives us.
Therefore, ask the Lord to assist us recover the grace we received in Baptism and Confirmation and commit ourselves to following Jesus with zeal and love.
