Third
Sunday of Advent
December 14, 2008 Year: B
Is. 61:1-2a, 10-11; 1 Thess. 5:16-24; Jn. 1:6-8, 19-28
Make straight the way of the Lord
First Reading...
"The servant of
the Lord said: 'The spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to
bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the
brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and
release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the
Lord's favour.
I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my whole being shall
exult in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments
of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of
righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a
garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
For as the earth brings forth its shoots, and as a
garden causes what is sown in it to spring up, so the
Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring
up before all the nations.'" [Is. 61:1-2, 10-1]
Second Reading...
"My brothers
and sisters, rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give
thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God
in Christ Jesus for you.
Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise the words of
prophets; but test everything; hold fast to what is
good; abstain from every form of evil.
May the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely; and
may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and
blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The
one who calls you is faithful, and he will do this." [1
Thes. 5:16-24]
Gospel Reading...
"There was a
man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a
witness to testify to the light, so that all might
believe through him. He himself was not the light, but
he came to testify to the light.
This is the testimony given by John when the Jews sent
priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, 'Who are
you?'
He confessed and did not deny it, but confessed, 'I am
not the Messiah.' And they asked him, 'What then? Are
you Elijah?' He said, 'I am not.' 'Are you the prophet?'
He answered, 'No.'
Then they said to him, 'Who are you? Let us have an
answer for those who sent us. What do you say about
yourself?' He said, 'I am the voice of one crying out in
the wilderness, 'Make straight the way of the Lord,'' as
the prophet Isaiah said.
Now they had been sent from the Pharisees. They asked
him, 'Why then are you baptizing if you are neither the
Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?' John answered
them, 'I baptize with water. Among you stands one whom
you do not know, the one who is coming after me; I am
not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal.' This took
place in Bethany across the Jordan where John was
baptizing." [Jn. 1:6-8, 19-28]
Prepare the way of the LORD
Carl Jung tells the story of a man who was seeing him
for counseling. The man wanted an appointment at a
particular time on a particular day. "I'm sorry," said
Jung, "but I have an appointment at that time." When the
two met together the next time, the client was furious.
"You told me that you had an appointment on Tuesday. But
I happened to see you. I know exactly where you were and
what you were doing. You were sitting on the bank of the
river, doing nothing other than dangling your toes in
the water!" "That's right," said Jung. "It was my
appointment with myself and I never break it!"
Appointment with oneself, is appointment with God. God
is dwelling in my heart. The more you go deeper, closer
you come to God. Today we do not have time for that. Too
much of the world enters, instead we allowing ourselves
to be alone with God. Carl Jung was correct when he said
that it was an important appointment.
Well
today John the Baptist asks us to prepare the way of the
Lord. Where? in our hearts. God is seeking us and we
need to prepare the way into our hearts.
John
the Baptist was the greatest of Prophets (Matt. 11:9-11)
and the privileged messenger who was sent to prepare the
way of the Messiah according to the Word of God. There
are four main texts used to verify this:
-
"For
this is the one referred to by Isaiah the prophet,
saying, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness,
‘Make ready the way of the Lord, make His paths
straight!’”
(Matt. 3:3).
-
"The
beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of
God. 2As it is written in Isaiah the
prophet, "Behold, I send My messenger before Your
face, who will prepare Your way; 3The voice
of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Make ready the way
of the Lord, make His paths straight,’" (Mark
1:1-3).
-
“This is the one about whom it is
written, ‘Behold, I send My messenger before Your
face, who will prepare Your way before You,’
(Matt. 11:10).
-
"He
[John the Baptist] said, 'I am a voice of one crying
in the wilderness, 'Make straight the way of the
Lord,' as Isaiah the prophet said,'"
(John 1:23).
Clearly, John the Baptist was sent by God to prepare the
way for Jesus as all four quotes above demonstrate.
But, we must note that in the four citations, the Old
Testament is quoted from two sources: Isaiah and
Malachi.
-
Isaiah 40:3, "A voice is calling, “Clear the way
for the Lord [YHWH1]
in the wilderness; make smooth in the desert a highway
for our God."
-
Mal.
3:1, "Behold, I am going to send My messenger, and
he will clear the way before Me. And the Lord [adonai],
whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple; and
the messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight,
behold, He is coming," says the Lord [YHWH] of hosts."
Notice
that according to the quotes above, John the Baptist was
sent to prepare the way for Yahweh. Isaiah 40:3 says
that John is to clear the way for Yahweh. In Mal. 3:1,
it is God who says that "he will clear the way before
Me." Yet we see that the fulfillment of these verses is
found in the arrival of Jesus.
Preparing the way for the Lord, literally means that we
have time for God. Of course when someone comes to our
home, we give all the time to that person, so that the
person does not get upset with the things that are new
around him/her. In order to get to know God better, we
need to give time to Him. When we want to develop
relationships with our friends, with our husband or
wife, with our parents or with our children, we set
aside time to do so. Indeed we talk about spending
"quality time" with someone when we want to work on our
relationship with them: that is, time spent with someone
alone with no agenda and no distractions. God wants to
spend quality time with us, time when He has our
undivided attention. Mary, the sister of Lazarus and
Martha, understood this:
“As
Jesus and His disciples were on their way, He came to a
village where a woman named Martha opened her home to
Him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's
feet listening to what He said. But Martha was
distracted by all the preparations that had to be made.
She came to Him and asked, "Lord, don't you care that my
sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to
help me!" "Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are
worried and upset about many things, but only one thing
is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will
not be taken away from her."
Mary
chose to spend time with Jesus and refused to be
distracted; Martha chose not to spend time with Him. And
Jesus said that Mary had chosen better. (Later, we see
Mary express her devotion to Jesus in a most extravagant
way, pouring a bottle of extremely expensive perfume
over Him. Again, Jesus commends her action.) Jesus
invites us to learn from Mary and spend time with Him as
she did, letting Him change us by the encounter.
How
much do we value spending time with the Lord? Does the
idea of being with Him fill us with expectation and joy
as it did Mary? Given how incredibly wonderful God is,
it is somewhat astonishing how little time many of us
spend on deepening our relationship with Him. When a
young man and woman are courting, only things over which
they have no control will keep them apart. If we let God
captivate our heart with His love, then we too will
desire to be with Him above anything else.
The
gospel accounts record various occasions when Jesus
Himself withdrew to places of solitude to spend time
with His Father: Once, "very early in the morning, while
it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went
off to a solitary place, where He prayed." Another time,
"after He had dismissed the crowd, He went up on a
mountainside by Himself to pray. When evening came, He
was there alone." Luke writes that "Jesus often withdrew
to lonely places and prayed." If this was part of the
rhythm of Jesus' life, how much more do we need to build
it in to the rhythm of our lives too.
Are we
willing to invest time in our relationship with God?
Western ideals-filled society is so goal-oriented that
we often find it hard enough for us (especially perhaps
for men) to invest adequate time in developing deep
human relationships, let alone in deepening our
relationship with God. It seems ridiculous that we are
so unwilling to invest more than an hour or so each week
in meeting with God. The trouble is that giving time to
just being with God, to just being in His presence, is
in conflict with the values of the world we live in. Are
we willing to 'waste time' in this way?
We may
need to make some tough decisions to do this. Spending
time with God is important - indeed it's of crucial
importance to the way we live - but it never seems
urgent. As a result we find it easy to postpone,
delaying indefinitely until it never happens. But, the
window of opportunity is now: "Seek the Lord while he
may be found; call on Him while He is near.", says
Isaiah. We need to "seize the day" before the years pass
away and God misses out on the best part of our lives.
Why let slip the opportunity of having a close
relationship with Him now? Most of us will need to
plan in order to give time to communion and
fellowship with God. We need to make practical decisions
about how we use our time. We should all arrange to have
a regular 'date' with God.
We
should have a similar attitude about meeting regularly
with God. It should be an unbreakable appointment.
God is
unlikely to force us to spend time with Him (though
sometimes He may let us go through a time of illness or
unemployment to help us see what is important. Do we
believe we're too busy to find time for this? Our
society seems to honour busyness, but we need to decide
whether we can afford not to plan time alone with
God into our timetable. Some of us work long hours
irrespective of any real need to do so and many of us
pursue unnecessary goals (perhaps most obviously greater
wealth and a higher 'standard of living'). Probably all
of us spend time on things that are neither urgent nor
important, so-called 'busy work'. How we spend our time
shows what we value. We can't do everything. We have to
choose. Are we choosing not to spend time with God, in
favour of other activities? Or are we willing to
sacrifice the unimportant, saying "no" to some of the
demands we or others place on us, in order to give time
to God? How much is our relationship with God really
worth to us?
What
this means in practice will vary widely according to our
circumstances. For some, it may just be necessary to
enter unbreakable appointments with God in a diary - and
then keep those appointments. For others, it may be
right to give up participation in Sunday outing in order
to be able to attend church regularly. Others may decide
that a change in employment is required. In pursuit of
intimacy with the Lord, are we willing to reject the
values of our culture? Are we willing to choose a lower
'standard of living' in order to pursue the higher
'quality of life' that we find as we live in close
communion with our loving heavenly Father?
In
addition to our regular daily and weekly times spent
with God, it is also good to plan some more extended
periods of time for the sole purpose of deepening our
relationship with our Father. Structuring a short
meditation on God every few months is likely to be one
of the most profitable things we ever do. If we give a
day or weekend totally over to meeting with God, the
benefits are likely to far outweigh any 'sacrifice' we
make. We may feel we are too busy to do something like
this, but we have no problem finding time for holidays,
or to spend with family and friends, or for pursuing our
hobbies or making progress in our work. No, the most
difficult problem is not in finding time but in deciding
that it is important enough to find the time. If we
truly love the Lord with every part of our being, it
should be evident in our diaries and calendars!
Preparing the way for the Lord, means
that we are ready to receive him. How? It could be
through a retreat, a good confession, amending
relationships, being generous, and resourceful and
happy.
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