Sunday Homilies by Fr. Rudolf V. D’ Souza

  Click here for other Sunday Homilies 

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:

  1. "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).

  2. "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).

  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).

  4. "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.

  Click here for other Sunday Homilies 

 

^TOP

Copyright © 2006   KG Carmelite Province, Bangalore

You are visitor No. :

Powered By : Business Online, Bangalore