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Sunday 2 Advent (C); Read: Bar 5, 1-9;
Lk 3, 1-6
Arguably St. John the Baptist was the first Jesuit, not because he was a companion of Jesus,
but because he was the first man to have a deep-felt, sixth sense of the presence of Jesus. Earlier on than the text just
proclaimed, Luke’s Gospel tells us that the Baptist leapt for joy even in his mother’s womb when, through the
voice of Mary, he recognized the presence of Jesus in Her womb. Ever since hearing that voice, the Baptist himself became
a voice, almost as if he wanted to imitate Mary’s role in helping others recognize the approaching presence of Jesus.
His was not the sweet and intimate voice of Mary, as we would imagine Hers to be. Nor was it the voice of the religious functionary,
the academic, the diplomat or the politician. It was rather the voice of the prophet: intrepid and indomitable, crying out
to break the silent din of sin: prepare ye the way of the Lord! He was not interested in pious platitudes, rational discourse,
consensus-building or persuasive rhetoric. The Baptist knew that for everyone, there was no time and no need for all of that
any more. So, what preoccupied and overwhelmed him with urgency was that the Savior was coming, indeed was here, and the people
were not ready for Him. The only way they could be made ready was urgently to call them to turn away from all mundane distraction,
including false religiosity, and to turn towards the coming Messiah. That was the meaning of the baptism of repentance that
he administered: the “u-turn” away from self-concern and towards the expectant hope that the Lamb of God would
Himself take away the sins of the world.
John is consumed
by the urgency to preach repentance because he was aware of the imminence of Jesus’ appearing. So, in John’s teaching
there is little or no time for the kind of explaining that human beings like so as to give, or withhold, their consent to
the call to virtue. John had no time for that, and he was telling the people that they had no time for it either. He did not
weave long-winded and intricate patterns of moral reasoning to convince his listeners. Rather, like a trumpet or a clarion,
John blasted forth a series of moral absolutes to awaken all from their torpor and mediocrity: get yourselves up and awake
and ready to stand beside the standard, the colors of Jesus your King! He didn’t write a letter to King Herod asking
for an appointment diplomatically to persuade him to stop living in adultery. No, to the great, albeit perverse, delight of
many, he simply descried Herod in blunt and public terms for failing to obey the command of God. With the Baptist there was
no messing, no ambiguity or double-talk, no political correctness and even less etiquette. He was rude and crude, direct,
unabashed, certain of his message, clear in its delivery and would not take no for an answer. He had no trouble threatening
and applying excommunication, for he knew, when time is short, people need short shrift in order to be brought to their senses:
you can’t keep invoking God and defying His law to His face. There was something apocalyptic about John the Baptist:
he knew he was the last prophet of the Old Testament and that the beginning of the new would bring the fire of judgment. Jesus
calls him the greatest of all men born of women and “a prophet, yes more than a prophet”. The impact of John’s
ministry upon the Jews and beyond was unequalled since the times of Elijah and it facilitated the beginning of the public
ministry of Jesus Himself.
The vision of the
restoration of Israel and Jerusalem written by the prophet Baruch (today’s first reading) was joy-filled and
hope-filled. You hear nothing of that in John, not because Baruch’s words were not to be fulfilled, but because the
people John saw before him were living in a way that was unworthy of that hope and joy. How could John speak of these things
when the general level of corruption and moral decadence of his time cried out for the judgment of God? Woe to the prophet
who prophecies peace, joy and tranquility when the society before him has become dissolute! How can there be peace when justice
is denied, manipulated or emptied of its fundamental meaning? How can there be joy when love has been reduced to comfort,
pleasure and mutual admiration? How can there be holiness when what is intrinsically evil is itself exalted as worthy of emulation
and what is intrinsically good is declared as discriminatory, hypocritical or obsolete? If the prophet were to speak comforting
clichés to such a society he would only become a tool of the self-flattery of fools; instead of calling them to life, he would
be shepherding them on to death. And when judgment comes, the prophet will be asked by the fool: “why did you fail to
point out the error of my ways?” For the prophet to go with the flow is to perish with the foolish.
To prepare
God’s people and all people of goodwill for their encounter with the Messiah, the prophet is sent by the Messiah to
urge the truth. God knows how we are inclined to forget the Day of His coming. He knows we are anxious and anguished, for
He knows the weakness of our wills and the fickleness of our hearts. As a gift of mercy, He therefore sends before Himself
prophets who will prepare His coming by calling the people to repentance and by strengthening their hearts with the clear,
penetrating and uncompromising proclamation of the saving Truth. It is the prophet’s job to be unpopular! It is a sign
of his success in stirring cold hearts to realize their condition, a realization which at first can bring anger. Certainly,
kindness and mercifulness must be his, but at some point he has to spell out the truth and neither get himself nor his hearers
lost in the more pleasant landscape of that kindness. The prophet will reflect the uncanny combination, found in Jesus Himself,
of warm, charismatic openness and unbending fidelity to the rock of Truth. The prophet is both warm and hard: warm in love
and hard in rock-solid faithfulness to the truth.
Those who
are truly open to repentance will be attracted by that very combination, as were the thousands who went to John for baptism,
and the hundreds of thousands who went to Jesus for healing and hope. Those who are not truly open will seek to enter the
prophet’s heart by the warmth in order to get him to shift his ground on the truth. But if the prophet is true, he will
soon detect their tactics and they themselves, by their own doing, will find their fragile lives further fractured by hurting
themselves against that rock.
There is something
apocalyptic about our time, not because the world is about to end, as far as we can tell, but because important sectors and
levels in our human family have become estranged from Christ. The signs are not difficult to read, and they are serious. Whereas
in the past, the judgment upon generations might have been easier because they did not know God, today, God is being consciously
and deliberately excluded from all reasoning and decision-making in matters affecting the very structure of the human being,
of marriage and sexuality -the core realities for the survival of the human family itself- and even of the meaning of suffering
and death. These dimensions of human existence only exist at all because they are directly given from, and sustained by, the
hand of God. Yet God is told He has nothing to do with them. I have deliberately used the word God and not Christ Jesus because
these matters affect not only the Christian world, but also that of other religions, and even theistic non-religions. Yet,
it is particularly bitter to note that countries and continents once proud of their Christian heritage, a heritage that in
many cases gave them the very possibility to exist and develop as societies, now wish to exclude Christ. Think of the recent
attempt to remove God from the oath of allegiance in this country, but think especially of the poor defense of the Christian
heritage of Europe by the elected leaders of the European Union who are drafting a European Constitution. It is difficult
to understand what people hope to gain by alienating God. As the Prophet Isaiah says: “they are sowing the wind; they
will reap the whirlwind.”
We need the
crying voice of John the Baptist today. In His Providence, we hope that God may send us a new prophet with the Baptist’s
spirit and uncomplicated oratory, to turn the hearts of children back to their fathers and of fathers back to their children.
Every one of us needs the grace of the Baptist: that deep-felt, sixth sense for the presence of Jesus and the fearlessness
of spirit to make His presence felt wherever we discern its absence. Discernment and prophecy are not the monopoly of the
few: they are given to us all in baptism. By courageous witness to Christ, through an ever-stronger fidelity to our Christian
commitment, we may not ourselves be the prophet of God for which one senses the need today, but we can help do the ground-work
that will enable God to provide the voice He sees fit to turn a world, run morally and spiritually a mock, back to Himself.
The urgent state of the world makes Advent all the more timely and challenges us to divest ourselves of our complacency and,
in deafening chorus with the Baptist, to cry out in our contemporary desert: Repent! Prepare ye the way of the Lord!
Msgr.
Peter Magee; Sunday, December 7th, 2003: St. Matthew’s Cathedral, DC - 10.00 am
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