Second Sunday of Advent
“Comfort, give comfort to my people, says your God.” When I heard the word comfort, and try to think of what comforts me, I think of a cold, snowy evening, sitting by the fireplace, the living room lit only by a few flickering flames from candles, drinking my family recipe of hot spiced cider, and watching a favorite television show or movie. For others it might be a hot tub, or a warm beach, or even just a pint of Häagen Dazs. Or maybe you’ve got your own sense of what comforts you that is radically different from the examples I just listed.
It’s beautiful to hear the words of Isaiah the prophet, telling us that God wants to bring us comfort. “Speak tenderly,” he says, “and proclaim to her that her service is at an end; her guilt is expiated…Go up on a high mountain…cry out at the top of your voice…Here is your God! […] Like a shepherd he feeds his flock; in his arms he gathers the lambs, carrying them in his bosom, and leading the ewes with care.” Who doesn’t want to know that the Lord is going to speak tenderly to us, to proclaim that our service is at an end, and that our guilt is no more? Who doesn’t want the Lord to come as a shepherd, feeding his flock, gathering us in his arms and carrying us close to his chest?
So what do we do with the middle part of the first reading and our Gospel? We heard twice, “A voice cries out: In the desert prepare the way of the LORD! Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God!” We have traditionally associated that proclamation with St. John the Baptist who, as St. Mark wrote in today’s Gospel passage, “appeared in the desert proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” If any of you have seen the movie “Jesus of Nazareth” by Franco Zeffirelli, you can picture how enthused John the Baptist was about his message. In the movie, John the Baptist is screaming at the top of his lungs: Repent! And he’s only wearing a camel’s hair tunic and a leather belt around his waist, eating locusts and honey. In fact, he screams so much that Herod has him arrested for preaching against his so-called marriage to his brother’s wife. This is not the warm, pastoral scene that Isaiah has at the end of our first reading. And it certainly doesn’t seem like the comfort that Isaiah prophesies at the beginning of our first reading. So why is the figure of John the Baptist, the one crying out in the wilderness: Prepare the Way of the Lord, sandwiched between those two soft images?
What John preaches is the truth. As St. Augustine says in one of His sermons, Jesus is the word, and John is the voice. Jesus is what is being proclaimed, and John is the one proclaiming it. John is preaching repentance, which is the beginning of the comfort that God wants to give. “But change is hard! Change isn’t comfortable!” Change can be difficult. We’re seeing that as we slowly get used to our new translations, saying “And with your spirit” instead of “And also with you.” But what is most comfortable is the truth. The truth is precisely what gives comfort. It may not always seem like it does, but if Jesus is the Truth, as he says (I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life), then when we receive the truth, we receive Jesus, who is the shepherd, drawing us close to his bosom, and leading us with care, from lies to truth, from darkness to light, from slavery to sin to freedom in God’s commandments.
It is true, sometimes the truth hurts, and we don’t usually associate that hurt with comfort. But that painful truth is like knowing the reality that our infected wound has to be drained. It is going to be painful at first, probably very painful, but it will actually be comforting to know that the infection is being treated, and the wound will heal properly.
So when John is preaching repentance, turning away from sins and being faithful to God, he is bringing the comfort of God. Because it is only when we recognize that we need to turn back to the Lord, when we recognize the truth, that we can actually start going in the right direction with the help of God, rather than wandering off by ourselves away from the kingdom God has prepared for us, where the fullness of comfort is present.
We all need that message that John the Baptist preaches. We need to hear, time and time again, “Repent! For the Kingdom of God is at hand!” We need the truth. Otherwise we get stuck with the mentality: my sins aren’t that bad! It’s not like I murdered someone! It was just a little gossip; I just cheated a little bit; it’s just a little pornography every now and then; I’ll give back the money I took at my next paycheck. If our mentality, no matter what sins we struggle with, is, “I’m really ok; I’m not that bad,” then we will not receive the comfort that God wants to give us, the comfort of living how God has created us: for Him in love, and with Him eternally in heaven. If we do not repent, through the sacrament of Reconciliation, then God won’t be able to say to us, “your service is at an end, your guilt is expiated,” because we will have closed ourselves off to the mercy and love that God wants to communicate to us. Next Sunday, on 11 December, we’ll once again host a Communal Celebration of the Sacrament of Reconciliation with Individual Confessions, with priests from around the Eastern part of Lansing offering you the sacramental grace and peace that comes from hearing the words and knowing the reality: your sins are forgiven; go in peace. That’s the comfort the Lord wants to give you. That’s the tenderness that waits for our response. How will you answer? Where will you find comfort?
