Second Sunday of Advent
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| St. John the Baptist |
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. It is generally a bad idea to try to get into the head of a saint and analyze his intentions, unless one is a saint oneself. The saints operate with the will of God at the first and foremost of their minds, and for those who don’t operate that way, what they do can seem crazy or other worldly.
Having said that, and with the very real knowledge that I am not a saint, I was wondering what St. John the Baptist was thinking in the Gospel passage we heard today. You have John, the cousin of our Lord, who pointed Him out as the Lamb of God, and who saw the dove descend upon Him at His Baptism, as the voice of the Father was heard, “This is my beloved Son.” John says that he has found the bridegroom, and so rejoices. It seems like John knows exactly who our Lord is.
And yet, today’s Gospel, some time after the baptism having passed, it seems like John starts to question what had happened earlier. “‘Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?’” John says. And, at least from an earthly point of view, John’s confusion seems very rational. After all, John is in prison, and little does he know, he’s about to lose his head. This is probably not what John had in mind when he thought of the Messiah coming.
What did John think would happen? Biblical scholars say that there were four expectations that Jews had about the Messiah: he would gather the tribes of Israel; he would cleanse the temple; he would destroy Israel’s enemies; and he would reign as king of the Gentiles. So far, none of that seems to have happened from what John knows. So John questions (we can say that because the evangelist says it) if maybe Jesus was a special person, but not the Messiah.
Of course, we know that our Lord is the Messiah. We hear in the Gospels how Jesus not only cleanses the temple, but raises up a new temple, His Sacred Body, in the Resurrection. In His Death, He destroys sin and death, the great enemy of God’s people, forever. He gathers the Twelve as the new patriarchs of the tribes of the new Israel, the Church; and, as St. Paul talks about in our epistle, the Gentiles are gathered together under the reign of Christ the King.
But I’m willing to bet that we have had times where we can sympathize with John the Baptist. We have recognized Christ as the Lord; we have felt His presence in our life; perhaps we have even seen miracles that He has worked for us or for friends and family. But then something goes wrong; and then another something; and then life doesn’t happen exactly the way that we expect it to go. And all the sudden, those experiences we have with the Lord get questioned, perhaps even doubted, and we’re wondering if we bet on the wrong horse.
To these questions, we can look to our Lord for the answer. How does our Lord respond to John’s disciples? Look to what He has done. The blind see, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the dead are raised, and the poor have the Good News proclaimed to them. God gives us clues that He is who He says He is, and it’s in what He accomplishes day by day. We have only to be attentive to what is happening.
God is not detached from our life. It is very easy to fall into the deist view of God, that God is like a grand watch-maker, who put everything together and wound everything up, but then just lets it all go. But God still interacts in the life of His People. He does not simply watch from afar, but changes individuals lives. In the house explosion that happened just six houses down from St. Pius X on the Monday before Thanksgiving, there is a story about a woman and her boyfriend who lived next-door to the house that exploded. The boyfriend wanted to go out and do something fun, but the woman didn’t want to go out. After her boyfriend kept asking her, she relented and they went out and about, only to find out minutes later, that the house next to theirs had exploded, and their home was destroyed. The woman noted in her recounting that she just had this little voice telling her to go out, so she did. And it changed her life.
Sometimes we get so busy that we fail to hear that voice, or we hear it and act on it, but then forget that our conscience is the voice of God in our hearts. We fail to recognize the works of God that are happening everyday. Sometimes they get mentioned on the news, like with the woman who left her home shortly before it burned up, but more often than not they are not famous stories or publicized, but are in the daily moments of our life. Advent is a perfect time for quiet reflection on those ways that God intervenes in our life in ways that can only be seen and heard for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear.
During this Advent season, we should be making time for God in silence. It could be in our Monday times of Adoration, or simply in a prayer corner in your home. But wherever it is, we need silence, even just a couple of minutes, to be able to hear the voice of God and see how He operates in our life. That may seem especially difficult with kids, but even kids need to nap, and that can be a perfect time to catch some quick time with God. God knows you’re busy; He knows that you have family and work responsibilities. But He asks for even just a few moments so that He can share His love with you, and help you to see what He is doing in your life.
We all can have moments where we wonder what God is doing. We don’t understand why something is happening in our life. Do we pay attention to what God has done for us in the past, and what He promises for us in our future, beyond the present struggles? Do we still trust in what has been revealed by God the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit?
