Reverend Deacon Lawrence A. St. Onge

The filling in of gorges and the lowering of mountains are images used in today’s first reading and also to great advantage by John the Baptist as the prophet of Advent in Luke’s gospel. The season of Advent encourages Christians to view the second coming of Christ through the lens of God’s first advent at Bethlehem.

There is but one way to prepare for both, and that is through repentance! Without the repentance John preached, and the love, of which Paul wrote to the Philippians in the second reading, we can hardly “increase ever more and more.”

This second Sunday of Advent encourages us to dig into and probe our souls. All the readings today propose fundamental change in our life. The reading from Baruch senses a radical shift in current events about to unfold, and exhorts the people of Israel to “take off your robe of mourning and misery,” and “put on the splendor of glory from God forever.”  Paul’s letter to the Philippians encourages them to be “pure and blameless” in order that they may fully experience the “day of Christ.” An old way of life is to be put aside in order to enjoy the “fruit of righteousness.” John the Baptist appears in the Gospel of Luke preaching “a baptism of repentance,” indicating that preparations for the coming of Christ would require us to have a major change of heart.

Improvements always mean change, and if we hope for a more productive and happy life, some changes in our life patterns must take place; generally, the deeper the change the better. According to day’s readings, growing in the way of the Lord does not discount developing a better prayer life, or performing works of charity, but points to something more radical: a fundamental change of heart. This means going beyond correcting petty faults and bothersome idiosyncrasies, and looking deeply at what drives us - not only examining problems, but our priorities; not only evaluating our behavior, but our hearts.

John the Baptist’s mission is seen in Luke’s Gospel as a fulfillment of God’s decree that mountains should be laid low and valleys be filled in. “prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.” Building a straight road does not mean avoiding what lies in our path. It means filling in the valleys and flattening mountains that stand in our way.

John aims to make the Lord’s paths straight by proclaiming “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” Repentance and baptism force us to face up to two vital and contrasting truths. One we would compare to a valley, the other to a mountain. Repentance involves acknowledging our sinfulness, staring into the depths of ourselves and seeing our weakness, our failure. It involves acknowledging that this world can be a vale of tears, a place of shadows. To move on from repentance to baptism involves acknowledging that we are forgiven, that God’s love is greater than our sins. To realize this is to stand on the mountain heights and be filled with confidence and strength.

John the Baptist invites us to face the reality of sin and God’s forgiveness, to work through them. Dwelling exclusively on one, to the neglect of the other, will not enable us to create a straight path for the Lord. We prepare a straight path for the Lord by facing our sins head on - the valley – and the reality of God’s forgiving love – the mountain.

John’s message is “The king is coming. Mend, not your roads, but your lives.” Like the Baptist, we are called to minister to others, to serve others. As Christ’s disciples we are called to do three things: first, we are called to metanoia,  in which we strive to eliminate sin from our lives and allow Jesus and his law of love to dwell in our hearts. Then, we must proceed to see Jesus in others with whom we interact and treat them accordingly. And lastly, by our actions, we allow others to see Jesus in us, a Jesus who believes in them and loves them.