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December 12, 2019
A teacher asked her Sunday school class: “If l sold my house and my car, and everything l owned, and gave all the money to the poor, would l get into heaven?’ The Children all answered “No.” Then she asked, “If l cleaned the Church every day, mowed the yard, and kept everything neat and tidy, would l get into heaven?”. Again, the answer was, “No” “Well, then,” she asked, “what do l need to do to get into heaven?”. One of her five- year- old student answered, ‘’you gotta be dead”. We all know the child was correct, but there’s a bit more to it than that. In light of revelation given to us since Isaiah’s time, and especially in light of what Jesus has revealed to us, it is easy to envision heaven as Isaiah describes it in today’s reading. In this sense, Isaiah’s message continues to be a message of hope. No matter how bad things may become, God has plans of great happiness for those who faithfully follow the leadership of this ideal king from the root of Jesse.
Advent is a time of hope, but it is also a time of preparation for the blessings for which we hope. This is where John the Baptist comes in. His job was to prepare people for the coming of God’s kingdom. If we want to prepare ourselves, we must listen to John. We can’t just take it for granted that getting to heaven is an entitlement any more than the Jews. John told them, “do not presume to say to yourselves, we have Abraham for our father.” John said God is looking for good fruits. Several times in Scripture, Jesus clarified what is meant by “good fruits”. We can summarize what good fruits means by saying it means loving our neighbor as ourselves, but there’s a lot that’s meant by “love. “We must right now strive “to live in perfect harmony with one another according to the spirit of Jesus” (Rom 15: 5). Since in the new kingdom all will be brothers and sisters, we must right now come closer and closer to our neighbors’. If all these demands a conversion of our lives, we must do it, as St John the Baptist urges us to “Reform your lives, for the kingdom of God is at hand” (Mt3:2).
Such a time of waiting may be the hardest time of all. But only those who wait in this manner “shall mount up with wings as eagles” (Is 40:31) towards the new kingdom, which Isaiah saw in his vision. To live without hope is the greatest human poverty that you can know. As a little Child having a bad nightmare screams at night, so we too in the face of so much evil in the world may get disheartened and frightened; but we need not. As the mother hearing the child scream runs to the bedroom, turns on the light and hugs the child, saying “it’s all right; don’t worry; I am here, “so God comforts us saying, l am with you; your days may be weary, but l love you. You are mine”. Hence let us get to work. Advent offers us a rare opportunity to prepare for the coming of the Lord and his kingdom. Like the spoken word or the speeding arrow, a neglected opportunity also cannot come back and the best way to do this is to make use of the Sacrament of Reconciliation he has given us. Let us rejoice and thank Jesus for giving us a way to erase the past and to start over again.
John the Baptist is no longer with us (Herod Antipas saw to that). The Church now takes up the cry of John during the season of Advent and calls us to “prepare the way of the Lord…..” There are lots of preparations that go on during this time of the year, preparations for gatherings with friends and family, preparations for gift giving, preparation for parties, etc. Let’s not forget the most important preparation of all, to prepare our hearts to receive our Lord and Savior with greater faith and devotion than ever this Christmas. Amen