Fr Jack SJ MD: Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord: Homily for the 2nd Sunday of Advent

Baruch 5:1-9

Ps 126

Phil 1:4-6,8-11

Lk 3:1-6

A favorite memory from my time Temple Medical School was the night six of us scrounged together enough money for dinner at a restaurant in Center City Philadelphia after which we walked to the Forrest Theater to see "Godspell" a rock musical that had opened on Broadway in 1971. Godspell is subtitled, “A Musical Based Upon the Gospel According to St. Matthew.” It was quite a romp. Though was later made into a movie I much prefer the play. Today’s readings bring back the memory the joyful opening number.

After blowing the shofar the John the Baptist character intones the words, “Prepare ye the way of the Lord” which he intones several times. Then the instruments kick in along with the cast singing. The command to prepare the way of the Lord morphs into a celebratory and very energetic production number. The joy in the music was and is infectious. The joy in the reading from Baruch is similarly infectious.

Baruch is a small book of uncertain provenance that is canonical for the Catholic Church but considered apocryphal by Jews and Protestants. The author described the return of the exiles to Jerusalem in exquisite poetic images. Led by the Lord, Jerusalem will welcome them back to enjoy a new era of prosperity and peace. That joyful return however, will require preparation and a change of heart; it will require a conversion. It will require preparing the way.

Paul prays for that kind of conversion in his Letter to the Philippians when he writes, “that your love may increase ever more and more. . . to discern what is of value.” That discernment is increasingly complicated in this modern world of competing values. But, what better way to prepare for the coming of the Lord than to look into ourselves in prayer to discern the values that guide our hearts?

Luke's gospel describes a necessary element of that preparation, John the Baptist.

The degree of John’s kinship with Jesus is unclear. Luke’s magnificent first chapter described the first encounter between John and Jesus, “. . . and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit cried out in a loud voice and said ‘Most Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how does this happen to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leapt for joy.”

Who was this herald known as John?

In some art work, avant-garde movies, and whacked-out novels, John is oftentimes depicted as somewhere between drugged out hippie and a wild-eyed lunatic who dressed in animal skins and ate a diet that, by modern standards, would be considered inedible, except by the fat guy on the Food Channel who ate bizarre foods for a living.

Fortunately, we have credible testimony about John from a variety of contemporary sources. Luke’s Gospel, in particular, situates John’s appearance around A.D. 27. In addition to being attested in all four Gospels, John is mentioned in the Antiquities of Josephus, an historian who lived from about A.D. 37 to 100. He wrote the following about John: “He was a good man and had exhorted the Jews to lead righteous lives, to practice justice toward their fellows and piety toward God, and in so doing to join in baptism. . . (a baptism that) was a necessary preliminary if baptism was to be acceptable to God." Josephus went on to explain that baptism was not to be used so as to gain pardon for whatever sins an individual committed, but as a consecration of the body because the soul was already thoroughly cleansed by right behavior.

John’s non-PETA approved mode of dressing was no different from that of any other desert dweller. The animal skins were necessary during cold desert nights. His diet had nothing to do with radical vegetarianism, veganism, low-fat, or other fads. His diet was driven by the much more prosaic need to maintain ritual purity of his diet. His dress and diet are irrelevant during this holy season. His message, however, is as relevant to us today as it was to the ancient Judeans, both those who sought him out and those whom he criticized.

As Josephus noted, he “exhorted the Jews to lead righteous lives, to practice justice toward their fellows and piety toward God.” Justice toward one's fellows and piety toward God. What better way to prepare the way of the Lord?

Truly, the Lord has done great things for us. Let us be filled with joy as we prepare His way.

______________________________

I set the alarm for 2 AM today so as to watch the consecration and installation of Stephen Chow, SJ as Bishop of Hong Kong. Even though I feel as if I've been hit by a truck (it is now 1 PM) it was worth it. The photos below are screen shots taken during the live stream of the ordination from Hong Kong. I know Stephen a bit as we lived in the same large community in Cambridge years ago.