2nd Sunday of Advent – Year C
December 8, 2024
Gospel Lectionary Text
Luke 3:1-6
3:1 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene,
3:2 during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness.
3:3 He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins,
3:4 as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, "The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.
3:5 Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth;
3:6 and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'"
Context
Welcome to the second week of Advent. We are in the waiting rooms of Christmas. Having waited last week in the apocalypse, we now find ourselves in the wilderness with John the Baptist. Here, he echoes the words of the prophet Isaiah, proclaiming, “Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” (Isaiah 40:3-5).
This is an outlandish claim that something huge is happening, even as all outward appearances suggest otherwise — something so seismic that “ALL FLESH” shall see it. Like all the prophets, John the Baptist recognizes the massive upheaval that God’s Word induces and calls forth from humanity, inviting us to see the same as we wait in the wilderness.
Question
What messages does the waiting room of the wilderness have for you? What seismic shifts are underway, birthing the gift of new sight?
Reflections
2nd Sunday of Advent – Year C
By Street Psalms |
Luke 3:1-6 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene,
Prepare the Way
By Rev. Sarah Wiles |
Anytime we read something like, the word of the God came to so-and-so, I’m tempted to imagine this happened in some alternate spiritual universe—one where there are prophets and visions and miracles—not my ordinary everyday world. But the author of Luke is at pains to tell us that this happened here, in the real world,...
The Waiting Rooms of Christmas: The Wilderness
By Ojii BaBa Madi |
A smartly dressed, well-heeled crowd pressed their way through a cold December evening in 1851, seeking to find comfortable seats within the warm confines of New York’s Metropolitan Hall. The hype for this event was incredible. It would become part of an annual phenomenon, featuring big and plenteous voices, gathered to sing out the scriptures,...
Praying Eucharistically - Weekly Homily by James Alison:
Understanding the Bible anew through the Mimetic Theory of René Girard.
Poetry
Voice in the Wilderness
by Steve Garnaas-Holmes
How arresting
that God intends to upend the empires of men,
promises cosmic upheaval,
and to bring it about sends
lonely prophets out in the wilderness,
who themselves will soon be arrested.
God touches a loner praying in the desert.
Kneels and says to a peasant girl,
“Your willingness is enough.”
Appears in a small, helpless child.
Holds the sagging flesh of one crucified.
Amazing, how for God so little is enough.
The voice of one crying in the wilderness
is enough.
Your voice is enough
if you lift it up.
It is not alone.
It is not empty.
Your voice,
and its millions,
is the Way of God.
excerpt from Book of Delights
by Ross Gay
Among the most beautiful things I've ever heard anyone say came from my student Bethany, talking about her pedagogical aspirations or ethos, how she wanted to be as a teacher, and what she wanted her classrooms to be: "What if we joined our wildernesses together?" Sit with that for a minute. That the body, the life, might carry a wilderness, an unexpected territory, and that yours and mine might somewhere, somehow, meet. Might, even, join.
And what if the wilderness - perhaps the densest wild in there - thickets, bogs, swamps, uncrossable ravines and rivers (have I made the metaphor clear?) - is our sorrow? Or... the 'intolerable.' It astonishes me sometimes - no, often - how every person I get to know - everyone, regardless of everything, by which I mean everything - lives with some profound personal sorrow... Everyone, regardless, always, of everything. Not to mention the existential sorrow we all might be afflicted with, which is that we, and what we love, will soon be annihilated. Which sounds more dramatic than it might. Let me just say dead. Is this, sorrow, of which our impending being no more might be the foundation, the great wilderness?
Is sorrow the true wild?
And if it is - and if we join them - your wild to mine - what's that?
For joining, too, is a kind of annihilation.
What if we joined our sorrow, I'm saying.
I'm saying: What if that is joy?
Prayer
As you contemplate the Christ Mystery, Inhale (I) and exhale (E) according to the prompts.
(I) Christ in me; (E) Me in Christ; (I) Christ in all; (E) All is well;
(I) Christ in me; (E) Me in Christ; (I) Christ in all; (E) All is one;
(I) Christ in me; (E) Me in Christ; (I) Christ in all; (E) All is Christ;
(I) All is Christ; (E) All is one; (I) All is well; (E) In Christ.
