Frackville

Today we hear the prophetic words of St. John the Baptist. They are words of judgment and yet we are told he announced “the Good News”. John has been sent to prepare the people for the coming of the Lord who will bring salvation. In St. Luke’s Gospel, Jesus  links salvation to what we do with our possessions. John’s words of judgment arouse the people from their complacency but prepare them to receive the good news of salvation which Christ will bring.

We may sometimes wish that God would leave us alone – get off our backs. But St. John the Baptist and the prophets tell us that this is the worst thing God could do. Left to ourselves we get lost following whatever desire we have for possessions, money or just a comfortable, quiet life. St. John the Baptist still points to a deeper freedom beyond the enticement of comfort or possessions. It is a word of judgment that leads to the good news of salvation. And this is why we rejoice today because we know that beyond the pain and inconvenience of change we can rejoice in Christ’s presence as He comes to us this Christmas.

To live in the desert is to depend utterly on God and to live without protection. The books of Exodus and Deuteronomy tells of the testing of Israel as they made their escape from Egypt; they could not live in the desert without the direct protection of God, a fire by night and a cloud by day. To live in the desert is to be open to what is coming, yet not even John fully realized what the coming of Christ would mean. The world becomes completely open when Jesus the Messiah arrives. He is to be the Savior not just of one people, one nation, but of the whole of humanity, and humanity must have no more barriers.

How today we make ourselves able to accept Christ into the world? Jesus is the great arrival, the messenger of the Father and the message. The message is more than words; it is God coming into the world in God’s own fullness. Anyone who welcomes any human being in the name of Christ, welcomes Christ himself. Advent can be for us the season of welcome, when we consider how we will allow new people into our lives, as we prepare to celebrate the coming of Christ into our world.

We believe in a Savior who is risen, ascended, glorified; but first He had to be crucified. There can be no resurrection without the crucifixion, no Easter without Lent; and likewise no Christmas without Advent. Jesus teaches us that we cannot journey with Him to the joys of heaven unless we first take up our cross and follow Him to Calvary.

Those of us who have not lived through the cruelty of war in person have suffered disasters on the more ordinary level of our everyday lives. We suffer sickness and pain, bereavement and grief, guilt and shame. Many of us have felt that our own world was coming to an end.

Christ predicted disasters, but His message is still one of the hope. “Stand erect, hold your heads high, because your liberation is near at hand,” He tells His listeners, and the message is for us too. The crucifixion must come, but it is followed by resurrection and glory, for us as for Christ. By this hope we may well stay awake, and stand with confidence before the Son of Man.