2nd Sunday of Advent - Cycle A

Here we are with Christmas just two and a half weeks away. The shops and malls are loaded with goodies. Christmas songs fill the air. Parties are being arranged and delicacies are prepared. Homes and streets are beautifully illuminated. Thoughts of home, of family, and of a lovely time fill our hopes and imaginations. With all of these lovely sentiments in our hearts and minds we come to church today and hear about a weird guy living in the desert, wearing scratchy and funny dress made of camel’s hair, eating locusts, calling people a bunch of snakes while telling them that fire and brimstone will come down on them, all the while threatening them with axes that will cut them down. The gospel picture ends with John the Baptist threatening the Sadducees and Pharisees with hell.

Aren’t you glad you came to Church today just before Christmas to hear all of that? Well, John the Baptist reminds us that it’s likely we all need to pay attention to a few things that perhaps we have neglected in our lives, things that revolve around the presence of Christ...or his absence. Take for instance those with whom we live - our wives, our husbands, our children, our parents, our friends. How have we loved them? What about our parents and our grandparents who live some distance away from us? Have we neglected them too? Then there are those with whom we work.

Too often we take those around us for granted. We give them little, if any, of our time, our attention, our affection. We give them the impression that without our ever actually telling them of showing them that we do love them. Daily routines, concerns about our work, and our habits can cause us to pay attention to material things at the expense of giving our families and friends our real attention, care concern and love. Maybe this Christmastime, we can actually give them more of ourselves as we celebrate the love of God for us in Christ Jesus.

Our attitudes toward them are expressed in the ways we treat them or otherwise relate to them. Attitudes are the source of human behavior. If we want to reform the way we treat others we have to begin with our attitudes toward them.

Finally, we need to pay attention to our own selves. What is my attitude towards myself? Today we need to take an honest look at what we are in relationship with Jesus Christ. This sort of evaluation of our attitude towards others and ourselves call us for change. Repentance means change. And change is something we dislike. If you are driving to a destination and make a wrong turn, you can’t just say “oops” and continue on driving in a wrong direction. You have to turn around and get back on the right path. If not, you will be driving in a wrong direction. So you have to make a change that makes a difference. Change has its demands, demands that go beyond mere words of regret. 

Advent calls us to make some changes in our routines, in our attitudes, in our life as a whole. Change is hard on us all - on you and me alike. The only certitude is this: that there is life where there is change. Something that is changeless is dead.

Advent calls us for change. The wonderful thing about Advent is that we are given the certitude that Christ is present in our lives. This abiding presence of Christ will empower us to deal with ourselves, to love ourselves and love those around us.

Fr. Tomy Thomas