First Sunday of Advent: A New Age - CUA Office of Public Affairs

Second Sunday of Advent: New Beginnings

By the Rev. Francis T. Gignac, S.J.

December 10, 2000

Today's Gospel reading comes from the very beginning of the story of Jesus' ministry in the Gospel according to Luke (3:1-6). The author adopts the story of John the Baptist's preaching, found in the Gospel according to Mark. But he expands and changes the story in three ways to introduce his own literary and theological perspectives.

First, he begins with a prologue in which he tries to situate the story of Jesus amid events in contemporary Palestinian and Roman history. Then he casts the call of John the Baptist in the form of an Old Testament prophetic call to show that God's plan for human salvation was accomplished during the period of Jesus. Finally, he extends the quotation from Second Isaiah by the addition of two verses to present his particular theme of the universality of salvation.

The Gospel's quotation from chapter 40 of the book of Isaiah, familiar to us from the opening tenor recitative of Handel's oratorio Messiah, "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God," is used to express the Christian conviction that God brought about a new exodus for his people Israel, just as the anonymous sixth-century poet saw in the return of the people from the Babylonian captivity a new exodus for his time. In the quotation, the plural pronoun "ye" refers to members of Yahweh's heavenly council, told to comfort his people at the time of their exile because they have now received double punishment for their sins.

The poet sees the defeat of the Babylonians at the hands of King Cyrus of Persia, whom elsewhere he calls the Messiah of Israel, the end of exile and the beginning of a new exodus. A desert wasteland that stretched between Babylon and Palestine would have to be crossed, just as his people had once left Egypt and crossed the Sinai desert. At this, an unidentified speaker cries out in the heavenly council, "Prepare ye the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God!" The poet thus pictures Yahweh himself leading his people across the desert in this new exodus and imagines that every valley shall be filled and every mountain and hill made low.

Early Christians saw in this lyrical description of the return of the exiles from Babylon a new exodus, a deeper meaning than the poet of old ever dreamed: that in the person of Jesus, all peoples, not just Israel, have experienced a new exodus and liberation, not from a hostile political power but from slavery to sin; and so they re-punctuated this verse to have the voice cry out in the desert in order to apply the voice to John the Baptist.

Also, just as Israel had its beginnings in the desert, so would the Church of Christ, the new Israel (to use their popular phrase), begin in a desert and experience its exodus on the model of the great exodus of old. When Israel was enslaved in Egypt and later in Babylon, Yahweh was pictured as inviting Israel to leave captivity and slavery and advance to the deserts that lay ahead; Yahweh promised to lead Israel into the desert and speak to her heart. Consequently, for New Testament writers, it must be a desert where the renewed call to Israel would be heard. So it is here, through the preaching of John the Baptist, that the hearts of God's people are stirred to a new beginning, stirred to prepare for the coming of Jesus.

Today's first reading was taken from the book of Baruch (5:1-9) that is part of the Catholic Old Testament but was actually written around the year 70 of the first Christian century. The reading deals with the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians six centuries earlier and purports to have been written by a contemporary, the prophet Jeremiah's secretary. In it the wicked Babylonian kings Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar are used as symbols of the contemporary Roman emperors Vespasian and Titus who once again conquered Jerusalem.

This pseudonymity is a kind of literary device that we encounter throughout the Bible: an author adopts the name of some important personage of the past as his pen name and attempts to recreate for his readers the historical circumstances of the period during which the person lived. The aim of the author is to interpret the past for the benefit of the people of his day, to edify them, and to encourage them to face their trials with hope and trust.

The author used history to present to the Jews of his day the reason for their present distress, the source of their ultimate salvation and the certainty of their restoration to Jerusalem. But the Jerusalem he promises is the proverbial Jerusalem, the City of God. The return of the exiles from Babylon six centuries earlier was but the foreshadowing and guarantee of the establishment of the new Israel at the end of time.

Today's passage is a poem in which the author asks and responds to a series of rhetorical questions addressed to the Jews of the dispersion. Do they, he says, exiles all, want to live in peace? Then let them practice justice. (That sounds rather modern, doesn't it? A neighbor of mine has something like that on a bumper sticker.) Do they want to be crowned with glory? Then let them be faithful to God. For God alone can reconcile all humanity and gather his people into the new city, where light and joy will shine brilliantly.

The second reading is from the first chapter of the Letter to the Philippians (1:4-6,8-11). This early letter of Paul centers on Christ's second coming, which he and other Christians expected at any time. His key themes are joy and solidarity. His prayer for the Philippians is joyful because of their partnership in the Gospel and their growth in love, knowledge and spiritual discernment, all in preparation for the day of Christ's return.

Today's readings convey a sense of excitement, urgency and hope. They encourage us to prepare our minds and hearts for the coming of Christ. In joy and solidarity, let us also make a new beginning. May we experience in our lives the liberation in Christ that early believers called a new exodus, so that freed from selfishness and sin, we may put our Christian faith more and more into practice in our daily lives.

The Rev. Francis T. Gignac, S.J., is a professor and chair of the Department of Biblical Studies at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. A photo is available.

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Revised: February 12, 2001