2nd Sunday of Advent year ’B’
“Beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Son of God.” The prophet Jean-Baptist appears and everyone comes to him from the whole of Juda, they all want to be baptised! John the Baptist announces the extremely Good News of the Saviour who is coming: here is someone coming after me who is more powerful than I am. Mark starts off his Gospel saying that he has the Good News for today, for now, and that it is a secret of Love. This is why his recital begins with the one called John the Baptist, the precursor. Someone is needed whose role it is to prepare people to understand Jesus and his message. A sort of revolution of hearts is needed so that we open up ourselves to what he is proposing to us. This proclamation echoes the prophet Isaiah’s words: ’And so I am sending my messenger before you to prepare your way for you.’ A new period of time is announced, that of the coming of man sent by God to set captives free. We find again nowadays these ’deserts from God’ and we know the serious injustices the world carries with it. The gap between rich and poor countries, where certain have their privileges and others so little: this is exactly what is needed to prepare the world to be set on fire by a blaze of hatred! The Prophet announces that all that must end, God’s Infinite Love must once again be announced. “So, John, he who would baptise, appeared in the desert. He proclaimed a baptism of conversion for the forgiveness of sins. The whole of Judea, all the inhabitants of Jerusalem came to him and they were baptised by him in the Jordan, publicly recognising their sins. John was dressed in camel skin, with a leather belt around his waist; he would feed upon locusts and wild honey.” John the Baptist announces that Jesus will come in tenderness and Love. Even today, waiting for God is always as strong for our people in today’s world. So many people are in a state of distress. But we aren’t by ourselves, there is a Presence dwelling within us, One that brings us strength and life. This is our greatness and the extraordinary news that we still must discover. In God’s Love may we become more upright, being able to share by loving one another. Each one of us possesses in the most intimate part of oneself the Presence of the Living God. We patiently await the coming of God’s Day. Still today, after two thousand years we open up ourselves to this same Word. A same Love dwells within us, we become reflections of God for all around us. “He proclaimed: The one coming after me is stronger than me I am unworthy of untying the tong of his sandals. I have baptised you with water; He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit.” Our lives have become more arid, as though the meaning of God has disappeared altogether! Today prophesies are consolations for mankind. This baptism in the Holy Spirit is the very Love of God spread out in our hearts. This Love is unconditional, limitless. It is this Love which accompanied Jesus throughout the whole of his Life, bringing him to make people stand on their own two feet and to heal them. The announcement of man’s greatness is in the way God sees him, it is to prepare through his heart the way of Jesus. God is here but humanity no longer knows it. It is in the heart of the greatest distresses, tears and woundedness that the face of the Child God emerges. We would like a Messiah who comes with strength to transform this world in record time. Christmas helps us to learn many things from a Child. Love will overcome, but by another way than we would have liked. With faith we will come to know the secret of God’s Love. We need to open ourselves up to the final moments in the Life of Jesus, his humiliations, his solitude, his rejection, his sufferings and his death. Jesus remained faithful to love right to the end, despite hatred and suffering. This love is a Source of life that is so fruitful that it really is capable of transforming the world.