2nd Sunday of Advent – Year A
Matthew 3:1-12
Readings
- First Reading – Isaiah 11:1-10: “Then the wolf shall be a guest of the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; the calf and the young lion shall browse together, with a little child to guide them.”
- Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 72: “Justice shall flourish in his time, and fullness of peace for ever.”
- Second Reading – Romans 15:4-9: “May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to think in harmony with one another, in keeping with Christ Jesus, that with one accord you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
- Gospel – Matthew 3:1-12: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!”
John the Baptist appeared, preaching in the desert of Judea and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” It was of him that the prophet Isaiah had spoken when he said: A voice of one crying out in the desert, Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths. John wore clothing made of camel’s hair and had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey. At that time Jerusalem, all Judea, and the whole region around the Jordan were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the Jordan River as they acknowledged their sins. When he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance. And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you, God can raise up children to Abraham from these stones. Even now the ax lies at the root of the trees. Therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. I am baptizing you with water, for repentance, but the one who is coming after me is mightier than I. I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fan is in his hand. He will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
Background on the Gospel Reading
In this week’s Gospel Reading and next week’s, our Advent preparation for Christmas invites us to consider John the Baptist and his relationship to Jesus. In this week’s Gospel, Matthew describes the work and preaching of John the Baptist.
John the Baptist appears in the tradition of the great prophets of Israel, preaching repentance and reform to the people of Israel. In fact, the description of John found in this reading is reminiscent of the description of the prophet Elijah (2 Kings 1:8). In this reading, John directs a particularly pointed call to repentance to the Pharisees and Sadducees, parties within the Jewish community of the first century.
John marks the conversion of those who seek him out with a baptism of repentance. Other groups in this period are thought to have practiced ritual washings for similar purposes, and John’s baptism may have been related to the practices of the Essenes, a Jewish sect of the first century. John’s baptism can be understood as an anticipation of Christian baptism. In this passage, John himself alludes to the difference between his baptism and the one yet to come: “I am baptizing you with water, for repentance . . . He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” (Matthew 3:11).
In this reading, John makes very clear that his relationship to the Messiah yet to come (Jesus) is one of service and subservience: “. . . the one who is coming after me is mightier than I. I am not worthy to carry his sandals” (Matthew 3:11). In the context of Matthew’s Gospel, today’s passage is followed by Jesus’ baptism by John, an event that is attested to in all four of the Gospels and appears to have been the start of Jesus’ public ministry.
John’s preaching of the coming of the Lord is a key theme of the Advent season. As John’s message prepared the way for Jesus in the first century, we, too, are called to prepare ourselves for Jesus’ coming. We respond to John’s message by our repentance and reform of our lives. We are also called to be prophets of Christ, who announce by our lives, as John did, the coming of the Lord.
Advent time to re-launch hope
Romeo Ballan, mccj
After the joyful experience of God’s Mercy during the Jubilee Year, we have started a new liturgical year, with the missionary commitment of announcing the “Joy of the Gospel”, as Pope Francis says. In this new year, we proclaim the Gospel of Matthew, which is the “Emmanuel’s Gospel”. In fact, from the beginning to the end, Matthew gives us a special name of Jesus: He is «Emmanuel, which means ‘God is with us’» (Mt 1:23);and the last words of Jesus are: «I am with you always» (Mt 28:20).
There are three persons who, during Advent, prepare us most for the meeting with Christ: the Prophet Isaiah, Mary and John the Baptist. Each one had a particular missionary link with the Messiah-Saviour who was coming: Isaiah foretold Him, Mary gave Him human flesh, John pointed Him out when He came. In the Old Testament others too, ‘the poor ones of Yahweh’, waited for a Messiah, even though for most of the people the waiting was confused and mixed with human expectations.
Even today hope is in crisis, empty of content, because many have no clear idea of what they really need for their life to grow in a harmonious whole. Christian faith is the hopeful answer to such feelings. Ourexpectation is not for an idea, or a programme, nor for a commandment; our encounter is with a Person who is known. The feeling is that this Person loves us intensely: He is the Saviour of all, with a name and a face that are clear. He is Jesus Christ. He is the core of our faith and of the Church missionary proclamation. Pope Benedict XVI has made “Christian hope” the subject of an Encyclical letter (2007): Spe Salvi (‘in hope we were saved’: Rom 8:24). As love is the heart of Christian Faith (because God is Love!), so the Hope is the powerhouse that keeps it alive, the soul that sustains our daily journey.
Pope Benedict XVI illustrates it through the ‘typical’ story of St. Josephine Bakhita (1869-1947), an African woman. Since her young age, she became a slave, “kidnapped, beaten, sold five times in the markets of Sudan”; eventually she was freed and saved. In spite of many physical and moral sufferings and humiliations, she grew up in her dignity as a person; later, when she arrived in Italy, she reached her fullest dignity through Baptism and vocation to be a nun. As she said, she felt she was known, and “definitively loved” and wanted by her Lord, whom she called, in the local Italian dialect, her supreme Parón (Master). It was from that experience that her missionary ardour was born: she was convinced that “the hope that was born in her and redeemed her could not be kept for herself; it had to reach many, indeed, everybody!” (cf. Spe Salvi, 3).
The prophet Isaiah (1st Reading), who lived eight hundred years before the Birth of Christ, during a period of violence and desolation, was still able to sing of hope, reconciliation and prosperity for his people. In similar circumstances another young prophet, Jeremiah, saw the almond tree in flower (Jer 1:11). Where everyone else saw negativity, the prophets looked beyond and far off, at a much different story and hope: the story of God who leads all to salvation. Isaiah saw that a shoot springs up, immediately filled with the multiform Spirit of the Lord. (v. 1-3). He describes the marvellous garden where there is a peaceful coexistence between living creatures (animals and people) and the rest of creation (v. 5-9). Only a people that lives in that manner, in justice and harmony of relationships, has something positive to say to others, and can become a “signal to the peoples” (v. 10). This is the only way to have something true and beautiful to share among the nations! Among the characteristics that mark such a peaceful society, St. Paul includes (2nd Reading) the ability to “treat one another in the same way as Christ treated you” (v. 7), for His mercy (v. 9).
John the Baptist (Gospel), an austere prophet but completely free, prepares with words of fire the way for the Lord who is coming; he baptises “in the waters of conversion”, while proclaiming the one who is greater than he, because “He will baptise with the Holy Spirit and Fire” (v. 11). That is why John calls out: “Repent!”
Mary is the only creature who is totally converted, that is, completely turned to God and filled with the Holy Spirit: she is the purest of creatures, without stain, the Immaculate Conception (feast on December 8th). Mary welcomed her Lord and gave Him a human body; now she offers Him to all, even to those who do not yet know Him. Advent is a wonderful time to live Mission: during Advent and Christmas time, the Lord comes to us, and He will not delay. But He also wants to reach others through our sharing of faith and love. This is the way for us to becomes missionary disciples!
SHE WILL FLOURISH LIKE THE PALM TREE
Fernando Armellini
She will flourish like the palm tree
and will grow like a Lebanon cedar
Introduction
Israel was a tree that the Lord had germinated and then cultivated. Later the enemy came, armed with the lumberjack’s ax. They had smashed with merciless blows and reduced it to a bare and desolate trunk (Ps 74:5-6).
It is our history. We are at the mercy of the forces of evil that enslave us. They take away the light and breath from us. We become dried branches, unable to bear fruit.
But woe if we lose hope.
In the future days—the prophets assured—Israel will take root, blossom, and sprout and fill the world with fruit (Is 27:6). I shall be like the dew to Israel—the Lord says—like the lily will he blossom. Like a cedar he will send down his roots; his young shoots will grow and spread. His splendor will be like an olive tree, his fragrance, like a Lebanon cedar.
Nothing is impossible to him that has made even the dry stick of Aaron to flourish (Ex 17:3).
According to the promises of the Lord, from the root of Jesse, a vigorous tree has sprouted—Christ—in which all are grafted. From him, the sap will come to maintain its lushness and will make every tree planted in the garden by God produce abundant fruit.
There are no desperate situations for those who believe in the Lord.
First Reading: Isaiah 11:1-10
On that day, a shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse, and from his roots, a bud shall blossom. The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him: a spirit of wisdom and of understanding, a spirit of counsel and of strength, a spirit of knowledge and of fear of the Lord, and his delight shall be the fear of the Lord. Not by appearance shall he judge, nor by hearsay shall he decide, but he shall judge the poor with justice, and decide aright for the land’s afflicted. He shall strike the ruthless with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked. Justice shall be the band around his waist, and faithfulness a belt upon his hips. Then the wolf shall be a guest of the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; the calf and the young lion shall browse together, with a little child to guide them. The cow and the bear shall be neighbors, together their young shall rest; the lion shall eat hay like the ox. The baby shall play by the cobra’s den, and the child lay his hand on the adder’s lair. There shall be no harm or ruin on all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as water covers the sea. On that day, the root of Jesse, set up as a signal for the nations, the Gentiles shall seek out, for his dwelling shall be glorious. —The Word of the Lord.
As happened last Sunday, Isaiah introduces us to an idyllic reality of peace, fellowship,and universal love. The second part of the reading (vv. 6-9) describes a world from which enmity, hatred, and hostility have been eliminated with an image taken from the animal kingdom. It is a world wherein the beasts have become tame and domesticated: the wolf dwells with the lamb, and the leopard with the kid, the lion, and the calf eat together and are so docile to be led by a child.
The harmony is rebuilt at the animal level and between God and people and among people themselves. There is no longer anyone who commits evil. The poor and the weak do not suffer injustice and oppression. All are motivated by feelings of love because the wisdom of the Lord will fill the land as the waters cover the sea (v. 9).
The oracle is even more surprising when we consider that it was delivered in a dramatic moment in Israel’s history, when the dynasty of David, on which were pinned so many hopes, was no longer strong and flourishing like a cedar of Lebanon. It was reduced to a severed and lifeless trunk. With this announcement, the prophet intended to arouse in his people confidence and hope. True to his promise, God would grant a beginning to an era of peace, like that which existed in the Garden of Eden before the fall.
At this point, the question spontaneously arises. When will this prophecy come true? The answer is given by the first part of the reading (vv. 1-5). With an image taken from the kingdom of flora, the prophet announces the fate of David’s dynasty. It sprouted from an insignificant root, from a stock that no one thought worthy of consideration: Jesse, a humble shepherd of Bethlehem. Blessed by God, this tree had taken root and developed. Its shade covered the mountains; its shoots went through the mighty cedars—the Psalmist says with an image full of freshness (Ps 80:11). Then ruin came. The trunk had been broken, burned, and reduced to a smoldering ember. Was it the end of everything? Disgusted by the infidelity of this family, God had perhaps revoked the promise made by the mouth of Nathan (2 S 7).
The Prophet answered: No! From the parched trunk of Jesse’s family, a new and prodigious shoot will sprout through whom all the promises of God will be fulfilled. The qualities of this offshoot of the root of Jesse will be extraordinary. It will be filled with the Spirit of the Lord. It will fully possess the divine force that hovered over the waters at the dawn of the world (Gen 1:2), who animated heroes like Samson, who inspired the prophets beginning with Moses (Num 11).
This Spirit is invoked four times, and the number four indicates universality. It is as if this mighty wind, coming from the four cardinal points, converges with all his energy on this son of Jesse. The Spirit of the Lord offers six gifts, and the prophet lists them in three couplets:
‘Wisdom and understanding’ are the qualities that have characterized Solomon, the king, wise as none before or after him (1 K 3:12).
‘Counsel and fortitude’ indicate the ability to govern with prudence and military valor, the qualities with which David was filled.
‘Knowledge and fear of the Lord refer to obedience and docility to God, a virtue of which the patriarchs were models.
Possessing the Spirit of the Lord fully, the expected descendant of David will be a king. He will carry out the mission entrusted to him by God. He will establish justice and take up the defense of the weak and the oppressed. With the power of his word, he will reduce to impotence the violent and make the ungodly disappear. Justice and loyalty will follow him everywhere, like the ornaments of his vestment.
Who does Isaiah mention this king? No descendant of David has ever possessed all these qualities or made these dreams come true. The promise was fulfilled in Jesus. He sprang up like a shoot from the family of David. Even after the birth of Christ, the strong continue to oppress the weak, as we see every day. Human rights are ignored and trampled upon. Discord, hatred, and violence are still present. However, the shoot that appeared from David’s family is growing and has already become a people. The Church is responsible for making the new society, announced by Isaiah, present in the world.
Second Reading: Romans 15:4-9
Brothers and sisters: Whatever was written previously was written for our instruction, that by endurance and by the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to think in harmony with one another, in keeping with Christ Jesus, that with one accord you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Welcome one another, then, as Christ welcomed you, for the glory of God. For I say that Christ became a minister of the circumcised to show God’s truthfulness, to confirm the promises to the patriarchs, but so that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. As it is written: Therefore, I will praise you among the Gentiles and sing praise to your name. —The Word of the Lord.
Paul was concerned about the tensions that existed within the community of Rome between two groups of Christians. One small group was made up of those whom the apostle called weak. They are people tied to the religious traditions of the ancient ones. They led an austere life; they deprived themselves even of lawful pleasures. They observed many precepts, such as circumcision and abstinence from unclean food. The other group, called the strong, argued that the observances imposed by the ancient law had lost their value. It was enough to believe in Christ.
The weak judged the strong and considered them easygoing and superficial. In their turn, the other group despised the weak, and treated them as mentally dull, retrograde, and nostalgic. Paul—who ranks among the strong—recommends charity and mutual respect for all. As a decisive argument, he cites the example of Christ. Jesus never had his self-interest in mind. He forwent his interests and put himself totally at the service of others. His disciples cannot be different from him. They cannot seek their own advantage. They must think only of the good of their brothers and sisters. They must also be willing to set limits to their freedom, which is required by love toward others.
Gospel: Matthew 3:1-12
At the time of Jesus, it was believed that Elijah did not die, but was taken to heaven to reappear one day. In fact, prophet Malachi foretold, “Behold, I am sending my messenger ahead of me to clear the way…I am going to send you the prophet Elijah before the day of Yahweh comes, for it will be a great and terrible day” (Mal 3:1,23).
After Easter, the early Christians realized that “the day of the Lord” was the one in which Jesus brought salvation. It even included who Elijah was, as spoken by the prophet. It was John the Baptist, instructed by God to prepare the people for the coming of the Messiah. “What was there to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? But people who wear fine clothes are found in palaces. What did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. For John is the one foretold in Scripture in these words: I am sending my messenger ahead of you to prepare your way” (Lk 7:25-27). “All the prophets and the Law prophesied until John. And if you believe me, he is that Elijah whose coming was predicted” (Mt 11:13-14).
Who was John? An enigmatic person! Josephus Flavius—the famous historian of the time—presented him thus: “He was a good man who urged the Jews to live a righteous life, treating each other with reciprocal justice and subordinating themselves with devotion to God and having themselves baptized. In truth, John was of the idea that not even this bath was acceptable as forgiveness for sins. He was convinced that it would be only a purification of the body if the soul had not been previously purified through right conduct” (1 Antiquities of the Jews, 8.5.2 & 116-119).
In today’s Gospel Matthew describes him as an austere man (v. 4). His food was simple like that of the inhabitants of the desert. His dress was rough, a leather belt around his waist that distinguished Elijah (2 Kg 1:8), and a fur cloak—a uniform of the prophets (Zec 13:4).
The whole person of John the Baptist was a condemnation and denunciation of the opulent society—then as now. It was aimed at the ephemeral, the frivolous, the false values of luxury and ostentation.
His message is summarized by the evangelist in a simple phrase, “Repent, because the kingdom of heaven is near” (v. 2).
The hope in a better future was one of the central themes of the message of the prophets. Unlike the other people who put their golden age in the past, Israel placed the reign of David in the future. It was waiting for a world where the Lord would have exalted harmony and made peace abound; a world where interpersonal relationships would be marked by love, reconciliation with nature, with people, with God.
The apocalyptic preachers had described the history of humankind as a succession of kingdoms of beasts. “Beasts emerged from the sea; they were the great empires of Babylon, Media, Persia and Greece” (Dn 7). Those were difficult times, but there was no need to lose heart: the ancient world had come to an end and the new world was about to burst.
The present pains should not be interpreted as signs of death, but as the suffering of a difficult childbirth: a prelude to the birth of the new era.
Since these are the expectations of the people, it is easy to see how the preaching of John would arouse great enthusiasm. Everyone was running to be baptized, to be introduced first into the kingdom of God.
Baptism by water was not enough. Jordan was not a pool from which one miraculously came out cleansed of sin. To be willing to enter into the kingdom, it was necessary to convert oneself, that is, to reverse the path, change course, to completely modify the way of thinking and acting. It was not enough to correct some moral behavior. It was necessary to put into action a new exodus.
They came to him from Jerusalem … Here are the people of Israel, established in the promised land, now abandoning their own condition of presumed freedom and returning to Jordan. They considered themselves free, but in reality, they continued to be slaves: of their own religious convictions, their obstinacy, the false image of God that they made.
They confessed their sins … They became aware of being still in exile, of being deprived of freedom.
Every year on the second Sunday of Advent, the liturgy offers Christians the preaching of John the Baptist. He prepared the people of Israel for the coming of the Messiah. So, also today, he is able to teach us to welcome the Lord who is coming.
Today, as then, the most difficult step to accomplish is to understand that it is a must to get out of the land where we are settled, leave the false religious and theological security that we constructed and welcome the newness of God’s word.
Not everyone has responded with solicitude to the invitation of the Baptist. Not all were willing to work a radical change of heart. The Pharisees and Sadducees … while intrigued by the preaching of John, found it hard to get involved. They did not trust him but preferred to keep their certainties (vv. 7-10). They thought they were already right with God for the fact of being children of Abraham. This false security will be reported later by a famous rabbinic saying: “As the screw rests on a dry wood, even so, do the Israelites rely on the merits of their fathers.”
The reproach with which the Baptist welcomes Pharisees and Sadducees is severe: “Brood of vipers!” He compares them to snakes that inject their poison of death in those who inadvertently come close to them. Then he moves on to the invective, the announcement of disasters that are about to hit them. They run the risk of being cut off like a tree that does not bear fruit and of being burnt like chaff. God’s wrath is incumbent on them.
We are faced with dramatic images that seem to refute the dream of Isaiah in the first reading.
The tone is threatening, and it is not surprising on the lips of John the Baptist. The preachers of that time expressed themselves that way. This is the language that often appears in the Bible. The precursor uses it to warn those who refuse the invitation to conversion; one is deprived of a loving encounter with Christ who comes to introduce him to his joy and his peace.
In the context of the whole gospel, the words of the precursor take on a meaning that goes beyond the immediate. It happened also for Caiaphas to say, without realizing it, a prophecy (Jn 11:49-51).
When he spoke of God’s wrath, John had no clear idea of how it would manifest.
The wrath of God is an image that recurs often in the Old Testament. It is not intended as an explosion of hatred on the victim. It is an expression of God’s love: he rails against evil, not against the person who does it. He does not want to hit the person, but to free each one from sin.
The ax, which cuts the trees at the root, has the same function given by Jesus to the scissors pruning the vine and freeing it from useless branches that deprive it of precious sap and suffocate it (Jn 15:2). The trees uprooted and thrown into the fire are not the people that God always loves as children, but the roots of evil that are present in every person and in every structure and need to be cut to pieces so that the healthy ones can sprout more buds (Mt 3:10).
The cuts are always painful, but those done by God are providential. They create the conditions for new branches to sprout and produce fruits.
The fan, finally, with which the Lord realizes his judgment, is a living image. It describes the way in which the work of every person is screened by God.
In human courts, judges take into account only the errors and pronounce judgment on the basis of the harm done. They take little account of good works. In the judgment of God, the exact opposite happens: He, with the winnowing fan of his word, puts every person under the discerning breath of his Spirit that blows away the chaff and leaves on the threshing floor only the precious grains: the works of love, few or many, that each one had performed.
by Fr. Fernando Armellini
Fernando Armellini is an Italian missionary and biblical scholar. With his permission we have begun translating his Sunday reflections on the three readings from the original Italian into English.
