SECOND SUNDAY OF ADVENT (2025)

SECOND SUNDAY OF ADVENT (2025)

Readings:

Baruch 5:1-9

Psalms 126:1-6

Philippians 1:4-6

Luke 3:1-6

We do not hear often from the prophet Baruch during the Church’s liturgical year.  Baruch was said to be the scribe of Jeremiah the prophet, and one of his readings (often omitted) has the privileged place of being included in the Church’s Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday.  Here too, on this Second Sunday of Advent, Baruch is privileged to share his sacred wisdom with us, who have only just begun the season of Advent.  Baruch’s words are addressed to a depressed and dejected people.  In a scene that is repeated in 70 AD, the Babylonians in 586 BCE entered the holy city of Jerusalem, burned down the very first Temple and set fire to the entire city.  Those who survived were taken away into captivity to Babylon.  That captivity, the Scriptures tell us, lasted seventy years, enough to discourage even the most faithful Hebrew.  It is to such a people that Baruch was speaking.  His prophecy was not all gloom and doom.  Indeed, his prophecy was meant to be consoling, even to people who had lost all hope.

As difficult as it must have been for some to believe in Baruch’s words, Baruch is assuring the Hebrews that their God had not abandoned them.  Jerusalem will be restored, and the peoples will be set free, free to return to their homeland and to a future new Temple.  Baruch is saying to them, “snap out of it,”  for “God will show all the earth your splendor,” they “are remembered by God” (as much as it seems God has forgotten them), for God will lead “Israel in joy by the light of His glory, with His mercy and justice for company.”  Many would abandon or dilute their faith in those seventy years, but the prophets clearly did their best to build up their spirits.

Our responsorial psalm for the day also shows that the poetically inclined songsters of the day, the psalmists, encouraged the people to dream of a day “when the Lord [will bring] back the captives of Zion.”  The psalmists encouraged them to remember that “the Lord has done great things for them,” and it is their God who will “restore their fortunes.”  Although they continue to “weep” and gnash their teeth, “they shall come back [to Jerusalem] rejoicing.”  God will make a road for the dejected, “for God has commanded that every lofty mountain be made low, and that the age-old gorges be filled to level ground, that Israel may advance secure in the glory of God.”

In our gospel we advance some 600+ years to a time of genuine fulfillment.  Yes, the Temple has long ago been rebuilt, and while they are not exactly captives, they live under the thumb of Rome.  Luke is careful to place John the Baptizer in a specific, historical setting – not surprising for someone who is said to have written the Acts of the Apostles.  John is proclaiming, not himself, but a “baptism of repentance (metanoia in Greek) for the forgiveness of sins.”  John is part of the eternal plan spoken of by the prophets of old, he is continuing with his preaching the road God began to build long ago, and reference by Baruch, and here by Isaiah.  Gorges shall be filled, lofty mountains made low, and the roughest of ways will be made smooth.  As nothing would prevent the Hebrews from returning to Jerusalem, here in Luke, “all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”

We live in uncertain times, and troubles abound for many, but like the Hebrews we are to keep our focus, and remember that God “has done good things for us,” and, appearances to the contrary, He has not forgotten us.  We are called to believe, as Philippians states, that the God who “began a good work in [us] will continue to complete it until the day of Christ Jesus.”  Our faith and hope in God is never misplaced, and in times of trial and tribulations, when we think that reaching our eternal destination is impossible, we travel on a road built and managed by God.  For those who do not lose faith, that road is easily traversed, for God will smooth out the rough spots.  Our job is to increase our love for “all flesh.”  As Philippians states: “may our love increase ever more and more in knowledge and every kind of perception, to discern what is of value, so that [we] may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.”