NewCreation

Homily for Sunday 2 of Advent, Year C Welcome, my sisters and brothers, to this homily for the second Sunday in Advent. And as you see, for the second week running, I have a different background. This is not, as some have kindly written to ask me, because I'm in hospital, but because I'm on a trip abroad and staying in the guest room of a presbytery in Paris. So that's hence the background. I should be back home next weekend. Today's Gospel gives us what is often known as the second beginning of Luke's Gospel. The first beginning of Luke's Gospel is the one which we're accustomed to actually at the Christmas period. We'll start getting those readings as we get closer in: the stories of the birth of John the Baptist, the birth of Jesus, the visitation — all of that which we get closer to Christmas. Here we have what is for Saint Luke the second beginning, the beginning where he actually starts in the same place as Saint Matthew, which is the beginning of the ministry of John the Baptist. But Luke gives us a rather broader picture of the world, as it were, with the private — or almost private — view of the very village-like reality of Jesus's birth and of his cousin's conception and birth as well; that's John the Baptist. That's almost a private world, and now we are taken into the public world — the public world which we'll see in two senses: the political world and the cultural world of the time. So here is how Luke, who's always going to be very keen on the international and worldwide dimensions of what's happening — much more than Mark was; Luke is all about the Gospel going to the nations — so it's no surprise that he fixes the date of the beginning of things in the fifteenth year of the reign of the emperor Tiberius, saying how this fits into the structure of the Roman Empire's world. “When Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea” — a name we will hear again, obviously, since he is the person who is going to preside over Jesus's execution — “and Herod was ruler of Galilee” — again, we'll hear about him because he presides over the execution of John the Baptist. So this is not a simple list of names, just people who happen to be around. These are people who are going to play a significant, and not a friendly, role in the story as it developed. So Herod's brother Philip was the ruler of the region of Iturea and Trachonitis — the so-called Tetrarch; these four rulers, the Tetrarchs — and Lysanias, ruler of Abilene. So those are — they're not actually Jewish; these were the sons of Herod the Great, I think; they were the sons of Herod the Great — but they were those who were in charge, if you like, of running the Jewish homeland. “And it was during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas”. Now we're coming down even closer to those who are going to have a significant role in the handing over of Jesus to death. So start with Rome, then with Rome's local puppet rulers, then with the local Jewish religious rulers, and it's in the midst of all this that the Word of God comes to John, son of Zechariah, in the wilderness. So the Word of God comes into a world that's full of powers, and rather hostile powers, earthly powers. And Jesus goes into the region — sorry, not Jesus — John goes into the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. So the Word of God is coming in and is going to shake up the order of this world. This order of the world is apparently going to win on two occasions, but in fact it's going to be profoundly shaken from within, so that it's not even going to know that its whole system of dominance has been destroyed from within by the Word of God that is coming in. This is God's promise coming in. So he proclaims a baptism of repentance. He's saying: “get ready, this great big change is coming, allow your hearts to be opened and broken so that you can take part in the new thing that's coming in”. That's the message which he's given. And the words he uses are the words of the prophet Isaiah. And Luke gives us rather a longer chunk of Isaiah than Mark does. “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth.” So we're used to this being sung rather beautifully to Handel's music through the Messiah, and so we don't actually remember that this is the threatening of the destabilizing of the order of everything that is. Hills, mountains — of course they can refer to geographical things, but they can also refer to high places, places of importance like temples and places of sacrificial cult, and mountains can be the sort of things that empires are built on. “The crooked shall be made straight” — crooked ways. Of course, Roman roads were supposed to be straight, but a good deal of crookedness was associated with them. And “the rough ways made smooth.” In other words, there's going to be a general shaking up of every form of human coexistence. And this shaking up is going to be necessary for a particular purpose. “And all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” Interesting. While we are in our normal topography of highs and lows, those who are raised up, those who are cast down — and incidentally the valleys to be filled — plērōthēsetai (πληρωθήσεται) — it's a very human vocabulary of fulfilment. Being made low is to be humiliated or humbled. So although these are mountains or hills, the verbs don't only refer, as it were, to work being done by an excavator and a tractor; they refer to humiliation, things being brought low. "All flesh shall see the salvation of God." In other words, the one who is going to come in is going to come in at our level, at a human level. And any obstacles — through being too high or through being too low — are not going to be able to see him. It's only as we become level that it will become perfectly clear who our salvation is. The one who's coming in sideways, at our level, who will be known by us eventually as the crucified and risen one — that is how God's promise is coming into the world. So John starts to preach. We will see more of John's preaching next week, because we are going to continue this. But what's interesting is Luke starting this by giving a very concentrated account of the powers of this world, the word of God coming in, the fact that it's going to be a massive shake-up — but "all flesh shall see the salvation" afterwards. The word is going to go out to all nations, to the ends of the earth. And the whole work of Luke and Acts ends back in Rome, of course, a different emperor by that time. But that's the whole path, if you like, that his Gospel takes — from this extraordinary breaking in, in the midst of a very specific historical moment and under very specific circumstances of troubled rule, difficult, hostile powers. In the midst of this, the word of God comes. It's going to level. It's going to reveal who God is at the level of siblingistic, the fraternal level, and that is going to go to the ends of the world. So it's that that we are asked to prepare, this Sunday. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.