A homily for the Second Sunday of Advent, Dec. 6, 2020
Is. 40:1-5, 9-11, 2 Pt 3:8-14, Mk 1:1-8
If you live in New Jersey or nearby, you know about highways and highway construction. Except in the coldest and snowiest months, a road somewhere in New Jersey is being built from scratch or rehabilitated.
We in New Jersey like our roads. We like them wide, we like them smooth, and we like them fast.
(The only thing we would like better than our roads is a “Star Trek” transporter to get us from Point A to Point B almost instantaneously, and that’s not happening in this lifetime, as far as I know.)
So the notion of “Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths” is right up our alley.
Or is it?
The Parkway or interstates give us examples of the challenges we face.
There are tolls on the Parkway and Turnpike. There are costs in following the Way of the Lord. They vary for each of us.
There are traffic jams on our highways and byways. Do we wait patiently or do we try to snake our way through the crowd to get an advantage? There are billions of fellow pilgrims on our journey home to God. Do we sometimes try to somehow skirt “The last shall be first and the first shall be last”?
Our roads are often under repair and construction. Are we patient with the work? Do we pay for it without complaint? Our spiritual lives are always under repair and construction. Do we work steadily, patiently toward a closer relationship with our loving God, who is all-patient? Do we pay what is necessary to bring us together as sisters and brothers? Together with God?
There are detours on our roads — some planned; some ad hoc — that divert us from our destination, and they can be frustrating. Do we fret and fume, or do we take them in stride in the knowledge that we’ll eventually get where we’re going? There are spiritual detours, too, mostly ad hoc; we know them as temptations. Do they divert us from our journey to our ultimate divine destination, and if so, how far and for how long?
Fortunately, always, God’s light of wisdom and grace provides a beacon for us to get back on the straight path.
In today’s Scripture selections, we are called by God through Isaiah — who’s recalled and echoed in the start of the Gospel of Mark — not only to make straight our paths to our Creator and make straight the Way of the Lord, but also to herald the day of redemption.
That’s never been easy. It’s more socially acceptable to discuss Hail Mary passes that win a football game than to discuss the Immaculate Conception or the Incarnation over Starbucks and Cinnabon.
And it’s been much harder as we stay physically distanced, working from home and connecting by Zoom — not risking the Mute or Leave Meeting buttons to bring up religious or spiritual topics that often clink on the ear.
But as we wait for the end of this pandemic, which has tested the limits of our patience far more than any of us expected, we should remember that in this Advent season of waiting we are re-enacting in only four weeks the thousands of years that the Israelites waited for the Messiah. We should remember the many roadblocks they overcame to stay on the straight path, the many enemies who tried to silence them.
The Twelve Tribes hung in there; we can too.
And even then, if it’s still not in our nature or circumstances to go tell it from the mountains, we have St. Paul’s observation: See how these Christians love one another.
This Advent, as we cope with figurative traffic jams and detours and other things that slow us down from 80 mph…
This Advent, as wait…
Our actions large or small in charity and justice as we stay on the path that we are challenged to make straight will trumpet Emmanuel’s arrival once again.
“Clink on the ear…” So much awesomeness here.