Baruch 5:1-9; Philippians 1:4-6, 8-11; Luke 3:1-6
Original Blessing: God’s Mission to Create the Hope of Salvation needs You and Me
There was a Catholic couple who were married for ten years but could not have kids. They sought medical help, still their barrenness continued. One day, it was announced at Mass that their pastor was going to Rome for studies. So, they came to request of him to light a candle for them when he gets to Rome, so that they may have kids. The priest promised to do that, and true to his promise, he lighted a candle at the intention of the couple on arrival in Rome. After years of studies, the priest returned home and decided to go visit with this couple. Once at the couple’s home, he noticed the woman had two sets of twins and she was pregnant. He cried out, “may God be praised for this miracle of children!” Then he asked the woman where her husband was; her response was: Father, my husband is on his way to Rome to blow out the candle you lighted for us!
The birth of a child assures us, at least, of two things: a new beginning and hope for the future. With each birth, humanity keeps itself in existence; with each birth, parents see a new beginning, a hope for a better future. Human beings have an unyielding hope that the best is still to come, otherwise, childbirth will be foolhardy. This human reality is no different for God, in his relations with human beings. The original goodness in creation, despite original sin, is what God sees in his creatures. God’s source of hope in the human person hinges on this original goodness, so much so that Jesus takes flesh! The coming of Christ into the world is one way God keeps hope alive in Christians today, and what a journey it was before the birth of Christ!
One helpful theological question for reflection this week is: why the birth of Jesus? There two ways to answer this question: first, the direct response is that from our creed – for us humans and for our salvation Jesus was born. A second response, which is germane to our readings today, is – Jesus comes to take away the sins of the world. From this second response, we look forward to Christmas as a sign of hope for salvation from sin.
Today, we read of a revised migration, in the first reading (Baruch 5:1-9): an exiled Israel returns home from Babylon, but not alone – “For God will show your splendor everywhere under heaven” (Baruch 5:3); this revised migration is a pan-migration or the rise of multiculturalism and cosmopolitanism: “Arise, O Jerusalem, stand upon the height; look toward the east and see your children gathered from the east and the west at the word of the Holy One, rejoicing that God has remembered them” (Baruch 5:5). The point here is that Israel’s infidelity to and sin against God is the reason for her exile to Babylon. However, God turns this experience of exile into an opportunity to create a new identity – a new Israel – a universal people of God.
Israel’s return from Babylon is like the birth of a new child, a new beginning. This exile and return from exile teach us about an attribute of God – forgiveness. The reality of God’s forgiveness in the past teaches us about God’s forgiveness in the future. God’s future forgiveness is our hope that when Jesus comes, we will receive the mercy and forgiveness of God. But why do we deserve the forgiveness of our sins, since God is also the God of justice?
Yes, God may chastise us on account of our sins, as the example of Israel’s exile to Babylon shows, but there is something more primordial and more fundamental about the human person – God’s original blessing. At creation, God blessed his creatures. It is true that there is original sin, but God’s original blessing makes human beings deserving of God’s forgiveness and salvation, despite original sin – for original blessing is prior. Indeed, our sins may weigh us down, but God always finds reasons to save us just as the revised migration of Israel shows; so, God’s original blessing makes the human person hopeful for salvation – hope is part of the human DNA!
In our second reading today (Philippians 3:4-6, 8-11), St. Paul convinces us that God is the one who is at work giving us the hope of salvation: “I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 3:6). The original blessing, which makes God’s hope to journey with every generation, continues even today. Christmas, the birth of Jesus, gives a special focus and impetus to this hope for salvation in God. Nevertheless, “hope,” for Paul, needs human cooperation, while we await its realization: “And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight, to help you to determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God” (Philippians 1:9-11). The God “who began a good work among you,” to repeat Paul’s certitude, continues this good work in Jesus, whose coming birth is the ground for our Advent HOPE, hope that God’s original blessing rests with human beings.
St. Paul’s prayers that we “may be pure and blameless” resonates with the gospel message. Today’s gospel (Luke 3:1-6) shows how God himself sends John the Baptism to proclaim that this HOPE is alive and active today! John the Baptist revamps and catalyzes a new beginning to the hope of salvation, up until its completion in Christ: “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight” (Luke 3:4b). If God uses John the Baptist to announce the need to prepare for the coming of the savior, he needs you and me today to be his mouth piece to announce God’s salvation despite human sinfulness. He wants us here and now to avoid sin, and be the bearers and centers of our original blessing.
Indeed, Emmanuel – God with us – is a guarantee that God never forgets his original blessing upon us. Consequently, we are a people of hope in the original blessing of goodness in the human person, a blessing Jesus’ birth consolidates; we continue to hope that God always saves his people in spite of their sins; our hope is that God always journeys with his people through thick and thin; right now, we do not fail to hope that every cloud has a silver lining because God doesn’t forget his original blessings upon human beings.
Assignment of the Week
For this week, could you talk to someone about the original blessing God bestowed on human beings at creation, so as to ensure that the message/hope of salvation reaches him/her?
An Exegetical Homily on Luke 3:1-6 for Second Sunday of Advent Year C
Step I: What does the Text Say?
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness. And he went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet, “The voice of one crying 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 become straight, and the rough places shall become level ways, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’”
Step II: What does the Text Mean?
John the Baptism was sent: here and now, You and I are God’s Messengers of Salvation!
- Apart from our verbs categorized either as future or present, the two instances of verbs in past time are instructive: these two verbs, in past time, indicate God’s two interventions in human history. Firstly, God uses prophets to reveal his will to his people; secondly, he now sends John the Baptism as a prophet with a mission.
- The verbs in the present reveal an ongoing situation: on the one hand, there is the leadership of political powers of the day, on the other, there is the prophetic role of John the Baptist proclaiming a baptism of repentance. The verbs in the present imply that God’s activities are in tandem, be it in the spiritual or political realms: God acts through human beings.
- Although the gospel presents John the Baptist’s mission or preaching as ongoing, John’s proclamations are not his, he carries out or fulfills a prophecy of Isaiah. John’s actualization of the prophecy of Isaiah makes God’s activities contemporaneous with every generation.
- The two aspects of Luke’s gospel that we should have in mind are: 1) “promise” and “fulfillment;” that is, Luke depicts God as one who promises in the Old Testament and fulfills those promises in the New Testament – the prophecy of Isaiah finds its actualization in John; 2) “universalism” is another presupposition of Luke’s gospel; by this we mean, everybody has a responsibility in God’s plan of salvation, no one can afford to sit on the fence: political leaders (Caesar, Pilate, Herod, Philip the Tetrarch) are as involved as religious people – John.
- Two imperative verbs (“prepare” and “make straight”) encapsulate the meaning of the citation from the prophecy of Isaiah – hope for something to come, hope for salvation.
Step III: Points for Homily
- God wills the salvation of the whole world as well as its inhabitants! But how will God do that?
- God needs human agencies for the realization of his plans of salvation: John the Baptist is one such agent.
- Luke mentions Caesar, Pilate, Herod and Philip the Tetrarch in order to prove that God’s work of salvation is historically verifiable in time, so it is not a fairy tale.
- Just as John the Baptism denounces political class of his day for the hijack of justice, we are to do the same now, if we want God’s salvation to be a reality for us today.
- Whatever our occupations may be, we are to do our jobs as God’s agents of salvation.
- The period of Advent is not a period of passivity but of activity and activism: we need to bring about our hope of salvation in cooperation with God.