Por Fr. Ed Liptak, SDB

For the second Sunday of Advent ‘B’, our Church urges us to continue to build our longing for the coming of Christ. God said to His prophet Isaiah, “Comfort, give comfort to my people.” Isaiah was also told,“Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and proclaim to her that her service is at an end, her guilt is expiated.” Thus, the Lord promised a new start, and it was fulfilled when the ‘anointed’ Persian Emperor Cyrus ended Judah’s long captivity ordering them to restore their Temple and their faith. God kept his promise to comfort them, to shepherd them, leading them home to Jerusalem.

How then does this apply to us? You and I are held captive every day. It is an especially busy time. It may also be that some of us live under the captivity of our sinfulness. We need calm. We may need forgiveness. Thus, the Lord repeats also for our sake, “Comfort, give comfort to my people.” He promised through the prophets, He promised through Mary, that His Holy One would come to save us. He came, and we see in Jesus the fulfillment of desire, and in Advent we seek to rekindle our gratitude to God.

Isaiah’s prophecy did not end with God’s comforting word. He went on to proclaim, “A voice cries out: In the desert, prepare the way of the Lord! Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God.” St. Mark’s Gospel applies the call of the prophetic voice of old, Isaiah’s, to that of the New Testament voice of John the Baptist. Both prophets seek preparation for God’s coming. Mark leaves no doubt of what the Baptist seeks: “repentance for the forgiveness of sins.“ Join with Jesus, the one greater than he, by faith and repentance. “Repent!”… “Believe!”

Jesus is the Father’s great sign of redemption. We need Him in our lives. That He should come to us as an infant, born and absorbed into humanity is but a sign that God’s thinking is not our way. Sinfulness arises from the darkness in humanity. God’s promise of salvation is made real by that light shining from Jesus at Bethlehem. For Him we long God’s way of destroying the darkness of sin and death.