“During this liturgical year we reflect upon Mark’s Gospel and we have that very beginning of the Gospel today where it says, ‘The beginning of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ the son of God.’ Now when we hear those words they’re not too dramatic for us, they’re not too alarming, but at the time that was written that was a very confrontational statement because at that time the term gospel or evangelium was used for the caesar to proclaim a great victory of something he had done and they would send out messengers to proclaim the evangelium, the gospel, the good news of the emperor’s power, of Caesar’s domination. Also, to say that it’s the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Jewish messiah. The Jews were not looked upon very well at that time and he is the son of God not as the Caesars would claim to be the son of God which was very common for them from Augustus on. They thought so highly of themselves that they called themselves the son of the god whether that was Zeus or Jupiter or whomever, but they are called to recognize the true son of God, the son of God become flesh in Christ Jesus. And so that was a radical statement. It was a confrontation of the secular powers of that time and it was an affirmation that the true good news, the true victory is the one won through Christ Jesus and it’s the victory over sin and death and the whole of Mark’s Gospel is to present this wonderful good news of God’s love for us of God conquering the power of sin and death through His death and resurrection in Jesus Christ and that is what we are invited to reflect upon and Mark’s Gospel does not begin with the birth of Christ, but rather with John the Baptist going out and preaching in the desert. It’s immediately going into the public ministry of Jesus where John the Baptist fulfills that prophecy of Isaiah from the first reading and John calls for conversion. He calls for repentance in order to prepare for the coming of the messiah that the hills need to be leveled out that the valleys need to be filled in, the valleys of life need to be filled in with God’s grace and so John is the great prophet of the Advent season inviting us to recognize that this is a moment of salvation for us that this is a moment of new life of grace this is a moment of great realization as we live the good news of salvation in Christ Jesus and so John invites us to recognize the yes, he baptized with water as a sign of a call to repentance, but Jesus, the one who would come after him, would baptize with the Holy Spirit and that is the baptism that each of us enjoys, that baptism with the Holy Spirit, that Spirit of God that dwells within us, that power of God’s grace that enables us to truly live as adopted sons and daughters of God. St. Peter reminds us in that second reading today that we are called to a true blameless life to grow in virtue to allow that life of the Holy Spirit to become ever more powerful and evident within our own lives. One of the things that’s a little scary to me at least in that reading from St. Peter is that we say that God delays, but really God’s patience is for our salvation, it’s for our repentance, it’s for us to change our ways, it’s for us to grow more firmly in virtue and to truly be responsive to that working of the Spirit within us. It says that John the Baptist was out in the wilderness was again, symbolic. A wilderness was not a place where most of the people were. It was not a message that most of the people heard, but only those who would go out and listen to it and I ran across this little reflection on John the Baptist and the voice of John reflected today.
It says,
‘The voice of John the Baptist was a lonely voice which many of his contemporaries ignored.
There are many lonely voices in our world.
Somewhere at this moment a child is crying, crying for love or maybe simply for bread.
Somewhere a young person is crying, crying for a listening ear or an understanding heart.
Somewhere an old person is crying, crying for a visit or a word from his or her children.
There are a thousand unheard cries in our world coming from the victims of injustice and neglect.
Lord, help us to listen to these voices.
Above all, help us to listen to Your voice whispering to each of us in the wilderness of our own hearts telling us that we are truly loved by you and that we in turn are called to love one another.’
John the Baptist is the voice crying out in the wilderness to welcome Christ Jesus. His voice continues to invite us to welcome Christ Jesus. His voice continues to invite us to welcome Christ Jesus in the gift of each other, in the gift of the Eucharist that we share, in the gift of the needy and the forgotten of our world.”