2nd Sunday of Advent / A
5/12/2010
Matthew 3, 1-12 (p. 53)
With the prophets, especially Isaiah, with Joseph and Mary, John the Baptist is of these biblical characters that mark our time of Advent. Yet it is not our gospel before the mystery of Christmas, but well after. If we are presented because it has this unique feature to prepare the people to the public ministry of Jesus and before him to announce the coming of the kingdom of heaven and the end of time. The essential feature of this kingdom of God is given to us by Isaiah in the first reading: "There will be no harm or ruin on all my holy mountain, for the knowledge of the Lord will fill the country as the waters cover the bottom of the sea "The images of heavenly peace and universal reconciliation between creatures here means complete disappearance of this evil. God rules in effect where his goodness and love triumph. And in this context that John preached to the people the conversion and gives a baptism by which everyone recognizes humble sinner.
Matthew presents him as a prophet who announces austere and severe anger and judgments of God by treating those who come to him as "brood of vipers" ... He used to bring Jews to convert a violent method in which the charity seems to be absent as well as respect for its stakeholders. It uses two images to threaten sinners in the Judgement of God is now at hand that the fruit trees and wheat. Judgement will be a separation between the good and the bad, and they will be condemned to fire unquenchable. John announces the coming of Jesus not only as one who will baptize in the Spirit but also as the judge feared that separates the wheat from the chaff.
few chapters later in the same Gospel we find John in his prison. He begins to doubt the identity of Jesus as he had announced the Messiah and the judge. And he sent messengers to the Lord with the question: "Are you he that should come or do we look for another?" Why this doubt in the mind of John? Simply because realizes that the attitude of Jesus is not at all what he had predicted the coming of the Messiah formidable judge who was to distinguish between good and evil. The preaching of Jesus, even if she has in common with that of John, marks a clear break. Let some things just for show. The first and perhaps most significant in terms of symbolism, is precisely what Jesus asked John, against his will, to be baptized for the recognition of sins. Jesus, Son of God, is innocent, sin has no place in him, he is the Holy One of God. So why mingle with the crowd of sinners being baptized by John? To make clear the meaning of his coming and his mission among us: it shows solidarity and sinners. It thus abolishes the law of purity of the Old Testament strictly separating the pure from the impure, the holy sinner. By preaching the perfect justice of the New Covenant, righteousness which surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, he reveals, under the command of love of enemies, the heart of God, the heavenly Father "makes his sun rise on evil and the good and sends rain on the just and the unjust. " The goodness of God is universal and perfect, it does not depend on the fact that we are righteous or sinners. And when the call of Levi who become the apostle and evangelist Matthew Jesus is justified as well against attacks of the Pharisees: "Go and learn what it means: That I desire mercy, not sacrifice. For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners. "We understand why John begins to doubt his prison about Jesus: he is so different from what he had said! Jean mark the boundary between the Old and New Testaments, but it is still in its attitude to what is being move to make room for the amazing novelty of the Gospel message. He may be the greatest sons of men, yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. What answer the Lord gives to John, who wonders if he really is the Messiah? A cluster of quotations from Isaiah in which the notion of decision is totally absent! Jesus replied: Yes, I am the Messiah because I heal the sick and to announce the Good News to the poor. Finally, in his reply Jesus himself points out the distance it takes from the austere style of his predecessor John: "John came neither eating nor drinks, and they say: He lost his head. The Son of Man came, eating, drinking, and they say, Behold a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners. "Revealer of goodness and mercy of God Word of God made flesh, Jesus was not presented to us in the guise of a prophet daunting sad and stern: "Come unto me all ye that labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest ... For I am meek and humble of heart ... My yoke is easy and my burden light. "
John as Jesus calls us, then, with very different methods, conversion, change of life for us in welcoming the new reality of the Kingdom of God. Perhaps the great conversion that we have to live as Christians is this: with a universal heart that the world is not divided into two camps, one good and the bad guys. This simplistic view does not match our experience. But it is in our heart, we, the coexistence of good and evil, love and hate. The boundary between good and evil is within. And we will need all our life and the sacrament of forgiveness to cleanse us still more of this evil that weakens us and we disfiguring. And John is right to remind us that we must produce a fruit expressing our conversion. This is what Our Lord called significantly "to the truth." The Christian lives his faith. By putting into practice the Gospel that we know and understand: "He that doeth truth cometh to the light so that his deeds may be made manifest, that they were accomplished in God."
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