John the Baptist prepares the Lord’s way
It’s the Second Sunday of Advent and today’s scripture reading comes from Mark.1:1-8 on the way John the Baptist prepares the Lord’s way. This is exactly what we must do in this second Sunday of Advent to prepare ourselves for the coming birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. How do we prepare ourselves? Well, since all of us Catholics were already baptized as children… the least we can do is go and have a good confession so that our sinful souls can be reconciled with God. This is the best way to prepare for the coming of Christ. So let’s open our Bibles and read Mark 1: 1-8.
“1 The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ [the Son of God. 2 As it is written in Isaiah the prophet: ‘Behold, I am sending my messenger ahead of you: he will prepare your way. 3 A voice of one crying out in the desert; ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.’
4 John [the] Baptist appeared in the desert proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5 People of the whole Judean countryside and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem were going out to him and were baptized by him in the Jordan River as they acknowledged their sins. 6 John was clothed in camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist. He fed on locusts and wild honey.
7 And this is what he proclaimed: “One mightier than I is coming after me. I am not worthy to stoop and loosen the thongs of his sandals. 8 I have baptized you with water; he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
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The most devout Jew in ancient times always read the prophesies of the Prophet Isaiah in their scrolls inside their Synagogues. So if you read this writing by Isaiah, he prophesied that the coming of the Messiah would be preceded by the arrival of God’s messenger. And Isaiah was right on the nail when he wrote, ‘Behold, I am sending my messenger ahead of you: he will prepare your way. 3 A voice of one crying out in the desert; ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.’ That messenger was John the Baptist.
After his birth in Ein Karem, John the Baptist moved to the wilderness in the Judean Desert and started baptizing the Jews in the Jordan River. He became so famous that the people in Judea and the inhabitants of Jerusalem would go to the Jordan River to be baptized for the forgiveness of sins. When John the Baptist preached… he used the exact words taken from Isaiah when he said, “I am a voice of one crying out in the desert; ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.’
If the Jews wanted a clear sign that the Messiah was coming… they could have accepted that John the Baptist was this sign because when they asked him if he was the Messiah, he would answer them, “One mightier than I is coming after me. I am not worthy to stoop and loosen the thongs of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
John further testified about the coming of the Messiah saying, “This was he of whom I said, “The one who is coming after me ranks ahead of me because he existed before me.” Only a man who was given the grace by God would say this… after all, John the Baptist was older than our Lord.
When the time came for our Lord Jesus Christ to present himself to John and be baptized, John tried to stop him from being baptized and said, “I need to be baptized by you, and yet you are coming to me.” Jesus said in reply, “Allow it now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” So John then baptized our Lord. Then John heard a loud voice coming from the heavens that declared, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
Then days after the Lord’s Baptism, while he was walking along the banks of the Jordan River, John the Baptist declared, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who take away the sin of the world. He is the one of whom I said, “A man is coming after me who ranks ahead of me because he existed before me. Know I have seen and testified that he is the Son of God.”
Why then do we have to go and celebrate Advent when our Lord Jesus Christ already came to this world 2,000 years ago? The primary reason why we celebrate Christmas is to thank God for his kindness, his mercy and his love for the human race… that no matter how sinful we have become, as our Lord Jesus Christ told Nicodemus in John 3:16, “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.”
In his prayer St. Thomas Aquinas, wrote, “Lord, Father all-powerful and ever-living God, I thank thee, for even though I am a sinner, thy unprofitable servant, not because of my worth, but in the kindness of thy mercy, thou has fed me with the Body and Blood of thy beloved Son.” Yes all of us are sinners and therefore we do not deserve God’s love, yet he still loves us.
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