Second Sunday of Advent:

Second Sunday of Advent

One of the things that we miss about the people we love is how they have physically held us - how they lovingly held us. My mom would touch my face and give me a gentle kiss when I would get home and one when I would leave. I’ll miss a lot of things about my mother, but that simple touch I will miss the most. Just thinking about it, triggers a bunch of memories of love. Change is inevitable and to be honest, unwelcome. But in spite of change, I still feel connected to my mother. The healing process or as some call, “the grieving process” will take time.

I’ve met with widows and widowers who have lost loved ones over years and they speak of the memories and many of them shared their own memories.  There are mementos that they keep around the house that trigger a connection with their husband or wife. It’s interesting because these things, these small seemingly inconsequential things are actually tokens of remembrance that keep those who have been separated by death somehow connected.  The desire to keep connected through tactile objects is unique to our species. It’s part and parcel of our humanity to want to remain connected with people whom we’ve loved.  But those of us who have lived with grief also recognize that we cannot isolate ourselves and look backwards. We must also look around to those who are present to us today.

God made us to be in relationship with others. When a relationship is severed, our species has a tendency to move toward a repair or healing mode. Isaiah the prophet spoke about “speaking tender to Jerusalem.” Isaiah called his people to restore the landscape to what God intended: to fill in valleys, to level mountains and hills, to make rugged lands fertile.  Restoration for Isaiah is about reshaping the landscape. Restoration won’t happen through violent means, but by a gentle touch.  When we have gentleness, we have transformation.

Our emotional landscape is transformed in gentle ways by gradual increments.  Our resistance to change is because we fear we will lose something. Fear keeps us from transformation.  What we have to realize is that even as our mountains are made low and our valleys are filled, we have a constant, unchanging center: the Christ.  Jesus Christ is the unchanging reality in our life, even as things move around.  With Christ, we’re ready to accept the change in our own interior landscape.

John the Baptist’s task was to sensitize the people to repent of sin and be reconciled to God. He called for the people’s interior landscape to change. His was  a baptism of repentance and liberation.  By entering the River, the people admitted that their actions had damaged others. By entering the water they also recognized that their sins weren’t just harming a single person, but that their actions had a social impact - sinfulness unraveled the bonds that held people together which eroded trust in the community. Sin disconnected people and as a result, evil thrived because no one was there to put an end to evil.

Jesus’ baptism goes beyond John’s. Jesus’ baptism of the Spirit gives new life to us. It promises not only forgiveness, but fulfillment. With Christ, we are never really alone. Things around us may change - and some of these changes may be unwelcome and inevitable - but what remains constant and unchanging is the Christ we find in one another.  When we see Christ in others, we will forever be connected to that other person, that will be a bond that won’t be broken no matter how much the landscape changes.

So let mountains be made low. Let the valleys be filled.  Make the crooked ways straight and make fertile the lands that are rugged. Advent is the interior change in landscape that will manifest itself in real change in the world. With ourselves as being changed on the inside - emerging - as it were - from the River Jordan, we rise out of the river and go out into the world. Rising from a river of grief, I will find ways to reconnect and find new meanings in a changed landscape of my life.  Jesus will gather all of us into his arms as the shepherd gathers his lambs and will lead the fragile and vulnerable with care. He will lead us to find a way to connect with others and create a place where forgiveness is lived out between peoples and nations, where all are fed.  And until that day, let this meal remind us of the precious love that he has promised us.