Timely Consolation


SUNDAY BREAD
By John Abraham Ayieko
Isaiah 40:1-5, 9-11; II Peter 3:8-14; Mark 1:1-8

The consolation that we prayed for Last Sunday is granted in today’s first reading; ‘Console my people, console them says your God’ (Isaiah 40:1).

It is only the second week of Advent and there is a strong temptation to begin looking at the calendar with a frustrated longing. ‘Will the beloved really come? Will we stay the course? This might as well be the feeling of a person whose spouse has just jetted out on a five-year postgraduate scholarship! And since matters Love are matters of the heart, Yahweh’s directive to the prophet is exact; ‘Speak to the HEART of Jerusalem and cry to her, that her period of service is ended.’

There is no room for idle waiting. Israel had better got down to the task of ensuring that when the beloved returns, his reception may be intensely comforting; ‘prepare in the desert a way for Yahweh. Make a straight highway for our God… Let every valley be filled in, every mountain and hill be leveled, every cliff become a plateau, every escarpment a plain…’ (vv 3-4). In short, get busy. Prepare!

Don’t you forget that the Prophet has clear instructions to “speak to the heart of Jerusalem.” We, who are the New Jerusalem, must therefore turn to the direction of our hearts to see the mountains and hills; the cliffs and the valleys; the escarpments and the wastelands that may need to be fixed. For within the privacy of our hearts lurk hideous spiritual mountains and hills of pride and arrogance, cliffs of selfishness and egoism, valleys of faithlessness and unbridled lust, as well as escarpments of anger and unforgiveness. There may also be wastelands of sloth and despondency, restraining us from enjoying a lively faith. We have quite some work as you might see.

But we are also encouraged to remain in a state of unfailing preparation beyond this year’s advent. Our God lives outside time. He can never “delay” since for him, ‘one day is like a thousand years and one thousand years like one day’ (2 Peter 3:8-14). Chronological time with its hours, days, weeks, months and years only serves our finitude. God uses opportune time. The perfect moment. God uses the hour of salvation. And for this hour we must wait. Peter further reminds us that ‘the day of the Lord will come like a thief,’ thus the need to repent and to take advantage of God’s patience (2 Peter 3:8-10).

‘John (the) Baptist appeared in the desert proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins’ (Mark 1:4) reports Mark. The Lord should surely not find us our houses in filth. There is need for a clean-up. But there is something else here though. John the Baptist only appeared in the desert (v 4), and then, the ‘People of the whole Judean countryside and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem WERE GOING TO HIM…’ (V 5). Not the other way round. Going means making efforts to get help.

Going means travelling. Going is a journey. Among the many journeys we must make is the journey to the confessional. It is the only journey that will make us enjoy anew the state in which we were in at baptism.

LORD JESUS, GIVE US THE COURAGE TO HEED THE VOICE OF JOHN. PURGE US OF ALL SIN, AND TRANSFORM OUR HEARTS INTO A STRAIGHT HIGHWAY FOR YOUR RETURN.


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