Today
we are reminded that God outworks human powers, often from a desert.
The Jews remember this particularly from their historical deliverance
from Egypt and into the promised land. Those powers are thwarted not
by their own hand, but by God's, right before their eyes in the
desert.
When
you hear desert in the Bible, do not think of Arizona. Think of the
Dakota Badlands. The desert, more of a semi-mountainous and very
bleak wilderness, is a symbol of powerlessness and stripping bare.
It is the desert more specifically where God, on a mountain, formed a
covenant with his people through Moses. Centuries later, the people
needed another wake-up call, since they had abandoned their hearts
from that covenant. They needed the silence of the wilderness; they
needed a reminder of their powerlessness; they needed to be robbed of
all those things that take their attention away from God.
This
is where our reading from Baruch comes in. The fall of Jerusalem in
587BC was the most devastating even in Jewish history. The Temple of
Solomon was destroyed, the leaders were bound and enslaved, the
inhabitants were either likewise taken captive or their lifeless
bodies were left under the open sky. And it is right then (after
such great devastation) and right there (in the desert on the journey
to slavery) where the prophet Baruch speaks today's words:
Jerusalem,
take off your robe of mourning and misery; put on the splendor of
glory from God forever … Up,
Jerusalem! stand upon the heights; look to the east and see your
children gathered from the east and the west at the word of the Holy
One, rejoicing that they are remembered by God.
That “east” to which they look is taken up by the Church in her
liturgy, where churches were built facing the east so that we could
pray with our hope set on the rising sun, the perfect symbol of
Christ's resurrection and God's divine action in our world. This is
also why Catholic cemeteries bury their dead so as to rise facing the
East. None of those people at that time felt
particularly “remembered by God.” Yet the prophets words of hope
prove true, for both Babylon and Jerusalem both fail under the power
of God. God alone changes those hearts, and in that desert and that
captivity in Babylon, the people recommit themselves to the Lord.
His word pierces us, converts us, brings us to change ourselves and
our world. God outworks our human powers, often from a desert.
The
same reality is found in the Gospel. Luke puts the ministry of John
the Baptist in a stark contrast with the big names of his day: the
emperor Tiberius, his local administrator Pontius Pilate, the
tetrarch Herod (a ruthless Jewish sell-out to the empire) and the
high priests. All these big powers of the world, the ambition-driven
movers and shakers who do all they can to bring people and daily
affairs under their own influence, are ultimately silenced by God.
They are shown to be nothing, both by their inability to change
hearts and by God's choice to work through an apparent nobody. Even
the high-priest fails to be the source of God's message, because
God's primary work is done in the midst of a desert, de-void of any
semblance of human power.
Advent
is a reminder that God outworks our human powers, and often needs to
call us back to Himself from a desert. Let us heed the call of the
Baptist to the desert, to strip ourselves of all unnecessary things,
so that we can return to the Lord with a clearer sense of what is
important in life: our salvation, our redemption, and God's work
before our own. Here in this Mass, God's power to change hearts is
at its greatest height, even to make saints of us. Here, today, we
ask God to change us and to prepare a way for His Son.
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