Read­ing Time: 2 minutes

Introduction

If a per­son is expect­ing someone in his/her house, then, that per­son must ensure his/her house is in order. Since Chris­ti­ans cel­eb­rate the memori­al of the birth of Jesus the saviour on the Christ­mas day, the peri­od of advent offers them the oppor­tun­ity of mak­ing adequate pre­par­a­tions to wel­come the saviour. We must make keep our mater­i­al and spir­itu­al homes neat. What Luke does at the begin­ning of his Gos­pel is quite inter­est­ing. For him, the Gos­pel is a mes­sage of sal­va­tion, hence, those read­ing it must get them­selves pre­pared. Mark did the same thing at the begin­ning of his Gos­pel (cf. Mark 1:14–15). The Gos­pel requires repent­ance and to strong faith in God. John’s mes­sage reflects Isai­ah chapter 40 (verses 3–5). In the desert, he pro­claimed the bap­tism of repent­ance. Bap­tism of repent­ance was a ritu­al under­stood to effect the for­give­ness of sin. For the Jews, the gos­pel was the good news of God’s com­ing deliv­er­ance (cf. Isa 52:7), and for the Romans, the gos­pel referred to the good news of the peace brought by the emperor.

Getting reading

The invit­a­tion to get ready for the cel­eb­ra­tion of the birth of the saviour through repent­ance is a role that John played out in a sig­ni­fic­ant way, call­ing atten­tion to the one who ush­ers in God’s king­dom. Jesus is the Mes­si­ah whose mis­sion is empowered by God’s Spir­it. In the words of Paul, get­ting read­ing means improv­ing and deep­en­ing our per­cep­tion so we can always recog­nize what is best in the sight of God. Such deep­en­ing of the know­ledge of the will of God will make us become pure and blame­less. It will pre­pare us for the Day of Christ, when, accord­ing to Paul, we will reach the per­fect good­ness which Jesus pro­duces in us for the glory and praise of God (cf. Second Reading). 

Conclusion

As men­tioned in last week reflec­tion, “even Jews had their own advent dur­ing which they expec­ted the com­ing of the māšia (mes­si­ah), the Anoin­ted One, the Saviour (Greek: chris­tos, pop­ularly rendered in Eng­lish as Christ). Such expect­a­tion is announced in the bib­lic­al texts espe­cially in those pas­sages com­monly described as “Proph­et of Advent.” These texts include Isai­ah chapters 40–55, which in chapter 40:1–11 begins with the noun ‘con­sol­a­tion’ – “Com­fort and keep com­fort­ing my people, says your God. Speak to Jer­u­s­alem, and cry to her that her war­fare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the Lord par­don for all her sins.” Anoth­er import­ant text of the proph­et of advent is Jeremi­ah 33:14–16. In these verses, the proph­et Jeremi­ah records the prom­ise of God to make a vir­tu­ous branch grow for Dav­id. This vir­tu­ous branch will prac­tice hon­esty and integ­rity. This is mes­sage of assurance.

FOR DETAILS, GET YOUR OWN COPIES OF THE BOOK “THE WORD OF LIFE: SUNDAY REFLECTIONS” (vols. I‑II-III)!! The reflec­tion for the 2^nd Sunday of Advent © is found in vol. III pages 12–21. Happy reading!

For details on how to get it, con­tact the author on this link: https://m.me/uchennabiblia?fbclid=IwAR2yeg4a6sDGBp9QGkIvKj6FSADumMokN6lshdE0zuo-JHs6qOmlhA7jyHo or email me at: postmaster@uchennabiblia.com or simply send an SMS on 08116100926, and I will get back to you.

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