Second Sunday of Advent  B.   December 4, 2011.  Our Lady of Grace 11:30, 6PM.  Isaiah 40: 1-5, 9-11.  2 Peter 3:8-14.  Mark 1: 1-8.

I recently began reading Thomas Friedman’s new book “That Used to Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back.”  Friedman paints a very distressing picture of the United States in the current and future history of world events.  Even though the picture he lays out is upsetting, he is basically optimistic about the future if we face our short comings and give new birth to the American Dream.  Even if we don’t like Friedman or his writings or his predictions, it is evident to most of us that these are difficult if not deeply troubled times. We are hopefully immerging from the deepest recession since the great depression. There are still many without jobs and many troubled businesses.  The European Union and the Euro seem to be falling apart.  There is turmoil in the Middle East. Third World countries are growing stronger, sometimes with better education and stronger economic growth than the United States. A good honest look at the world may be the spark that opens our minds and our hearts to the message of John the Baptist.

The Gospel of Mark begins with these words: “Behold I am sending my messenger ahead of you; he will prepare your way.  A voice of one crying out in the desert: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.”   The Jewish people were enslaved by the Romans.  Their wealth was being siphoned off and sent to pagan Rome.  There were many sharp disagreements and divisions among God’s people.  Morality and religion were slipping away from the people of the land.  People were so desperate and restless that they went out into the desert to hear John the Baptist preach about repentance, turning your life around and the forgiveness of your sins.  The people’s sense that things were not right was the force that impelled them to listen to John and his promise that someone mightier than he was coming to turn things around – but first they had to face themselves and their sinfulness.  There is no way to build a better future - there is no way to restore the American Dream - without facing our role and our responsibility for getting us out of where presently are.  Yes, the compromised morality and the poor choices of the common folk are a part of the problem that we must face honestly.  Yes, corruption and the manipulation of profit in business is part of the problem we have to face honestly.  Yes, deadlock and stubbornness in government is a part of the problem we have to deal with. 

In the midst of the world as it is today a voice rings out: “Prepare the way of the Lord.”  The Prophet Isaiah assures us that if we turn to the Lord in sincerity, truth and repentance, this can be a time of rebirth.  Isaiah says, “Comfort, give comfort to my people, says your God.  Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her service is at an end, her guilt is expiated; indeed, she has received from the hand of the Lord double for all her sins… Now make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God! Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill shall be made low; the rugged land shall be made a plain, the rough country, a broad valley. … Fear not to cry out and say to the cities of Judah: Here comes with power the Lord God.”

God’s word is not a museum piece trapped in the past.  The season of Advent is not a good feelings time divorced from daily life.  The Advent Season is about the struggles, darkness and fears of our world today.  Advent leads us to the new birth of Christ and the world of possibilities that his presence brings.  John the Baptist cried out, “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.”

What does John the Baptist teach us about the coming of God’s Kingdom and our hope for a better world?

• We must face the fact that we are all sinners, from the least of us to the very greatest.  We must openly and honestly confess our sins. 
• We must turn our lives and ourselves toward a new future, a God given future. God is in our midst to enlighten us and save us.   Confessing our sins and letting go of our past we must turn toward a future filled with God’s presence.
• We must turn toward God and our future as a community, not just as individuals.  The Gospel says, “People of the whole Judean countryside and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the Jordan River as they acknowledged their sins.” 
• We must be baptized by Jesus with the Holy Spirit of God.  The Spirit of God is the source of our wisdom, our courage and our rebirth.

The Advent - Christmas season is about our rebirth as people, as the church and as the society in which we live. For those who trust in God’s providence times of rebirth have happened often.  When our nation was born the signers of the Declaration of Independence put their trust in Divine Providence as they created a new nation and a new future.  At the height of the Civil War Abraham Lincoln challenged the people to take hold of the future.  At Gettysburg he said, “that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain  -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

I invite you to a deeper understanding of Advent, much deeper than Christmas decorations and Christmas gifts.  Advent is about confessing our sins, turning toward the future, trusting in the mighty presence of God, and being baptized in the Holy Spirit.  Advent is about the new birth of our lives and our world.  For the courage to be a part of God’s dream for our world and our land we give God thanks and praise.