the lectionary

Those who ‘save the poor’ will gain eternal life

Second Sunday of Advent: A Cycle Readings: Isaiah 11:1?10 Romans 15:4?9 Matthew 3:1?12

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On the second Sunday of Advent, the church presents John the Baptist as Jesus' precursor, who “prepares the way of the Lord” by demanding that those who come to him reform their lives because “the reign of God is at hand.”

We Christians still long for the fullness of God’s reign of justice through Jesus the Messiah, and so we continue to pray in hope the refrain of this Sunday’s responsorial psalm: “Justice shall flourish in his time, and fullness of peace forever” (Ps 72).

The opening reading is Isaiah’s messianic vision of a future Davidic king who will be endowed with God’s spirit and rule the land of Judah with justice. In contrast to the cowardly and self?serving kings of his own time (see Isaiah 7?8), this “shoot from the stump of Jesse” will have the divine gifts of wisdom, understanding, counsel, strength, and fear of the Lord. Endowed with these virtues, he will both “judge the poor with justice” and “strike the ruthless with the rod of his mouth.” As a result of his just rule, even the predatory violence in the animal world will be transformed into peaceful harmony:

The wolf shall be the quest of the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; the calf and the young lion shall browse together, with a little child to guide them….

When the knowledge of the Lord fills the earth “as water covers the sea,” the rule of this just king will be “as a signal for the nations” so that they too will “seek out his glorious dwelling.”

Paul’s prayer in the second reading is that the Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians in the Roman community “will live in perfect harmony with one another.” Although they have come to Christianity from very different religious traditions, Paul encourages them: “Accept one another … as Christ accepted you.” Christ came to save and unify both groups. He “became the servant of the Jews because of God’s faithfulness in fulfilling the promises to the patriarchs,” and his death on the cross is the source of “mercy” for the Gentiles. Christ’s self?emptying love is to be the model for their treatment of one another.

Matthew’s account of the ministry of John the Baptist presents him as the precursor of the Messiah who is beginning to gather a reformed people of God. First, Matthew carefully links John to figures from the Jewish Scriptures. He is “a herald’s voice in the desert” spoken of in the Book of Isaiah. His camel’s hair garment and wilderness diet recall the prophet Elijah who was expected to come at the end time to prepare God’s people for the arrival of the kingdom (see 2 Kgs 1:8; Mal 3:1; 4:23?24). John’s fiery preaching challenges the Pharisees and Sadducees to produce true fruits of reform. Merely participating in his baptism or claiming to be descendants of Abraham will not suffice. John warns that “every tree that is not fruitful will be cut down and thrown in the fire.” His expectations for the Messiah are even more frightening. In contrast to his water baptism of repentance, “the more powerful one who will follow” will baptize “in the Holy Spirit and fire.” Like a harvester with “his winnowing fan in his hand,” he will “gather his grain into the barn, but the chaff he will burn in unquenchable fire.”

As we consider what might be the proper fruits of repentance, we can do no better than the verses of this Sunday’s responsorial psalm which pray that the future king will help bring about God’s justice. We, like the king, are called to “save the poor when they cry/ and the needy who are helpless” and to “have pity on the weak/ and save the lives of the poor” (Ps 72:12?13).