Second Sunday of Advent Year C 2024

Title

Hope is Knowing the King is Coming

Outline

Look at what is going on in Baruch and our Gospel

Both are written when the people of God are in a hard place

Baruch is written from the context of exile - no Jerusalem there to go back to. And John comes after the last Jewish kingdom has been crushed by Rome through Herod the Great and Rome’s client kings are in control of the whole area and they even appoint the high priests.

Both Baruch and John know God, that is, faith has led to knowledge and knowledge to hope or expectation of God’s plan

Baruch calls for rejoicing and worship in the light of God’s bringing the peace of justice, raising up the city of Jerusalem, gathering the exiles home in style, and dealing with any barrier to its accomplishment. This is not what he saw happening then, but what his faith that led through prayer conversation to knowledge made him know would happen which he commits to in hope.

John sees in his heart the Lord coming, obstacles being overcome, and “all flesh shall see the salvation of God” - it will not just be Jewish, but a salvation that reaches to all humanity. He knows it revolves around a person coming in the power of the Spirit, but does not know that the person is his cousin Jesus. His faith that led through prayer conversation (perhaps in Qumran or a similar desert setting) to knowledge made him know would happen which he commits to in hope or expectation.

Both call on the people of God to do things in the light of this hope

Baruch in our passage is not clear, but certainly in his repeating that God will do he echoes themes in the rest of the book calling for committed, hopeful, enduring trust in God.

John is very clear in that he proclaimed “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” A change of mind from what is different from God’s will, a cleansing baptism in the light of this change resulting in the knowledge of forgiveness, and apparently becoming part of a movement preparing themselves for the Messiah. One needed to wait, perhaps wait long, but be in readiness.

And that is what Paul describes on the other side of the fulfillment of John’s hope.

Paul now knows that the fulfillment comes in two stages, so the Philippians have partnered with Paul in announcing the good news the requires continued development towards the second stage: “I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work in you will continue to complete it until the day of Christ Jesus.”

And this is what that waiting while continuing development looks like: “that your love may increase ever more and more in knowledge and every kind of perception, to discern what is of value, so that you may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.”

So we are constantly repenting of what holds us back from hope as we grow in virtue with patient endurance through the power of Jesus Christ as we wait for the fulfillment of his glory and praise.

Blessed are those who endure in prayer conversation and continual repentance to experience this, either in its ultimate form or at the end of our lives.