Saturday, December 9, 2017

2nd Sunday of Advent, Year B, 10.12.17

Isaiah 40:1-5, 9-11 / 2 Peter 3:8-14 / Mark 1:1-8

By now the unmistakable sounds of Christmas music will be dominating the airwaves.

As early as the beginning of November and even before the Orchard Road light-up, Christmas music is heard in supermarkets and shopping malls.

And the repertoire can be anything from party-music “Jingle Bells” to the holier “Little Town of Bethlehem”.

For those of us (like myself) who are from the CD era when we collected music on compact discs, we would be taking out those discs and playing our favourite Christmas songs or converting them to MP3.

And it is a nice, warm, sentimental feeling, hearing those songs. After all, it is only at this time of the year that we play this kind of music.

And these Christmas songs are like the evergreens of holly and pine. We don’t seem to get tired of hearing them. I too, have my favourite collection of Christmas songs, I play them year after year, I am so familiar with them but I still love to hear them over and over again.

But more than just a nice, warm sentimental feeling, these Christmas songs bring about some reflection and reminiscing.

They give a portrait of how we have celebrated, or survived, past Christmases, and they also prepare us for a Christmas that is to come, 14 more days, to be exact.

Maybe there is a voice in those Christmas carols or songs, a voice that reminds us of the past as well as reminds us that there is a future.

In the 1st reading, as the people of God lived in the wilderness of exile, the prophet Isaiah is the voice of God as he spoke these words, “Console my people, console them” says your God. Speak to the heart of Jerusalem and call to her that her time of service is ended, that her sin is atoned for, that she has received from the hand of the Lord double punishment for all her crimes.

The consoling voice of the prophet brings the Word of God to His people, and the voice of consolation also gives a direction: Prepare in the wilderness a way for the Lord. Make a straight highway for our God across the desert.

So, in the wilderness of exile where life is as barren as the desert, the Lord consoles His people and promises to bring them home. They just have to prepare themselves by making a straight highway for the Lord to bring them out of the land of exile and back to their homeland.

In the gospel, in the beginning of the Good News about Jesus Christ, the Son of God, it declared that God is going to send a messenger and he will prepare the way for His people. 

John the Baptist was the messenger and his voice cries out in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

But his call for repentance is also with a voice of consolation that though the past was in sin, the future is salvation.

It is the voice of consolation that gave the people their hope in God’s Word, and in repentance they turned towards salvation.

Over the past week, I had the privilege to be the voice of consolation for two people.

One was to a lady who, six months ago, was diagnosed with lung cancer. Six months ago, when she came to see me and talked about her situation, she raised this question: Will I do her funeral?

It was a difficult question but I knew I had to give her a reply and so I said yes. It brought her much consolation, but I remembered that I had to ask Jesus to help me fulfill this obligation.

Last Thursday was her funeral and I told her children I had come to fulfill a promise. It was not just my promise to her but the Lord’s promise to her. I can only thank God that I was able to fulfill it.

I told her children that their mother is going to spend her first Christmas in heaven and that consoled them.

On Wednesday evening, I went to visit Fr. John Baptist Tou in the hospital. He was in the ICU and critically ill. The doctors had earlier advised that Fr. Tou may not have much time left.

When I saw him, I too felt that there was not much time left for him, so I administered the Last Rites and I told him, though he was unconscious, to hold on to Jesus’ hand and He will bring him home. 

And I left a picture of the Sacred Heart next to his pillow. He passed on peacefully the next day. The funeral will be on Monday, at the Church of St. Bernadette.

In the wilderness of sickness, the Word of the Lord came upon those two people. Like John the Baptist, I was just the voice that brought them the consolation that they needed.

And like John the Baptist, I also knew that I am just the messenger who must proclaim the Word of God, for the voice of the messenger will fade and disappear but the Word of God will remain.

In this time of Advent, as we hear these Christmas carols, let us also listen to the voice in them. May that voice bring us consolation in the wilderness of our lives so that we will turn to the Word of God and find hope, and in turn let us be messengers of the Word of God and be a voice of consolation for others.