THE WORD THIS WEEK

By Bishop David McGough
Second Sunday of Advent
Isaiah 11: 1-10; Romans 15: 4-9; Matthew 3: 1-12 4 E verything that was written long ago in the
scriptures was meant to teach us something about hope from the examples scripture gives us of how people who did not give up were helped by God."
St Paul's words of encouragement to the Church in Rome ground our prayer in the hope that Advent proclaims. Unlike a merely human hope that lacks confidence in its own fulfilment, Christian hope has a sure foundation. It is rooted in the God who is with those who struggle, the God whose saving power assures our hope.
During Advent the Scriptures set before us the pattern of Christian hope. We are taken back to our beginnings and reminded of the graciousness that brought us into being. Our lives are not condemned to a resigned mediocrity that stifles our longing for God, our longing for a better world.
Long ago the prophet Isaiah spoke to the broken hopes of Jerusalem. He spoke to a people that had wandered far from their beginnings, who had become strangers in the presence of God. More importantly, he spoke to a dispirited people. They could no longer hope, no longer believe that they could reach beyond their sinful indifference. Faced with this inability to hope in a future of God's making, the prophet Isaiah reminded the people of their beginning.
"A shoot springs from the stock of Jesse, a scion thrusts from his roots." Jerusalem's glorious history had begun when David, the son Jesse, had been chosen and anointed as king. While it remained true that both David, and many of his successors, failed to respond to God's promise, nevertheless, the God who had called them at the beginning would be the same God who would lead them into the future. The faithfulness that they could not find in themselves, God himself would establish in the future Messiah, the Christ upon whom the spirit of the Lord would rest.
Advent calls us to the same hope. When we remember our beginnings, the gift of life and the grace of our baptism, we are called to renewed faith. The future does not rest with the indifference that our sinfulness sometimes engenders. Our hope for the future is to be found in the God who blessed is at our beginning, the Father who calls us to hope in the Christ who has come and will come again.
We see the same pattern in John the Baptist. The very appearance of John the Baptist took the people back to their beginnings. In the wilderness God had known and loved his people. A relationship, once so close, had grown cold as the people settled into the land, as infidelity overwhelmed the immediacy of God's presence. John came from that original wilderness, that original intimacy with God, to call a people back. Repentance, the acknowledgment of sin, would be the first step into renewed hope. The sure basis for this hope would be found in the Christ who would follow John the Baptist, who would baptise them with the Holy Spirit and fire.
A tired and cynical world grows weary of hope. John the Baptist calls us to repentance. Our repentance is something more than a resigned and sterile regret for past transgressions. Our repentance turns to the Holy Spirit, whose fire purifies our hearts. whose power at work within us is the sure foundation for God's future. This is our Advent hope.