Friday of Week 2 of Advent – First Reading

Commentary on Isaiah 48:17-19

In a passage where Second Isaiah speaks of King Cyrus being chosen as God’s instrument to liberate his people from Babylon and enable them to return to their homeland, we have today’s short reading—a new prophecy inserted in the text. It is a reflection on what the destiny of Israel might have been if she had remained faithful to God’s calling. The sufferings of the Exile are seen by the writer as a punishment that Israel largely deserved.

If the Israelites had remained faithful, their:

…prosperity would have been like a river
and…success like the waves of the sea…

These are symbols of free-flowing abundance. If they had remained faithful, they would have enjoyed the promises made long ago by Yahweh. Instead of being a dwindling remnant:

…your offspring would have been like the sand
and your descendants like its grains…

This is reminiscent of prophecies made to Abraham by Yahweh, such as:

I will indeed bless you, and I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of their enemies… (Gen 22:17)

It is a promise that goes right through the Bible, especially in Deuteronomy and in the sayings of the prophets.

Listening to God is the theme running through both readings today. In the Gospel, we will see Jesus upbraiding the people for listening neither to John the Baptist, who preached a message of austerity, nor to Jesus, who brings a message of compassion and inclusiveness.

In our celebration of Christmas, let us look at ourselves and our response to the call of Jesus which we are hearing all during this Advent period. To ‘hear’ in the Gospel implies total acceptance and assimilation of what we hear, and incorporating that message in our daily lives.

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Friday of Week 2 of Advent – Gospel

Commentary on Matthew 11:16-19

Today’s readings are about listening to what God is saying to us. The Gospel reading follows immediately on yesterday’s passage about John the Baptist as the one preparing the way for the Messiah. It ended with the words:

Let anyone with ears listen! (Matt 11:15)

So in today’s reading, Jesus upbraids the crowds for not listening. He compares them to children in the market place who complain to their playmates:

We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;
we wailed, and you did not mourn.

Thus, when:

…John came neither eating nor drinking…they say, ‘He has a demon’…

On the other hand when:

…the Son of Man came eating and drinking…they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners’!

If we do not want to hear what God is saying to us through the people and situations in our life, we can so easily rationalise and reject the bearer’s frailty, and in the process reject the gospel as well—which is actually quite illogical. “A priest shouted at me in confession, so I don’t go to church any more.” It would be like rejecting democracy because of the corruption of a democratically elected official.

We do need to distinguish very clearly between the central vision of the Kingdom which Jesus left to us, and the ways in which that vision has been lived out through the centuries. It was Paul who said a long time ago that we Christians carry the message of the gospel in vessels of clay, easily broken, often leaking. It is important for us to realise that God can and does speak to us through very unexpected media and agents. It is probably true to say that some of the greatest saints had serious weaknesses. In fact, many of them became saints because of their weaknesses and through their weaknesses (see 2 Cor 12:7-10, where Paul thanks God for working through his weaknesses).

It is important, as Jesus urges us, that we really try to listen to the essence of what Jesus left us, his vision of the Kingdom. Very few of us hear the message without some form of filtering due to our history or our personal idiosyncrasies. It’s been said that, when a preacher preaches to 20 people, 20 different messages are heard. And there is nothing wrong with that, provided each one of us really tries to hear what God is saying, and we do not immediately push away something we do not like to hear.

The passage is nicely summed up in the last phrase:

Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.

Jesus is the embodiment of the Wisdom of God. Jesus needs no justification beyond the results of his life shown in all that he said and did, especially with the ultimate manifestation of love shown on the Cross. The same can be true for each one of us.

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