There are really only three full weeks of Advent this year, given the way the calendar falls. Christmas Eve will follow hard on the heals of the 4th Sunday of Advent, December 23!
Use your time well!
     There is no uncertainty or hesitation in the words of the prophet in our First Reading this weekend. He is serious, and God is serious! Neither Baruch nor God denies that there is mourning or misery in this world, or in our own lives in particular. It is clear, however, that God’s plan and God’s grace address both mourning and misery so as to free us from the grip of their power. And it is not “some” power in the abstract from which we are released, but from denigrating or destructive power precisely as it is in or effective upon our lives, specifically.

     Simply God against evil could have been fashioned as a battle in very general terms. God chose, instead, to enter into the fray that is ours, by entering into the very particular circumstances of human living, the Word of God made Flesh. Luke’s Gospel makes clear that both John the Baptist, the Messiah’s Herald, and the Messiah, Jesus himself have a very human lineage, true roots in our human experience. But, if DNA “tests” are advertised all over the place by which we are offered a better understanding or appreciation of who we are by means of their product, the Scriptures opened up to us this weekend have claimed for generations to offer us a way. It is a way to better understand and appreciate who we are not by knowing who our human ancestors were but by knowing more fully who our Creator is and who our Redeemer is.

     We can ask how God address us, in the flesh, because Jesus is God’s Word made Flesh. How does God address me in the anxieties of work and family, of satisfying friends, teachers, parents, and coaches? How does God address me in the pain of my illness, and worse, in the pain of the illness of someone I love? How does God address me in the uncertainties, frustrations, and disappointments that affect my life, at the local, Church, national, and international level? Because of the roads Jesus trod, what does it look like when “the roads shall be made straight and the rough ways smooth?” Lk 3: 6