Readings: Isaiah 11:1-10; Romans 15:4-9; Matthew 3:1-12
Theme: ‘A Future without Hope is like a Night without Stars’
By Michael McCabe, SMA
Many of you, I’m sure, have seen Franco Zeffirelli’s great movie, Jesus of Nazareth. Since I first saw it over 40 years ago, a line from the movie has remained with me: ‘A future without hope is like a night without stars’. It is spoken by Yehuda, the rabbi, as he looks forward to the birth of the Messiah. Hope is the dominant theme of our scripture readings on this second Sunday of Advent, and it is the context in which we must situate the urgent cry of John the Baptist in today’s gospel to ‘prepare a way for the Lord, make his paths straight’ (Mt 3:3).
The liturgy of Advent has been described as one continuous song of hope. The spirit of Advent is admirably summed up in one of the season’s typical antiphons: ‘Lift up you eyes, Jerusalem, and see the power of the King. Behold the Saviour comes. He will free you from your bonds.’ But what is hope? It is best described a positive attitude of trust and expectancy for the future, an attitude that gives us confidence and energy. In the words of the English poet Emily Dickinson, ‘Hope is the thing with feathers/That perches in the soul’. Hope lifts us up. It encourages us to change ourselves and our world for the better.
While hope is the opposite of cynicism and despair, it is not fooolishly optimistic; it is not naive about human life or blind to the reality of evil in our world. However, a hopeful attitude is only possible in an imperfect situation, a situation in need of, and open to change, a world where the future can be better than the past. If the world were already perfect, there would be no point in hope. On the other hand, if the world is simply going from bad to worse, there is no room for hope. This is why we must resist the prophets of Doom and there are a lot of them around at the present time. They are not just killjoys. More seriously, they are killers of hope.
Christianity is essentially a religion of hope. It envisages a better and brighter future for all humanity – indeed, for the entire order of creation. This hope is based on God’s coming to dwell among us to heal, redeem, and transform our lives. The people of Israel believed that this hope to be realised with the advent of the Messiah. Israel’s messianic hope is movingly expressed in today’s first reading from the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah, who lived about 700 years before the birth of Christ. gives us an inspired vision of the Messiah as a holy and peaceful King, ‘who will judge the poor with justice and decide in favour of the land’s afflicted’ (Is 11:4). He will put an end to wars and conflicts, and bring lasting peace, a peace that extends beyond the frontiers of humanity to the world of nature: ‘The wolf lives with the lamb, the panther lies down with the kid, calf and lion feed together, with a young child to lead them’ (Is 11:6).
The word that Isaiah uses to express this hopeful vision of a world at peace is ‘shalom’. It is a word with a much greater breadth and depth of meaning than we normally give to the term ‘peace’. It signifies, as the images from today’s first reading suggest, not merely the absence of war or violence, but the universal presence of harmony and integrity – a world of restored relationships at every level. So we proclaim joyfully in the words of today’s responsorial psalm: ‘In his days justice shall flourish and peace till the moon fails’ (Ps 71:7).
As disciples of Jesus we believe that, with the first coming of Jesus Christ, God’s reign of justice and peace has taken root in human history. In Christ, God has come closer to us than we could ever have imagined. His only begotten Son became one with us. He suffered, died and rose again to unite us to one another and to the Father. Our hope for ‘a new heaven and a new earth’ (Rev 21:1) is now centred on Jesus and on what God has done, and is doing, in and through him. So, while we still live in a world that is far from the peace envisioned by Isaiah, we must not lose heart. As St Paul reminds us in our second reading today, ‘Everything that was written long ago in the scriptures was meant to teach us something about hope from the examples scripture gives of how people who did not give up were helped by God’ (Rom 15:4).
Our hope in Christ is a hope that looks beyond the often tragic circumstances of our lives. It is a hope based ultimately on his resurrection, and therefore a hope for new life rising from the ashes of death and decay. This hope is not bound by the limits of what we can achieve by our own efforts. Even when we feel that we are getting nowhere and are tempted to give up, God never gives up on us. He is the ever faithful God, whose Spirit enables to model our lives on the example of Jesus Christ and, by our commitment to the promotion of justice, mercy and love, to keep hope alive in our struggling world.
Listen to an alternative audio Homily by Tom Casey, SMA: