Along with the Prophet Isaiah, and our Blessed Mother Mary, St. John the Baptist is one of the central figures of the Advent Scriptures – and on this Second Sunday of Advent we hear about his ministry in our Gospel reading from Saint Matthew.
St. Matthew tells us that “at that time, Jerusalem, all Judea, and the whole region around the Jordan” were going out to see John in the desert. It’s clear that he was no minor figure – John was a major attraction. But I think it’s absolutely essential that we ask ourselves, just why all of these people were going out to see John. What precisely was the attraction? What did people go to see, hear, or experience?
Given the Gospel descriptions of John, and thus the way he is portrayed in art and in popular culture, we might assume that people were going to see a wild and exotic attraction. St. Matthew tells us that “John wore clothing made of camel’s hair and had a leather belt around his waist,” and that “his food was locusts and wild honey.”
So John was indeed quite the character. But were people really going all that way, into the desert, just to have some fun and see a crazy man? We live in a major city – we can well imagine that people could have just stayed in Jerusalem if all they wanted was to find a wild character to amuse them. A good number of those urban characters may even have been street preachers.
But no, the Scriptures make clear, the people went to see John for much more than a freak-show. St. Matthew says the people “were being baptized by John in the Jordan River as they acknowledged their sins.”
People were drawn to the Baptizer because he convicted them of their sins, and preached the nearness of the Kingdom – and friends, it is, in fact, deeply attractive to confess our weakness and sin and to be convinced of the nearness of God’s Kingdom to our lives.
You might be slightly dubious at this point. You might be wondering: Is it really so attractive to admit and confess our sinfulness and failure? Don’t most people prefer to keep such things to themselves so that others are more likely to think highly of them?
But take as an, admittedly extreme, example so many of the television programs of our modern culture. Think of how people of all stripes sit with Barbara Walters, or Jerry Springer, or Oprah Winfrey, and freely and publicly confess the deepest most embarrassing sins of their lives. Years ago, it was MTV’s “The Real World” which took this to a whole new level – installing what they called a “confessional” in their reality TV house, where residents could come and “privately” spill their guts to the anonymous millions watching their lives on TV.
Make no mistake: confessing one’s sinfulness is in fact very attractive to the human psyche. We long to get things off our chests – we long for forgiveness and absolution – we long to know that redemption is possible for us and that our sins and failings don’t have to define us.
And yet sadly, our modern popular culture is only preying on this deep human longing. It offers no real forgiveness, no real chance at redemption. It either tries to convince us that the shame we carry is the real problem – that there is no such thing as sin – or it mocks any thought we might have that sin can be forgiven; that we are not merely defined by our worst failings and weaknesses. It gets a laugh or two out of such people and then casts them aside – on to the next poor victim.
And so, yes, the vast majority of us do indeed fall back into keeping our sense of weakness and sinfulness to ourselves, and find all sorts of ways to avoid confronting ours sinfulness and weakness – and we thereby forfeit any chance of knowing the true peace of forgiveness.
But there is, of course, another way – and this season of Advent and the figure of John the Baptist offer us that way forward. The Baptizer is a central figure of Advent, of the season of the Lord’s coming, because he is “the voice of one crying in the desert, ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight His paths.’”
Advent helps us prepare a way for Christ into our hearts – it helps us make straight what has been curved and twisted inward by sin – and it does so by proposing for us the gift of Confession; the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
Unlike our popular culture, our faith teaches us not to deny or excuse the reality of sin. John the Baptist uses gardening and agricultural images in today’s Gospel. He says that fruitless branches must be cut off and burned, and that the Holy Spirit must separate the wheat from the chaff.
Do we have chaff in our lives? You bet. Do we have fruitless branches? We certainly do.
There are parts of our lives – ways of acting and thinking – that have grown up around the wheat of God’s grace, and they threaten to choke it out. These sins must simply be cut down and burned away. They hold us back from our full growth – they keep us from bearing fruit. Our sins must be acknowledged and confessed.
But also unlike our popular culture, our faith promises us that when we confess our sins in Reconciliation, God gives us the forgiveness and wholeness, the peace and unity, for which we so long. In Reconciliation, the Spirit brings about that peace that Isaiah speaks of, when he says, “the wolf shall be the guest of the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid.” Reconciliation leads us to the unity, of which St. Paul speaks, when he says we will “think in harmony with one another, in keeping with Christ Jesus . . . that we may with one voice . . . glorify God for His mercy.”
Brothers and sisters, the attraction of confessing our sinfulness, and of being assured of God’s mercy and the nearness of His Kingdom, is fulfilled in the Sacrament of Reconciliation!
That’s why I think it’s so very sad that more Catholics don’t go to Confession more often. If I asked the average Catholic parish, if they wanted a way of becoming a more loving and caring person, of building peace in our families and communities, people would all raise their hands. And yet if I asked how many people go to Reconciliation regularly, most of those hands would go down.
I was blessed to truly discover the grace of this great Sacrament when I was in high school. And though, at first, I went to Confession nervous, and with embarrassment and shame, I found that I always left with a feeling of immense relief and deep peace. I began going regularly, and I am convinced that it was in Confession, that I was able to discover God’s will for my life and discern a call to the priesthood. To this day, I try to go to Confession every two or three weeks – and I invite all of you to find the same gift I found:
This coming Saturday our parish will observe “Come Home for Christmas.” All day, from 9:00 in the morning, until the 5:00 evening Mass, Confessions will be heard here in our church – and the parish will gather at noon for a Penance Service. Take advantage of this opportunity to make the Sacrament of Reconciliation a more regular part of your life. Invite a family member, neighbor, or friend who might have strayed from the Church and needs to be welcomed home in a special way. If you’re worried you won’t remember how to go to Confession, or aren’t sure you know how to get the most out of the Sacrament, just ask: the priest can help you.
Brothers and sisters, in this Advent season let us heed the Baptist’s cry and prepare a place in our own hearts for the coming of Christ our Savior.
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