Advent 2 - Year B

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

‘The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” A prophetic voice calls to us from the wilderness, we are unable to see whom the voice belongs to, but we know it is the voice of the Holy Spirit. We are invited to prepare the way of the Lord, to prepare our hearts to receive God, to actively participate in God’s reign on Earth.  Our Creed states that we believe that the Holy Spirit has spoken through the prophets, that God has always been with us, always been in dialogue with us. This act of participation reaches its climax in the incarnation.  God so loves us that he became truly human. When you love someone you want to be with them, we want to be with our loved ones, to understand them, to spend time with them and to strengthen our relationship with them, why should God be any different? We are made in God’s image!  

When we look back through our history especially the Old Testament, we hear the voice of God, teaching us and guiding us through the trials of life. The most evident being the voice of the prophet.  Mark’s Gospel is depicting John the Baptist as the new Elijah, for it was foretold that Elijah would return to herald the coming of the Messiah.  Now, when we look back through the stories of the prophets, we notice that being a prophet did not exactly have desirable outcomes. They were often run out of their homes, left to lead their lives as fugitives, mocked, beaten and even killed. Being a prophet was definitely not for the prestige, it was a heavy burden often gladly but sorrowfully carried. They were the ones who critiqued the system, and held the authorities accountable for their corruption. It was also a humbling role, especially for John the Baptist who proclaimed the coming of someone greater. They never considered themselves better than others, but rather challenging others to be better than they are, often by telling people messages that they didn’t want to hear. Here we see the emergence onto the scene of John the Baptist paralleling Elijah by wearing the same clothes, camel’s hair and eating locusts and honey. John as Elijah is heralding the coming of someone more powerful than he. We the reader, know he is talking about Jesus.

 The voice of John the Baptist still rings true for us today. During the season of Advent we are waiting for the coming of Jesus, waiting for the light to enter the world. During this time we must prepare ourselves, and prepare our hearts for this relationship to occur in its full potential. We are also invited to listen, to hear the voice from unknown origin calling out to us, challenging us. So where do we hear the voice of God today? Where are our prophets? Jesus, born from the woman Mary and became truly human.  He had a human body and a human face; he was both fully human and fully divine. His face would have been unique and unrepeatable, like all humans speaking volumes through his face without speaking any words.  According to Emmanuel Levinas a Jewish Philosopher this is where we hear the voice of God. It is through the face that we are most commonly identified as human; the face in its nakedness conveys vulnerability and authority, saying ‘I am human,’ Do not absorb me into your world’ ‘Do not kill me or take away my otherness’ it commands us to recognise the ‘other.’ If we are made in the image of God, then it makes sense that we encounter God through the face. Just think of the emotion that we convey when we look into our loved ones eyes, or seeing your child’s face for the first time. We keep photo’s of our loved ones in our wallets, so we can gaze at their faces or show others who our loved ones are. Our emotions escape through our face, happiness, sadness, anger and love, although we can try to control it, sometimes they escape without our permission. We also unintentionally mimic others expressions, especially in times of sorrow, it’s like we empathise with others with our entire body.

The face also speaks volumes that we don’t want to hear. Like the prophets. It can challenge and scare us, as well as provide endless comfort. The face is transcendent, the culmination of cosmic processes, unique and unrepeatable, allowing us to hear the voice of God and reminding us that God has over 5 billion faces on this earth.

So how do we hear the voice of God in our everyday lives? How often do we really listen to what people are saying? How often do we hear their challenges or cries of distress? We can’t just listen selectively with our ears, but rather engage with each other fully, listening and hearing to what is said and what has been left unsaid. Theologian Martin Buber recalls a sad and life changing encounter with a student. ‘After a morning of religious enthusiasm, I had a visit from an unknown young man, without being there in spirit. I certainly did not fail to let the meeting be friendly, I did not treat him any more remissly than all his contemporaries who were in the habit of seeking me out about this time of day as an oracle that is ready to listen to reason. I conversed attentively and openly with him-only I omitted to guess the questions which he did not put. Later, not long after, I learned from one of his friends-he was no longer alive-the essential content of these questions; I learned that he had come to me not casually, but borne by destiny, not for a chat but for a decision. He had come to me; he had come in this hour. What do we expect when we are in despair and yet go to a man?’ This experience is what prompted Buber in his writings on the way of response, the relationship between call and response and between the ‘I’ and ‘thou’. How we relate to each other is how we relate to God. That God is forever present in our relationships and forever in dialogue with us. It’s up to us to hear God’s voice and really listen to what others are saying to us.

When we truly engage with the other, when we are face to face, in dialogue, listening to the voice of the other both from their mouth, their eyes and from their bodies, we are encountering God. The space between us is filled with God and our relationships are borne of God. Every time we encounter someone we should stop and remember that we are encountering God.

Practical Theologian Terry Veling talks about an unsettling encounter with a woman on the streets of Jerusalem, that left him with the feeling of a direct connection with the divine.

I recall walking along the streets of Jerusalem. Like other major cities, Jerusalem has many beggars on its streets. It was easy to pass them by, just as I passed by so many other strangers. However, on this particular afternoon, I was suddenly gripped by the face of a woman who was begging, or rather, I felt her gaze. Her face pressed up against me, and against the myriad of other faces in a bustling street. She stood out, singularly, and I felt the “absolute frankness” of her gaze. Though she sat on the cobble-paved street in a pool of squalor – ragged, dirty, nursing an infant, her hand outstretched, pleading, begging, with completely “defenceless eyes” – she nevertheless looked at me with such commanding authority, such “height,” such strength of appeal. She was the destitute one who nevertheless rises above me as the one “for whom I can do all and to whom I woe all.” Though I knew that a handout to an outstretched hand was but a small charity, I nevertheless could not pass her by. I made my way through the crowded street and gave her some money, placing it in her empty hand, and she smiled and said in a language I did not understand, “Thank you.” This incident is undoubtedly small, less than a mite, yet I felt as though in that place, on the streets of Jerusalem, “the Most High” was facing me.

We must prepare our hearts and minds for the coming of the light into the world; we are invited into relationship with a God that loves us so much that he became one of us. Perhaps one of the ways for us to prepare ourselves during advent would be to take time out and reflect on how we can see and hear God through our relationships and through others, both the people we love and the those who we consider undesirable. To always remember the humanity of each and every one of us and the God that we are co-creators with.