Jijo Kandamkulathy, CMF
Claretian Publications, Macau
Lk 3:1-6
2nd Sunday of Advent – Year C
The gospel today presents the beginning of the preaching ministry of John the Baptist after the pattern of the Old Testament prophets. My thoughts are magnetized to the description of his personality. John is just a voice. Why would someone be referred to as a voice? It is a narrative to give ultimate significance to the voice and its content without getting interfered with by the figure of the person. The voice will vanish after the utterance without leaving a trace in the place. John goes without leaving a trace. The one to leave a trace is the one who comes after him, the Messiah.
The location of his preaching, the desert, is also significant. The desert experience of Israel at Sinai and of Jesus after his baptism are vivid in our minds. It is a lonely place, where one is in company with only oneself. All the conversations will take place inside oneself rather than with another person. In those lonely moments, all demons and angels inside us will display themselves in full plume with all their attractions. The desert experience forces one to discern and find one’s core.
Israel was tempted in the desert. They made their gods, desired slavery more than freedom in the Lord, rejected the God who saved them, and rebelled against him there. A generation of Israelites fell into the traps of that desert. Why would John invite people to such a desert for conversion? So it is not the tempting desert that John calls us to but the desert of discernment.
Jesus was tested in the desert too. He was tempted so much as to make stones into bread, tempted with the futility of the suffering, and was tempted to be vainglorious and powerful. But he discerned his thoughts and listened to the voice of the Lord rather than temporary consolation or advantages. In the desert, he won that temptation and all the temptations to follow in the desert of the rest of his life.
The desert experience was also a formative period of Israel. The disobedient and the rebellious among them did not make it to the promise. God made his covenant with Israel, and they pledged that they would have only one God and obey all his laws. John reminds us to go to the desert to make discernment and renew lives, prepare for the covenant to be sealed by the blood of Christ. He prepares the way of the Lord, inviting us to level the mountains and fill the valleys. He prepares a straight path for the Lord. The quote from Isaiah is one of hope, and the prophet does not seem to intend any spiritual meaning to the levelling of the hills and filling up of the valleys. When John quotes them, they reach a symbolic meaning of levelling the hills in our spiritual realms that prevent the entry of the Lord. The valleys become spiritual vacuums that have not been bridged.
John’s voice in the desert to level the hills and fill the valleys is an invitation to recreate the spiritual atmosphere within us. Some hills are created by stagnation; some counter stagnation with false optimism. When asked, “How are you?” they respond with “Great” out of courtesy while they are still languishing or dull on many fronts. It is “toxic positivity,” as Adams Grant puts it, covering up one’s real emotions with repeated lies. Some develop risky dams by cutting the flow of life. They pent up emotional forces by preventing them from flowing into others without sublimation or diversion. Some are in the valleys of depression, finding nothing to fill the chasm. John’s gospel asks to level the hills, fill the valleys, and perhaps divert the dams. That is the secret to recapture the joy of the Lord.
But how does one do it? Connecting with one’s inner self and finding the inner propensity for joy is the right start. It requires also discovering and removing toxic positivity and depressing denials. Finally, start identifying one’s vulnerabilities and fault lines, and fortify them with the right relationship with God and neighbors.
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