Gospel reflection for Dec. 8, 2024, Second Sunday of Advent
The wilderness always looms large in the ministry of Jesus. Israel is a narrow strip of land wedged between the Mediterranean Sea and the Judean wilderness. The desert served as the conduit for caravans of traders and the wayfarers passage between the Galilee and Judea. The dangers along the desert road, its starkness, total darkness, and temperature fluctuation lived deep within their imaginations. It is from the wilderness that John the Baptizer emerged proclaiming a new time in salvation history. John called out from the wilderness and the prophet Isaiah envisioned the desert itself being transformed in the coming Kingdom of God.
In a very real sense the topography of Israel mirrors our spiritual journey throughout life. The mountains in the north, which are surprisingly snow-capped in the winter, gives way to the lust valley to the west and the desert to the east, leading south to the exposed rift valley below Jerusalem towards the Dead Sea, the lowest land point on the earth.
Through all of this runs the Jordan River, which begins in the fresh waters of the Sea of Galilee and ends in the Dead Sea, a briny mass of water, in which no fish are able to live.
One of the great anomalies of the desert is the presence of an oasis. There, in the midst of hard rocky soil, blowing sands, and often the scorching sun, lies a lush patch of land with a flowing spring of water.
Our lives follow such a pattern, especially in our relationship with the Lord. There are moments of ecstasy standing atop the mountain, the quiet serene moments by the shore, the beauty of the rolling hills of farmland, the bustle of the city, and the uncertainty of the desert.
Perhaps this is why God chose this small strip of land, no bigger than New Hampshire, as the promised land, the home of his people. For it is there that one can experience the passage of life in a few short hours.
In a spiritual sense the desert can be a scary place. The seeming absence of God in our lives, knowing full well the peacefulness of his presence, can lead to frustration and, sadly, even to doubt.
As a desert continually cries out for nourishment, so do we in our spiritual struggles seek refreshment; we desire to be nourished.
Among the many marvelous aspects of nature is the constancy of change. We are always attuned to the familiarity of our local climate, and so connected to it, that it is almost a part of our interior psyche. When we experience changes, and certainly the dramatic changes we see presently, it becomes unsettling and often even fearful.
The desert longs for change. The Judean Wilderness, as with much of the Levant, was once a rich land, teeming with vegetation and life. The changes in the climate some ten thousand years ago have left us with the starkness of the present, though memories of the vibrancy of the past remain.
Like the desert, when we find ourselves in the throes of a spiritual wilderness, we remember the times we spent on the mountaintop, by the sea, and in the rolling valleys. It is in the wilderness that we cry out and long for the nourishment we need to experience again the merciful presence of God.
The people at the time of Jesus were longing — in their own spiritual wilderness — for God to act to save them and bring the land back to them.
The Kingdom of God is always both immediate and distant from us. We long for the Kingdom, we experience a foretaste of that kingdom, but it remains elusive from us in this life.
Advent reminds us that the wilderness does not last forever. Even if we are dry now; feeling desolate now; or perhaps even at the point of despair, the merciful presence of God is close at hand, with the promise of the eternal kingdom to come.
Father Garry Koch is pastor of St. Benedict Parish, Holmdel.