Blessed Second Sunday of Advent, my friends! The Scriptures today introduce us to John the Baptist. Christians see him as the last of the Old Testament prophets and the great Forerunner of the Christ. John comes to announce the coming Savior and the Kingdom He will inaugurate. The Gospels give the clear impression that many first-century Jews were expecting this coming Kingdom to be an earthly reality—something like the glorious kingdom of Israel under David. That united kingdom, in its full conception, was incredibly short-lived. The twelve tribes were briefly united under Saul, and then a civil war broke out with the House of David. David eventually reunited the tribes and the kingdom remained united under his son Solomon. After Solomon’s death it fractured permanently: the ten northern tribes became Israel (later called Samaria after its capital), while Judah and Benjamin remained as the southern kingdom of Judah. In time, the northern kingdom was destroyed by Assyria, and eventually Judah was exiled to Babylon—though a remnant later returned under Persian rule. The glorious Davidic kingdom, as it once existed, never returned. By the time of Jesus, “King” Herod was merely a client ruler under Roman authority; the people never truly regarded him or his heirs as legitimate successors to David’s throne. The golden age of the Davidic kingdom did not return.

While some longed for the restoration of that earthly political reality, the Kingdom proclaimed by Jesus is primarily an interior one that leads to eternal life. Conversion—metanoia, a complete change of heart and mind—is the path to eternity. On this Second Sunday of Advent, the Baptist calls us to that conversion and urges us to “prepare the way of the Lord.” The imagery is one of massive transformation: mountains leveled, valleys filled, crooked paths made straight. Make a highway for the Lord who is coming! The Gospels are given to enlighten our path in this life and to equip us with the eyes and heart to live already in eternity. Christianity is not merely “pie in the sky when you die.” It is about living in this world in such a way that we are constantly mindful of the next. The essential challenge is the transformation of attitude and action.

Disciples acknowledge that the Master does the heavy lifting: we are saved by Jesus and sanctified by the Holy Spirit. Yet our role in the drama of redemption is not passive. We walk the proverbial narrow path between living the Gospel radically and avoiding sin—both the active evils (the traditional seven: pride, envy, anger, sloth, gluttony, avarice, and lust) and the passive evils of self-absorption and indifference that make us incapable of truly loving one another as Jesus loved us. Prepare the way of the Lord! Blessed Second Sunday of Advent, fellow disciples and seekers!