2nd Sunday of Advent Year B. By Tobe Eze

2nd Sunday of Advent Year B.

FIRST READING
Isaiah 40:1—5, 9—11

SECOND READING
2 Peter 3:8—14

GOSPEL
Mark 1:1—8

THEME: MAKE THE CROOKED WAY STRAIGHT.

 This call for making the crooked way straight, leveling every hilly areas and so on that appeared in the first reading and the gospel can only touch us very well when we apply what St. Peter said in the second reading that, “ten thousand years are like a day before God and we do not know that day of the Lord.” It is the spirit of there time that devil uses to deceive us that think always that the day of the Lord is ten thousand years coming, it just like a day. Our days of the Lord are differently. Onye na nke ya. Continue Reading.......................

It is obvious that we know that the way we are talking about is not the local road(s) in our different communities but the ways of our hearts. One man stopped making effort when he heard from the gospel in the church that the rich shall become richer and poor shall become poorer. He concluded that he cannot be rich again. Some of us may act like the man and go about mending roads in our communities. It is not evil to mend our roads but what we are stressing is the inward roads.

John the Baptist was mending many roads in the gospel through baptism. How do you mend your own road? Is it only your own should be made straight? Some of us are busy preparing for Christmas and we are forgetting Christ who owns the mass. Because of that sense of the main thing that has left us, we behaviour like one man. Two men were going on the way, as they were going, they were stopping bus. Eventually, a bus came but only one space was remaining. One of them out ran the other and entered the bus. The man other man who did not enter started laughing uncontrollably. When he was asked why was laughing. He told them that he went to the other man's house, that he was escorting how or seeing him off and he was the one who entered the bus. This is what happens to us almost every year. We prepare our homes, buy new things and many other things we do in preparation for Christmas but we run away from the essential one. John the Baptist made many crooked ways straight, both his own and others. Some of us these days are more interested in their own and forget that whatsoever we do to the least of Christ brother that we do unto him. John was in the wilderness suffering himself not for only himself but for all. Can we these days endure a little suffering just because of our brethren? It was not easy for John in the wilderness but he had to do that because of the love of the people. Can that love be seen in us today? That love and sacrifice are the things that will help us to make necessary preparations and making the crooked way straight. The way is in us and the kind love and sacrifice that John showed in the gospel are required of us.

The readings are calling us to have a rethink and make decisions that are for our own good both spiritual and temporal. The best way to celebrate Christmas is celebrating it with the Lord, in the Lord and for the Lord. Seek first the kingdom of God and every other thing shall be added unto you. Seek the goodness of others, pray for other and most importantly forgive others their sins against you and the Christmas will be the best you have ever celebrated. THANKS AND HAPPY SUNDAY.