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Friends,
today St. Matthew compels us to come to grips with the great Advent
figure of John the Baptist. It’s really impossible to grasp the
significance of Jesus without passing through the cleansing bath of John
the Baptist. He provides a lens through which Jesus is properly
interpreted.
John,
Matthew tells us, made his appearance as a preacher in the desert of
Judea. Deserts are places of simplicity and poverty, places where
distractions and attachments are eliminated—and hence where the voice of
God can be heard. Wealth, pleasure, power, honor—and all of their
avatars and priests—are shouting at us, luring us, tempting us. But what
is God saying? We have to go to these silent and deserted places in
order to hear.
What
is the first thing that the prophet says? “Reform your lives!” This
word cuts to the heart of every one of us, precisely because we all know
that our lives are not where they are supposed to be. We have all
fallen short of the glory of God; we have all fallen into patterns of
self-absorption and addiction. So let us hear John’s word today:
“Repent!”
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