SECOND SUNDAY OF ADVENT

Welcome the Kingdom of Heaven with Repentance
By Enriching Others We Become New Persons

First Reading (Is 11: 1-10); The Kingdom of the Messiah
Second Reading (Rom 15: 4-9): Christ has saved all people
Gospel (Matt 3: 1-12): Repent for the Kingdom of heaven is near
Chinese Classics:
-“If you can one day renovate yourself, do so from day to day. Yea, let there be daily renovation to become new people.” (1)
-“If poor, they attended to their own virtue in solitude; if advanced to dignity, they made the whole world virtuous as well.” (2)

“In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’ This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said, ‘The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” (Ref Mt 3: 1-12)

Who is this John? Scripture describes him as a voice in the wilderness, a loud shout coming from the desert. He called out, he preached, he invited the people. He hoped that every individual could prepare themselves to receive the coming of Christ.

To receive Christ it is not enough to applaud him, welcome him, but one must prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths. In other words, we must change our entire lives and prepare to accept the coming of Christ.

The fundamental concept of repentance is not only remorse, it also must include sorrow and a desire to change.

The Sacrament of Reconciliation or Confession includes five elements: examination of conscience, contrition, willingness to change, telling our sins to the priest and doing the penance the priest gives us. To examine means to reflect, recall, ponder deeply. When we become aware of past misconduct, we are filled with remorse, sadness and sorrow for the deeds we should not have done. But even this sorrow and regret are not enough. We must want to change, be determined to change and make a resolution to change. We must also avoid opportunities for future sin, instead, act as we ought. We then tell our sins to the priest and accept the penance the priest gives us in reparation for all our sins.

This is true repentance: to be remorseful and determined to renew oneself.

John knew that there were some people who might be sorry but would not change, therefore when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming to be baptized, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? If you would repent, bear fruit worthy of repentance.”

To bear good fruit worthy of repentance means we must not only be remorseful and change our ways, we must also bear fruit. John continued, “Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor.’ To only rely on Abraham is of no use. Each individual must be responsible for individual actions, be responsible for his/her own eternal salvation and bear good fruit worthy of repentance.

To welcome the coming of Christ, we should prepare a path or repair the one which is already there. According to the Apostle Paul, to be a Christian means to die with Christ and live with him. We have taken on Christ and thus have become a new person. This is exemplified by a Chinese saying in “The Great Learning.” “If you can one day renovate yourself, do so from day to day. Yea, let there be daily renovation to become new people.”(1) We should repent every day, be renewed daily and change ourselves.

Besides the concept of repentance, John also talked about the kingdom of heaven. He said, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

We should not think that this kingdom of heaven is the same as the heaven we often talk about, ‘after you repent you will go to heaven.’ That was not the purpose of John's preaching. The Prophet Isaiah described this ‘kingdom of heaven’ clearly: “A shoot shall come out from the stock of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. (Is 11: 1-10)

Isaiah was pointing to Christ, the Messiah who was soon to come.

What will it be like when Christ comes, when the time of the Messiah has arrived? Chapter 11 of the Book of Isaiah continues: “The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder's den. They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain.”

This is a picture of the Kingdom of Heaven. We rejoice in the coming of Christ, we welcome the new circumstances - the Kingdom of Heaven - that Christ brings.

But we must build this Kingdom of Heaven together with Christ who invites us to pray daily, “May your Kingdom come.” That is, may all people live according to God's will, may all receive spiritual and physical nourishment, may all people be able to forgive and accept each other. For us who are Christians, that is our belief, our ideal and our direction for life.

But the world we see around us is not like that. What then should we do? Can we continue to live as we do? Will we lose hope?

In the Tang Dynasty Bai Ju Yi wrote, “If poor, they attended to their own virtue in solitude; if advanced to dignity, they made the whole world virtuous as well.”(2) The world we see is not like this but we can prepare ourselves to be God's instruments and workers in the kingdom. When the right time comes along, we can join John the Baptist to become a voice in the wilderness, preaching to the world about repentance and proclaiming the coming of the Kingdom.

We want to tell the world that it really is possible for the wolves and sheep to live together. On God's holy mountain, in the kingdom of heaven, in the new life of humankind, there will no longer be those who sin or harm others. That kind of circumstances really can come about. If we repent and prepare ourselves, if we are willing to make straight the path and bring forth fruit worthy of repentance., all of this is possible.

In the end the Kingdom of Heaven must come.

(1)日日新，又日新，作新民。
(2)窮則獨善其身，達則兼善天下。