Second Sunday of Advent
Is 11:1-10; Rom 15:4-9; Mt 3:1-12 (Year A)
"Everything that was written long ago in the scriptures was meant to teach us something about hope …”
The concluding words of St Paul’s Letter to the Romans invite us to hope in the coming of Christ, whose salvation had transformed his life. As the days of Advent unfold, we could learn much about ourselves, and our need for God, from an honest examination of the hopes that drive our lives.
Isaiah’s magnificent vision of the coming Messiah, the “shoot that would spring from Jesse”, brought new hope to a people whose misplaced hopes had brought the nation to the brink of extinction. The promised Messiah would become the incarnation of all that Israel had hoped to become, but through sin had failed to. He would, above all, rest in the Spirit of the Lord, a Spirit that knew nothing of worldly ambition or superficial appearance. His passion would be for truth and justice rather than hearsay’s destructive judgments. “He does not judge by appearances, he gives no verdict on hearsay, but judges the wretched with integrity, and with equity gives a verdict for the poor of the land.”
