[Catholic Caucus] The Sacred Page: “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at Hand!” Readings for the Second Sunday of Advent

Every year on this, the Second Sunday of Advent and thus the second Sunday of the new liturgical year, the brash and burly figure of the Baptist bursts onto the liturgical stage, bellowing his characteristic charge, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!”

As we know, the First Sunday of Advent is always given to reflection on the Second Coming of Christ and the end of the world whereas the Second and Third Sundays always focuses on John the Baptist, one of the most pivotal yet underappreciated figures in salvation history. In the context of this liturgy, the Baptist is the voice of Holy Mother Church, calling us to repentance, humility, and mortification as a preparation to worthily receive Jesus Christ, who comes to us in the Eucharist.

On that day, a shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse,
and from his roots a bud shall blossom.
The spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him:
a spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
a spirit of counsel and of strength,
a spirit of knowledge and of fear of the LORD,
and his delight shall be the fear of the LORD.
Not by appearance shall he judge,
nor by hearsay shall he decide,
but he shall judge the poor with justice,
and decide aright for the land's afflicted.
He shall strike the ruthless with the rod of his mouth,
and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked.
Justice shall be the band around his waist,
and faithfulness a belt upon his hips.
Then the wolf shall be a guest of the lamb,
and the leopard shall lie down with the kid;
the calf and the young lion shall browse together,
with a little child to guide them.
The cow and the bear shall be neighbors,
together their young shall rest;
the lion shall eat hay like the ox.
The baby shall play by the cobra's den,
and the child lay his hand on the adder's lair.
There shall be no harm or ruin on all my holy mountain;
for the earth shall be filled with knowledge of the LORD,
as water covers the sea.
On that day, the root of Jesse,
set up as a signal for the nations,
the Gentiles shall seek out,
for his dwelling shall be glorious.

This reading from Isaiah is one of the truly great Messianic prophecies in all of Scripture. In fact, in the Office of Readings for the Liturgy of Hours, Isaiah 11 is skipped from it’s expected order during the semi-continuous reading of Isaiah for Advent and reserved to be read on Christmas Day itself!

Why is this oracle of the prophet Isaiah so important? Because it summarizes so effectively the several dimensions of the role and ministry of the Messiah: he will be a “new David” reigning over a new kingdom (Isa 11:1-5), a “new Adam” presiding over a new creation (vv.6-9), and finally a “new Moses” leading a new Exodus (vv. 10-15).

Let’s recall the historical situation: Isaiah is prophesying in the late eighth and early seventh centuries BC in Judah, while the Assyrian Empire was destroying the northern kingdom of Israel and at one point, around the year 700 BC, conquered the entire kingdom of Judah except for the capital, Jerusalem. Despite some of the good things King Hezekiah was able to do religiously and politically, it was by and large a dark time when the fortunes of God’s people seemed on an irreversible downward slope, yet in the midst of this, the prophet sees a vision of the glorious renewal of the dynasty of David and the fortunes of the people of God.

A new king will arise from the line of David: “a shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse.” This is a poetic way of referring the house (i.e., dynasty) of David, whose father was Jesse (1 Sam 16:1). He will resemble Solomon because God’s Spirit of Wisdom will rest on him: “The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, a spirit of wisdom and understanding…” This calls to mind Solomon, the author of Proverbs, and fount of the whole Wisdom Literature tradition (1 Kgs 10:23-24). His one weapon will be his Word: “He will strike the ruthless with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked.”

This is the background for the image of Jesus, with a sword extended from his mouth in Revelation 1:16, and possibly related to St. Paul’s image of the Word of God as a sword in Ephesians 6:17and elsewhere. Jesus slays sinners by the Word of the Gospel, which puts them to death in the waters of Baptism and raises them to life as completely different beings, children of God!

If the first five verses (Isa 11:1-5) are dominated by the theme of “new David—new kingdom,” in verse 6 the imagery changes to that of the Garden of Eden:

Then the wolf shall be a guest of the lamb,
and the leopard shall lie down with the kid;
the calf and the young lion shall browse together,
with a little child to guide them…

There shall be no harm or ruin on all my holy mountain;
for the earth shall be filled with knowledge of the LORD,
as water covers the sea.

This is a return to the original peace of the Garden of Eden, expressed in the primordial vegetarianism that characterized man and beast (Gen 1:30). The “little child” in verse 7 is probably originally just a part of the symbolism of peace but spiritually could be taken as an image of the Christ child, who “presided” over the animals in the cave of his birth, making that little spot of Bethlehem a new kind of Eden on thee night of his Incarnation. The “holy mountain” is a tradition that goes back to Eden, which was not just a garden but a mountain with a garden on top (Ezek 28:13-14), Later in salvation history, Zion, the mountain of Jerusalem, became identified as a new Eden, a new mountain in which God dwelt. In the New Testament, Mount Zion becomes the Church (Heb 12:18-23).

The third and final section of this oracle is Isaiah 11:10-15, of which we only get the first verse in our reading: “On that day, the root of Jesse, set up as a signal for the nations, the Gentiles shall seek out, for his dwelling shall be glorious.”

The oracle gets complicated, but it resolves in the last verse with clear new Exodus imagery:

The LORD shall dry up the tongue of the Sea of Egypt,
and wave his hand over the Euphrates with his fierce wind,
And divide it into seven streamlets,
so that it can be crossed in sandals. (v. 15)

So, as God raised up Moses of old to take Israel out of Egypt by crossing the Red Sea, so now God will raise up the “shoot of Jesse”—that is, the same Davidic King promised at the beginning of the oracle (vv. 1-5)—and he will lead the survivors of Israel back across the Euphrates, the river that separated Israel and her neighbors from Assyria, the evil empire that had exiled the northern tribes to distant locations.

Jesus is our new David, our new King who rules over the Church and over all the nations, as we celebrated not long ago at the Feast of Christ the King. He rules in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, causing us the obey him out of love and more willingly and with greater fervor than any human king has been obeyed. Jesus is our New Adam, who brings us back to Eden by granting us access to the fruit of the Tree of Life in the Eucharist and the waters of the River of Life in Baptism so that we may eat and drink and live forever. Jesus is our New Moses, who leads us out of slavery to sin and Satan. He guides us across the river of Baptism into the freedom of the sons of God, making a home for us on the new Mount Zion, the Church, his Mystical Body and Temple.

R. (cf. 7) Justice shall flourish in his time, and fullness of peace for ever.

O God, with your judgment endow the king,
and with your justice, the king's son;
he shall govern your people with justice
and your afflicted ones with judgment.
R. Justice shall flourish in his time, and fullness of peace for ever.

Justice shall flower in his days,
and profound peace, till the moon be no more.
May he rule from sea to sea,
and from the River to the ends of the earth.
R. Justice shall flourish in his time, and fullness of peace for ever.

For he shall rescue the poor when he cries out,
and the afflicted when he has no one to help him.
He shall have pity for the lowly and the poor;
the lives of the poor he shall save.
R. Justice shall flourish in his time, and fullness of peace for ever.

May his name be blessed forever;
as long as the sun his name shall remain.
In him shall all the tribes of the earth be blessed;
all the nations shall proclaim his happiness.
R. Justice shall flourish in his time, and fullness of peace for ever.

This psalm is really quite important in the structure and theology of the Psalter. It falls near the midpoint of the Psalter, and is the emotional and spiritual high point of the Psalter until we get to the rousing finale of the book in Psalms 146—150. Psalm 72 is the last psalm of Book II of the Psalms, and it presents itself as a prayer of David for God’s blessing on the reign of his son Solomon. We can see how the themes of divinely-blesses reign are so similar here with those of our First Reading. David called down all these blessings on Solomon, and to a large degree, they were fulfilled during Solomon’s reign according to 1 Kings 4. But even Solomon eventually died, so his “fullness of peace” did not last “forever.”

In fact, in the Psalter, this psalm, with its beautiful picture of the glory of Solomon’s reign, is followed immediately by Book III of the Psalter, which begins in great distress as the wicked prosper (Ps 73) and ends with the destruction of the kingdom of David (Ps 89:39-53). It is almost as if the Book of Psalms itself is pointing out how fleeting were the blessings of Solomon and how quickly thee glory of his reign was eclipsed. Solomon was great, but he was not thee perfect and eternal king for whom Psalm 72 calls. For that, we need a son of David who can conquer death and live forever.

Brothers and sisters:
Whatever was written previously was written for our instruction,
that by endurance and by the encouragement of the Scriptures
we might have hope.
May the God of endurance and encouragement
grant you to think in harmony with one another,
in keeping with Christ Jesus,
that with one accord you may with one voice
glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Welcome one another, then, as Christ welcomed you,
for the glory of God.
For I say that Christ became a minister of the circumcised
to show God's truthfulness,
to confirm the promises to the patriarchs,
but so that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy.
As it is written:
Therefore, I will praise you among the Gentiles
and sing praises to your name.

Themes from the Messianic oracle of Isaiah echo in St Paul’s epistle. When Paul calls the early Christians “to think in harmony with one another,…that with one accord you may with one voice glorify…God,” he is calling the Church to be that peaceable mountain of Isaiah’s vision, where all the wild animals could lie down together. Indeed, in ancient Jewish literature (e.g., the “Animal Apocalypse” of 1 Enoch 83—90), the Gentiles were portrayed as different species of wild animals. The Church should be pervaded by peace among her members because she is the new Eden.

Furthermore, Isaiah saw the “shoot of Jesse” becoming a “signal for the nations”—a better translation might be “a banner or ensign for the nations,” that is, a flag or standard around which people or troops rally. The point is, the Son of David shall become a rallying-point for the Gentiles, one around whom they gather together and leave aside their differences. St. Paul sees this fulfilled in the Church already in his lifetime, as the Church of Rome was already filled with Gentiles from many different ethnic groups, together with the Jews, gathered around Jesus the Son of David present to them in the Eucharist.

John the Baptist appeared, preaching in the desert of Judea and saying, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!" It was of him that the prophet Isaiah had spoken when he said:
A voice of one crying out in the desert,
Prepare the way of the Lord,
make straight his paths.

John wore clothing made of camel's hair and had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey. At that time Jerusalem, all Judea, and the whole region around the Jordan were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the Jordan River as they acknowledged their sins.

When he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance. And do not presume to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' For I tell you, God can raise up children to Abraham from these stones. Even now the ax lies at the root of the trees. Therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. I am baptizing you with water, for repentance, but the one who is coming after me is mightier than I. I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fan is in his hand. He will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire."

The Greek for “at hand” is actually a verb (eggizō) meaning “has drawn near”—this could be translated, “has arrived!” There is great urgency in John’s message.

Matthew identifies John with Isaiah 40:3: “A voice proclaims/In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord…” Interestingly, this was the same verse that the pious Essene monks of Qumran, who left us the Dead Sea Scrolls, quoted in their works to explain their decision to dwell in the desert. The fact that both John and the Qumran monks identify their mission with this verse is probably too similar to be coincidental—not to mention the fact that both were also focused on water washing for repentance, associated with the forgiveness of sins and the coming of the Holy Spirit. As I have argued in my book, Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls, I think John was taught and formed at the monastery at Qumran and was expelled, and then began his ministry.

Unlike other sects of Jews, the Essenes practiced extreme ascetism, including asceticism of dress. They wore only linen and would wear one garment until it wore out before changing it. We see ascetism in John’s dress, as well: camel’s hair, a rare material for fabric, usually used only for structural textiles like tents but not for clothing because of its coarseness. The hair garment and leather belt also associated him with Elijah (2 Kgs 1:8), as this was the prophet’s distinctive dress. In fact, dressing this way was like publicly broadcasting the fact that he was associating himself with Elijah’s legacy. That was extremely provocative since the last of the canonical prophets, Malachi, predicted that Elijah would return before the say of God’s judgment on Israel (Mal 4:5-6; Mal 3:22-23 NABRE). This, no doubt, was part of the reason Joh was creating such a stir.

Matthew remarks that John’s food “was locusts and wild honey.” I think this is meant to indicate some typical foods, not that his diet was limited to just these two items. This would mean he was living off the land, eating whatever was edible in the environment. Locusts and wild honey were clean foods and permissible, according to Mosaic Law. The Dead Sea Scrolls describe ritual procedures for eating locusts—yet another interesting connection between John and the Essenes. But there is more. The historian Josephus (37 AD—ca.100 AD) tells us that, upon entering the community, Essene candidates had to swear fearsome oaths, including a promise never again to eat food prepared outside the community. As a result, Josephus tells us, those who were excommunicated and expelled were forced to eat grass and nearly starve to death to avoid breaking their vow.

He also describes a certain hermit by the name of Bannus who, like John the Baptist, was living near the Jordan, making frequent ritual washings, and living off the land, eating “whatever grew of its own accord.” I suspect both John the Baptist and Josephus’s Bannus had been expelled from the Qumran community. Why? In John’s case, I surmise that it was because he wanted to preach to the public, which is actually something forbidden in the Dead Sea Scrolls. His desire to fulfill the prophet Isaiah’s vison of salvation going out to all the nations got him into trouble with the insular, exclusivist Essene movement.

Matthew remarks that “Jerusalem, all Judea, and the whole region around the Jordan” were going to John to receive Baptism. That limits the area of John’s ministry to a fairly narrow region because the Judean banks of the Jordan were only about ten miles in length, extending from the north end of the Dead Sea in the south to a few miles north of Jericho to the north. One could and still can walk this whole stretch in the course of a single morning without too much difficulty. This was also the location where the Jordan was forded or ferried, and a great deal of goods and persons crossed here, as major trade routes passed through Jericho and then up to Jerusalem. It was a major crossroads –an ancient O’Hare, Los Angeles International Airport, or Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta, where everyone has to make a connection. This enabled John to preach to a very wide audience—indeed, an international audience—without leaving home.

Our translation says they were “acknowledging” their sins. The Greek is exomolegoumenoi, traditionally rendered “confessing.” But “acknowledging” is an acceptable translation and may even have the advantage of shaking us a little out of our usual religious jargon and getting us to think about what it means to “confess” our sins. A big part of confession is simply “acknowledgement,” or we could say, “recognition.” It is calling a spade a spade, recognizing what is true for what it is.

The Greek word comes from two prepositions, ex “out” and homo “the same,” put on the verb legō, “to speak.” So the root meaning is something like, “to speak the same words out of your mouth,” that is, “to agree with.” With whom are we agreeing? With God, who tells us that our deeds are wrong, when we confess our sins, then, we are just agreeing with God, saying that his classification of our behavior is correct. For the ancient Jews, it was a “big deal” to admit that they were sinners. There was a certain amount of ethnic chauvinism that regarded Jews as “clean” and Gentiles as “unclean.” For Jews themselves to admit they needed cleansing and to accept a ritual washing of their whole body—a dramatic acknowledgement of the need for total renewal—was a great act of public humility. John must have been very persuasive to have this effect on the Judean population.

However, John the Baptist apparently never read Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People because he uses none of Carnegie’s rhetorical techniques. His address to the Pharisees and Sadducees is absolutely withering: “You brood of vipers!” Vipers were unclean animals, forbidden for human consumption. Among other things, to witness this half-clad, semi-mad holy man so roundly denounce the leaders of society, the stuffed-shirt, holier-than-thou leadership of Jerusalem and it’s Temple, must have been entertaining for the crowds. I’m sure there was a lot of stifled snickering going on.

John is preaching for a change of behavior. “Produce good fruit as evidence for your repentance.” Any words not accompanied by a concrete change in lifestyle are empty and banal. The Pharisees and Sadducees said, “We have Abraham as our father,” but we might say, “I’m baptized,” or “I’ve done twelve years of Catholic schooling,” or “I wear a scapular.” These things can be fine, but if our life does not have “good fruit” as evidence of “repentance,” then we are actually sinning by presumption to put our confidence in external markers of our Catholic faith.

Even in his own day, John was universally regarded as a great prophet, revered by the people and feared even by the leadership. Nonetheless, the one coming after him is so great that John himself—a prophet to rival the great Elijah—is not “worthy to carry his sandals,” the task of a slave. Who is greater than the greatest prophet if not the one who the prophet represents, namely, God himself? The Coming One will baptize “with the Holy Spirit and fire.” This is probably a literary device called hendiadys, “one from two,” one meaning using two words. So we might translate, “He will baptize with the fire of the Holy Spirit,” or “the fire which is the Holy Spirit.” But John clearly associates the “fire” with eschatological judgement: “The chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

This interesting because it points to the sacraments as foretastes of the final judgement. In a sense, we are wise to be judged now through the sacraments in order to be spared the judgement later, in Baptism our sinful self is judged and killed through drowning so we don’t need to experience eternal death later. In Confirmation, likewise, our sinful self is burned up through the Holy Spirit so we don’t experience the flames of hell later. So Jesus does “baptize us with fire” in an eschatological sense when we experience him in the sacraments. The sacraments are a foretaste of the final judgement. This is also, by the way, the reason the Church sometimes practices excommunication: because partaking in the Eucharist is a dangerous pre-experience of the final judgement. That is the subtext of Paul’s warning in 1 Corinthians 11:27-32 (RSV2CE):

Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. But if we judged ourselves truly, we should not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are chastened so that we may not be condemned along with the world.

To reiterate, our Gospel text today presents us with Jesus through the eyes of John the Baptist, and John sees Our Lord as the eschatological judge who baptizes with eschatological “fire.” This presents us with a sobering perspective on the sacraments and motivates us to make a sincere examination of conscience and have recourse to the Sacrament of Reconciliation lest we participate unworthily in any of the other sacraments, especially the Eucharist.

I think that to understand JtheB's reference to Jesus baptizing with the Holy Spirit/fire, one has to relate it to Jesus' description of John in Matt. 11:11 "Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he."

Why is it that each one of us in the Kingdom is greater than John, who was the greatest prophet? The answer is that we have been baptized with the Holy Spirit, who dwells in us with unquenchable fire, prays with us, guides and comforts us, and also provides fruits and gifts.

The Holy Spirit is like a Christmas tree, with instead of dead ornaments bearing live fruit (love, joy, peace, etc.) that grows to our benefit, and providing its gifts, each of which wrapped and tagged with a name on it, so that one person's gift(s) is not another's. It is the Spirit that makes the least in the Kingdom greater than John.

Those are good insights. We were actually discussing this in our weekly parish Scripture study in the Sunday readings this morning. In Sunday's Gospel reading, John the Baptist tells his listeners to "Produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance." (Mt 3:8). We could do worse than taking the traditional Fruits of the Holy Spirit as an examination of conscience for this Advent to do a self-check on our spiritual health. As found in Galatians 5:19-25:

Now the works of the flesh are plain: immorality, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.

Like Samson and Samuel, JBap was a Nazarite according to the prescriptions found in Num 6:1-21.

I think that's a safe assumption since we are told as much in the passage where the Archangel Gabriel announced the birth of John to his father, Zechariah:

But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechari′ah, for your prayer is heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John.

And you will have joy and gladness,
and many will rejoice at his birth;
for he will be great before the Lord,
and he shall drink no wine nor strong drink,
and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit,
even from his mother’s womb.(Luke 1:13-15)

Even with that, he also could have been associated with the Essenes. As far as I know, there was nothing preventing a man from being both.

...The Essenes’ rejection of the contemporary priesthood would have made the Qumran community an improbable fit for the son of a temple priest.

It's true that the Essenes rejected the Jerusalem priesthood as hopelessly corrupt, but I have not seen anything indicating they closed off their membership to those of the line of Levi or Aaron or any other particular bloodline. At the time John would have been accepted to the Essenes (so the theory goes), he would have been a young child (the elderly Zachariah and Elizabeth being deceased) and not an active priest. According to Josephus, they were in the habit of accepting orphans to their community and forming them into the ways of the sect.

Our Celebrant for tonight's vigil Mass did a great Job delineating
John the Baptist's probable Qumran community life.
I was hoping for a Bergsma shout out in the Homily-but no.

Anywhere, the Baptist's diet of honey and locusts - another vow perhaps - exiled outside the Qumran community is telling.
Not a Nazarite deal...
Also I read somewhere - being from the line of Aaron-
a Nazirite vow would be improbable.
Still though, the wine thing is interesting...

Our Celebrant for tonight's vigil Mass did a great Job delineating John the Baptist's probable Qumran community life. I was hoping for a Bergsma shout out in the Homily-but no.

LOL. I would have been waiting for the same thing. Others have pointed out a possible John the Baptist/Qumran connection (the NABRE even has a footnote on Mt 3:6 referring to it), but Bergsma, I think, has really connected a lot of dots on this for today's Catholic Scripture student.

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