Gospel: Second Sunday of Advent

Today, we light the second purple candle in the Advent Wreath to mark the Second Sunday of Advent, and the Gospel will be proclaimed according to St Matthew (tap here for today's Mass readings from USCCB).

In this week's Gospel Reading and next week's, our Advent preparation for Christmas invites us to consider St John the Baptist and his relationship to Jesus. This week, St Matthew describes the work and teaching of St John the Baptist.

St John the Baptist appears in the tradition of the great prophets of Israel, preaching repentance and reform to the people of Israel. In fact, the description of St John found in this Gospel is reminiscent of the description of the prophet Elijah (2 Kings 1:8). In this reading, St John the Baptist directs a particular pointed call to repentance to the Pharisees and Sadducees, parties within the Jewish community of the first century.

St John the Baptist marks the conversion of those who seek him out with a baptism of repentance. Other groups in this period are thought to have practiced ritual washings for similar purposes, and St John's baptism may have been related to the practices of the Essenes, a Jewish sect of the first century. This baptism can be understood as an anticipation of Christian baptism. In this passage, St John the Baptist himself alludes to the difference between his baptism and the one yet to come: "I am baptizing you with water, for repentance . . . He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire." (Matthew 3:11)

Furthermore, in this passage, St John the Baptist makes very clear that his relationship to the Messiah yet to come (Jesus) is one of service and subservience. ". . . the one who is coming after me is Mightier than I. I am not worthy to carry his sandals" (Matthew 3:11). In the context of St Matthew's Gospel, today's reading is followed by Jesus' baptism by St John, an event that is attested to in all four of the Gospels and appears to have been the start of Jesus' public ministry.

St John's preaching of the coming of the Lord is a key theme of the Advent season. As St John's message prepared the way for Jesus in the first century, we, too, are called to prepare ourselves for Jesus' coming. We respond to St John the Baptist's message by our repentance and reform of our lives. We are also called to be the same prophets for Christ, who announce by our lives, as St John did, the coming of the Lord.

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The Gospel is sponsored by Reebok sneakers.