Homily on the 2nd Sunday of Advent, Year A (2022) by Fr. Gilbert Alaribe
Theme: The Voice that breaks the silence
Today, we celebrate the Mass of the 2nd Sunday of Advent. At the centre of today’s celebration is the figure of John the Baptist: “The voice of one crying in the wilderness!”
Before the Messiah must come, a voice needed to be heard. That voice was speaking out now after over 400 years of silence between Israel and her God. The last of the mouthpieces of God in Israel, the prophet Malachi, had said of the coming of the Messiah: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction” (Malachi 4:5–6). Imagine a situation where the voice of God becomes silent in our lives and in our affairs? We know how tough our relationships become when an unusual silence descends upon it.
John the Baptist was that voice that came to break the silence of the heavens. If you want the Messiah to enter into your life, be ready to hear again that voice that breaks every silence. Where do we need to hear God’s voice again in our lives and in our nation?
The voice is meant to introduce the Messiah. So it is the voice of awakening! In Israel at the time, corruption was rife, because everyone went about pursing his or her self-interest in the absence of God’s voice. The voice of John was calling the people to become aware of something spectacular about to happen, of someone on his way, whose sandals not even John could untie. How sensitive are we to the presence of that Mighty Man in our personal and national life? And how willing are we to allow him to have his way in our life and our affairs?
We can get back to some history. Exactly 9 years ago, on the 5th of December 2013 Nelson Mandela died at the ripe age of 95 in Johannesburg, South Africa. We remember him today as the voice that inspired humanity to dream and work for peace and reconciliation. At the time Nelson Mandela came out of prison, and went on to become the president of South Africa, many Blacks who had suffered for years under the Apartheid regime, wanted him to take a hardline towards the Whites and make them to pay for their inhumane treatment of Blacks. Mandela chose to be the voice of peace and reconciliation, instead of violence and vengeance. The voice of Mandela was that type of voice that can make the way possible for the Messiah to appear.
Yesterday, a voice circulated in the social media, inviting people to Sit-at-home for days on end, instead of making the necessary preparation for Christmas. In the days of John the Baptist, similar voices were equally heard, inviting people to take up arms and fight against the Roman oppressors of the time. Such voices encourage us to build walls between peoples and adherents of different religions, and so to inaugurate a regime of silence and hatred and violence.
Today, Nigeria is torn between these competing voices in our national life. We can accept to listen to the voice of tribalism and religious bigotry, of the voice of envy and hatred, and so become the agents of darkness all around us. The voice of violence tells us to build walls instead of bridges. It is the voice that tells us it is acceptable to kidnap your relative and accept ransom on his head, or to kill and maim to settle political scores. That voice insinuates to us that values mean nothing, as long as we can make profit out of our corrupt ways. The voice of violence and vengeance cannot lead us to healing and genuine prosperity. The voice of violence can silence the providence of God in our national life.
The voice of John the Baptist was one that invited the people to prepare the way of the Lord, to level the valleys and make his path straight! It was the voice of peace, repentance: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!”
Another fact about the voice of John the Baptist was the place where it was heard. God’s voice spoke out from the wilderness. The wilderness was a place of aridity, of barrenness. It was from such a place that the voice that will inaugurate the Messianic time did echo from. I was wondering why that voice did not choose to speak out from the city, or even from the temple. Why didn’t that voice speak out from any of the sacred religious places of Israel? It is as if John the Baptist gives a lie to those who attempt to monopolize God’s voice by their control of places of religious significance or of sacred times.
If God could speak to Israel from an arid place like the wilderness, perhaps God can still speak to us even when we go through a period of doubts and conflicts and darkness. The voice of God can break through our doubt, our loneliness, and our failures. Expect the voice of God to speak to you from very unlikely places in your life. That is the only way we can feel the presence of the Messiah.
Finally, this should be obvious: wherever the voice is silenced, it is difficult for God to come in — in our homes, in our places of work and trade, and in our national life. No matter how uncomfortable that voice sounds, it is always better to allow it to speak. The voice of John the Baptist was an uncomfortable sound for the religious leaders of Israel, and yet they trouped out to hear him speak: the Pharisees, the Sadducees, even the soldiers. John had the temerity to call them a brood of vipers. And yet they came to hear him speak. Often we are not comfortable with those who tell us some hard truths about ourselves and our situation. And yet that is often how the Messiah can come into our lives — by borrowing the voices of those who poke us in the ear and warn us to change our ways. Imagine our many loved ones who, because they mean well for us, condemn our pride, our self-centredness, our excesses. We may have banished their voices from our consciousness over these years. We can start today to hear their voices once again, if we are to be ready for the Messiah to come into our lives.
Fr. Gilbert Alribe.
Owerri Archdiocese.
