LECTIONARY READINGS
First reading: Isaiah 61:1-2, 10-11
Responsorial Psalm: Luke 1:46-50, 53-54
Second reading: 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24
Gospel: John 1:6-8, 19-28
Link to readings
COMMENTARY
Once again, the figure of John the Baptist looms large in the scripture today. Personally – and I suspect many other homilists would agree – I think it would have been sufficient to allot just one Sunday of Advent to the witness of John. In any case, the First and Second Readings offer rich fare.
The First Reading, from Isaiah 61:1-2, 6-11, features a passage destined to be of great significance in the New Testament understanding of Jesus. It was customary in Israel to anoint with oil persons designated for leadership roles, such as the king and high priest. From time to time God bypassed these formal arrangements to raise up leaders in a more charismatic way. Such leaders were then said, by extension, to have 'anointed' by the Spirit. So the prophet proclaims himself to be 'anointed' in this way by the Spirit to proclaim the 'good news'. When Jesus inaugurates his ministry according to Luke's Gospel (Luke 4:16-30), he will apply this text to himself to indicate the nature and scope of his mission.
As elsewhere in Isaiah, 'telling good news' bears a technical sense associated with Israel's return from Exile in Babylon. The 'good news' is essentially a message of liberation: Israel is to be set free from captivity and brought home to her own land.
'CAPTIVITIES'
This reading from Isaiah, with its rich reflections on the notion of 'gospel', invites us to think of all the various 'captivities' – personal, social, moral and economic-in which we labour and from which we still long for liberation. The liberation proclaimed by the Gospel is essentially spiritual at its core. However, as the Church has increasingly insisted in recent times, spiritual liberation cannot be divorced from the requirements of social and economic justice. If the message proclaimed by the Church is not in some sense a message of freedom, as well as a summons to conversion, then it has failed to be truly 'Gospel'.
Paul's exhortation in the Second Reading, from 1 Thess 5:16-24, reflects his sense of the privileged status of the believing community as it awaits the coming of its Lord. While its outward circumstances may be no different from those of the surrounding world of non-belief, this hope should enable it to be, in both good times and bad, in a continuous state of joy.
Prayer and thanksgiving should likewise be, if not always a conscious activity, at least a continuous state of mind. The term Paul uses about the gift of prophecy is quite concrete: 'Do not quench the Spirit', as one 'quenches' the flame of a candle or lamp. Prophecy, the ability to discern the action of God beneath the ordinary run of things, is an essential gift and must not be despised. It does, however, need to be 'tested' – as Paul insists in a longer instruction in 1 Corinthians 14. The supreme criterion of prophecy is its effect upon the community: whether that be 'good' or 'evil'.
DIFFERENT ANGLE
Last week we heard the witness given by John the Baptist according to the Gospel of St Mark. In today's Gospel (1:6-8, 19-28) we hear the same witness described, from a rather different angle, in the Gospel of John.
Such was the stature of John the Baptist in the Jewish world of the time that it was important for the early Christian believers to sort out the relationship between John and Jesus. Texts such as the one we have today present John as making clear his own specific-and subordinate-role.
As the Fourth Gospel insists from the start, Jesus is the 'light of the world' (John 1:4-5). In the person of Jesus, and in his words and deeds, we have a replay of the conquest of darkness by light that marked the first act of God in creation (Gen 1:3-5). Wherever Jesus speaks or performs healing acts ('signs') – whether in the Gospel or in the later sacramental life of the Church – the light is overcoming the darkness and communicating to human beings God's gift of eternal life.
John disclaims any messianic role for himself. He is neither the Messiah (the Christ), nor one of the other two figures expected to appear in the messianic age: the prophet Elijah come back to earth or the 'Prophet like Moses' mentioned in Deut 18:15, 18.
Rather, he is the 'voice in the wilderness' of which Isaiah spoke in a summons to prepare in human hearts a 'way' for the Lord. Since Isaiah was considered to be the prophet par excellence who pointed to and described the messianic age, John thus finds a role for himself within that expectation without displacing the centrality of Jesus as Messiah and Son of God. As St. Augustine put it so well, John is the 'Voice' that bears witness to the "Word" (John 1:1-2).
Brendan Byrne, SJ, FAHA, taught New Testament at Jesuit Theological College, Parkville, Vic., for more than 40 years. He is now Emeritus Professor at the University of Divinity (Melbourne). His commentaries on the Gospels can be found at Pauline Books and Media