The first thing that jumped out at me when I read this weekend’s readings was this  sentence from Isaiah:

 

“The spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him: … a spirit of knowledge and of fear of the LORD, and his delight shall be the fear of the LORD.”

 

How can we fear God and yet delight in Him or love Him at the same time?  Especially when you combine that with our Gospel reading, it sure seems like John the Baptist is trying to put the “fear of the Lord” into the people of Israel!

 

Well, the word “fear” in the expression “fear of the Lord” means awe or profound respect. It does not mean literal fear of God’s power, but an awe and respect for the absolute majesty of God. We should “fear” offending God not because of His just punishment but because He is all good and deserving of our love.

 

As Pope Francis has said:

 

"[Fear of the Lord] does not mean being afraid of God: we know well that God is Father, that He loves us and wants our salvation, and He always forgives, always; thus, there is no reason to be scared of him! 

 

Fear of the Lord, instead, is the gift of the Holy Spirit through whom we are reminded of how small we are before God and of His love and that our good lies in humble, respectful and trusting self-abandonment into his hands. This is fear of the Lord: abandonment in the goodness of our Father who loves us so much (General Audience, June 11, 2014)."

 

So that was Pope Francis in a general audience from 2014, and it helps us to understand what this “fear of the Lord” truly is.

 

You see, the prophets of Scripture came not with a message of humiliation or doom, but with words of consolation and hope, and yes, from time to time, words of challenge. Their ministry was not simply to place a bandage on the wounds of Israel’s sin with empty words, but to bring lasting healing by highlighting God’s past saving acts and assuring her of God’s future faithfulness. 

 

Both Isaiah and John the Baptist's challenging words were telling of Jesus’ coming, Jesus who is the ultimate healer, who would be present with us forever in the Sacraments, this is where we still encounter Jesus Christ, in the Sacraments of the Church.

 

John the Baptist preached repentance from sin as preparation for His coming, and we have the Sacraments of Baptism and Reconciliation for that. But, there is often something before that needed Reconciliation, which is knowing God’s loving presence to us in the Sacrament of the Eucharist.   

 

Last week I spoke about Eucharistic Adoration a little, and I am going to again, because this is where Jesus is present to us, as close as we can get to being in the manger on the night of the Nativity.

 

Every time we come before Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, He poses a question to us.  It is the same question that the Risen Lord asked Peter after their breakfast on the seashore: “Do you love me?” 

 

Much like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, the Lord knows how prone we are to hide from Him because of the shame of our sin, how quick we are to avoid His glance because of our sense of inadequacy and lack of worth, how small we are in His majestic presence. 

 

And that is why He consistently “looks us in the eye” in the Eucharist and persists: “Do you love me?”  When Peter denied Jesus Christ three times before the Passion, he discovered something undeniable about himself:  Peter realized that his love for Jesus was even greater than all the evil he could commit. 

There was no alibi, no excuse that could keep him from confessing that love. The question from Jesus to Peter makes the apostle realize that there is something indestructible in him, namely, his bond of love with Jesus. 

 

Even the scandal of Peter's sin cannot extinguish the love he has for Jesus, a love which is itself Christ's gift to him.  Peter loved Jesus in an invincible way because Jesus first loved Peter in that way.

 

We need that kind of love to break us out of the blackmail of sin.  Jesus comes before us in the Eucharist to reignite our hope!

 

And “that hope,” says Father Julian Carron, “does not come from what we do but from the awareness that there is Someone who loves us with an everlasting love, who calls us into being every instant, having pity on us who are nothingness.” With all our nothingness, we need to put ourselves in front of the Blessed Sacrament in order to rekindle that awareness, in order to let the Lord call us into being.

 

As Monsignor Luigi Giussani has pointed out, Christ's greatest miracle was that gaze that took hold of a person's heart, laying bare everything, dismantling every defense.  That gaze breaks down our walls, it captures us, it sweeps us off our feet, it reveals to us our true self. 

 

I often describe Eucharistic Adoration like this: “I look at Him and He looks at me.” And this look is no doubt a look of great love. Pope John Paul II wisely asked: Were we to disregard the Eucharist, how could we overcome our own deficiency?

 

God looks at us with so much love and mercy.  The prophets like Isaiah and John the Baptist could be accused of showing a tough love, but it is still love, for as Paul said in our second reading, “Christ became a minister… to show God's truthfulness, to confirm the promises to the patriarchs, but so that the Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy.” 

 

For His mercy! John the Baptist comes with this message of repentance, inviting us to look for the highway of God where we can walk once more along the straight and level and so experience God’s healing presence.  This highway is really the Sacraments of the Church, the easiest and surest way to God.

 

John calls us to make an exodus from the desert of sinfulness through the waters of repentance to conversion of heart. It’s a journey that speaks of hope, not past regrets. 

 

John challenges us to prepare the way of the Lord by smoothing the treacherous bumps of sin and by leveling and straightening out whatever are the obstacles in our relationship with God and with one another.  

 

In this, we are to let God’s mercy fill in the holes of our omissions and failures, and allow His grace to level out the twists and turns of our indifference.

 

John’s preaching of repentance is not meant to be a fire-and-brimstone ultimatum frightening us into obedience.  He preaches to prepare us to recognize the One who heals and perfects our own humanity.  “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”  Because “the Kingdom of God means Christ himself” (CCC 2816).

 

When we encounter Jesus Christ, especially in the Eucharist, when we spend time with Him in prayer, especially in His presence, we realize God’s great love for us, which allows us to surrender our will to His, abandonment in the goodness of our Father who loves us so much, that He sent His Son to save us from our sins.

 

With the sure hope of all of this, there is nothing more reasonable than repentance, that is, changing in us whatever keeps us from saying yes to the love of God.