Last week when Advent started, we heard Jesus say, “Be watchful! Be alert!” This week we hear of John the Baptist preparing the way for the arrival of Jesus, but all of the readings talk about repentance from sin.
Last week I focused on watching for the coming of Jesus like watching for a foul ball at a baseball game. We must always be vigilant. This week, I feel the Church is saying that one of the things we really need to be watchful for is the presence of sin in our lives.
In today’s Gospel, we hear of John the Baptist doing baptisms in the Jordan River for the forgiveness of sins. It says “People of the whole Judean countryside and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the Jordan River as they acknowledged their sins.”
Most of us didn’t acknowledge our sins when we were baptized. Since we were baptized as babies, it wasn’t necessary, our parents and Godparents answered for us, but now we can, and we should. We don’t need to get baptized again, but every time, every time we acknowledge our sins, we are dying to ourselves, right? Let me explain...
I had a professor in seminary who said this was the most important thing for your parishioners to know: that every Christian has died to their old self, their old life of sin, and has risen with Christ to a new life, having a self. What does this mean?
Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection paid the price for our sins and restored our right relationship with God. In order to accept that gift of salvation, we must respond to Jesus by acknowledging our need for Him and rejecting our sins with His grace. In doing so, we die to our old selves and begin an entirely new life.
We live that new life with him, with the Holy Spirit inside of us. The old-self must die, and the new-self lives with God.
A good way to remember this idea and its relationship to baptism is to remember this image of the Jordan River. I have been to the Jordan River. It is not like the Mississippi, it is more like Catfish Creek actually. It is not very wide and only a few feet deep.
When we were there at the Jordan River near Jericho, we got to sit beside the river, and we could put our feet in or walk into the river if we wanted to, so of course I put my feet in and thought I might walk in a little ways, but I couldn't because it was so cold. So cold.
I mean I thought I had a decent tolerance for cold temperatures, being a deer hunter in Iowa and spending many mornings and evenings in a tree stand, but I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t keep my feet in the Jordan River for more than twenty seconds!
So the Jordan River has that aspect, freezing cold water. But also it is just as dirty as the Mississippi and Catfish Creek. So combine those and imagine getting baptized, maybe fully submerged into a freezing cold dark tomb of water that would take your breath away, I believe people felt like they were dying!
Baptism is a death to the old self, and being reborn with the new self in a life with Christ.
But there is a tension between the old life and the new life. We tend to want to revert. We forget the new life of the Spirit living in us, and we fall into sin. It happens slowly, over time, gradually.
Like the story of the frog that gets boiled alive in the pot of water one degree at a time… you know that adage right? If you put frogs into a pot of boiling water, they’ll jump out. Immediately, they know it is bad for them and get out of there. But if you put frogs in room temp water and slowly heat it to boiling, they’ll never see it coming, and pretty soon they are cooked!
So like the frogs, if we do not remain alert and watching, we allow ourselves to go little by little further into sin. We justify it by looking around and saying, we aren’t as bad as this person or that person, or it’s not that big of a deal this time.
So we have to be vigilant, on the watch, high alert for the beginnings of sin. Mortal sins always start as venial sins, and if we start to ask where that line is, most likely we have already gone too far… In our second reading we heard, “The Lord... is patient with you, not wishing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.”
During Advent, we encourage going to Reconciliation. The Church says we need to go once a year. A recent study showed that only 2% of Catholics even do that! And we should, even if we only have venial sins, go to confession and get fully right with God.
Reconciliation is a great gift from God. He knows that in the weakness of our human nature we are likely to fall to sin, so He gives us a great grace, a great gift of a priest mediator who can listen to our sins, give us a little direction on how to do better, give us a penance to make up for the sins, and then give us absolution, forgiving and freeing us.
Hearing those words are so freeing because we hold onto the guilt, and even though it is a spiritual thing, many people talk about from a physical standpoint of feeling like the weight is just lifted from their shoulders. I hear that so often.
Sure, we can, and we should confess our sins straight to God, but the gift is God gives us a way, a sacrament, in which it leaves no doubt that we are forgiven. Our human nature has five senses, and God wants us to use those senses to experience His love for us.
Nativity is good about having confessions regularly, that was true even before I arrived here, and I have tried to add some opportunities for those of you who are like me and don’t like to wake up for 6:30am Mass followed by reconciliation.
This week there will be two of those evening opportunities, 6:30-8:30 on Tuesday and 5:30-6:30 on Wednesday. I’ll talk more about those in the announcements, but they are also described in the bulletin.
Anyway, John the Baptist was able to call people to reconciliation and a new life in holiness because he was living that way:
He fed on locusts, which were the only insects a Jew could eat, so people knew he was following the law, obedient to the commandments.
He only fed on locusts and wild honey, so people knew he wasn’t living a grand lifestyle focused on pleasures and money, like the Pharisees.
He was clothed in camel hair, which would be itchy and annoyingly painful, so people knew he was living a life of penance.
So rather than comparing ourselves to the least common denominator, saying “oh, I am better than that person,” let’s make a holy comparison to people who live their faith, saying, “this person lives a holy life, they obey God’s commands, they don’t spend outside their means, they go to reconciliation and do their penance, so I can do these things too, I can live my new life in Christ.”
We need holy role models for our new-self to flourish, starting with our parents and Godparents, but moving out to others as we grow in our faith. Instead of looking down on others to set our lower bar, we need to look up to others who can raise our bar.
As much as we watch for God’s return and we are alert to sin, we should watch for people who are living their faith who can be good models and mentors for our own pilgrimage on this earth.
I encourage you to be on the watch, alert to the subtleness of sin, going to reconciliation, choosing Holy role models, and truly living your new life in Christ.