Today's Thoughts...

Today’s Thoughts: The focus of our readings today especially the first reading from the Book of the Prophet Baruch and Luke’s Gospel is about looking in a different direction, about seeing life differently. The prophet Baruch is a disciple of Jeremiah, and he wants the people in Jerusalem to look at life differently. Rather than seeing and living life in hopelessness he wants the people to see and live life in hopefulness. He wants the Israelites look eastward for to those who will be returning from exile. He calls for a hopefulness in Jerusalem so that the city will no longer have to mourn her lost children because they will be returning. Baruch asks the people to look with hopeful eyes even in the midst of their struggles and sorrows.
 
John the Baptist in Luke’s Gospel is a voice in the wilderness struggling against the powers that be, Rome and his own Jewish community. He cries out Isaiah’s words of hope, that soon the mountains will be made low and the valleys will be raised up and the path to God will be straight and flat. He wants the people to look in a different direction. First at themselves, letting go of the worldly paths they have walked and secondly to look toward the east, to the coming of Christ. Baruch and John in different ways proclaim a vision of hope by asking people to look at life differently!
 
A number years ago, I spent the first week of Advent in a parish in Nassau in the Bahamas giving a parish mission. I had the chance to look at life differently, no TV, none of the usual comforts that create a comfort zone in life. Yet, I too had a sense of hopefulness. It came from the people that I met and what the week of mission told me about myself and about the presence of God in my life.
 
Friends in faith my hope for you today is that you will find your east to look toward. An east that will tell you a little more about yourself, an east that will create a sense of hope within you, an east that will help you to see and to know the gift of God in your life! Look East my friends...See Emanuel (God is with us!)
 
Have a great Second Sunday of Advent and make sure you give God a little time today!