Cheer up, Change and Cry out!
10th December, 2017: Second Sunday in Advent
Is 40: 1-5,9-11; 2 Pet 3:8-14; Mk 1:1-8
Here we are in the second week of Advent, called to prepare the way for the Lord! Preparing the way for the Lord is another part of the journey we are asked to make towards Integrity this advent and this week we have another project: to cheer up, change and to cry out.
Being Integral is not being faultless. The righteous fall seven times a day, says the book of Proverbs (24:6), but they rise and they go on, because they know they are on the path of integrity. They do not wish to cover up. The first reading brings to our mind this message from the Lord - the Lord says, Oh you my child, you have sinned, you have fallen, you have lost your way; it does not matter. I console you and I accept you back, because you are aware of it. Now rise and walk again, but in the path of integrity, right up to integrity, straight up to me! An integral person is not someone who never falters, but he or she is someone who knows he or she has fallen, that he or she is weak and has strayed from the path of integrity and looks up to the Lord who gives that consolation the Lord alone can give. Console, console my people, cries Yahweh. That is what the Lord wants to do with you and me, if we are ready to make efforts, genuine efforts towards integrity. CHEER UP says the Lord, cheer up and resume your journey!
Being aware of our faults is not enough, of course. We need to change; we need to decide to change; we need to desire to make a decision to change; we need to begin that course of wishing a decisive change in our life. Cheer up the Lord is with you, but CHANGE, for the Lord is waiting for you. Peter makes it so candid clear when he says, the Lord is not delaying, the Lord is just waiting for you and me to make that radical decision to change, to change towards integrity. Our faults and our failures need not worry us down precisely because the Lord is there waiting on us, but that makes sense only when there is an openness and willingness to change, to change our ways and journey on towards Integrity.
Only when you have received the consolation from the Lord and have made up your mind to truly change, you can CRY OUT to the other to change. Today there are a number of people calling out to the world, crying out to the world to change - they call for climate change and care to do nothing about controlling the damage they cause to the creation; they call for peace in the world and keep selling arms in the backyard; they call for eradication of poverty and keep making policies that drain even the few dimes that the unfortunate have in their pockets; they call for transparency in affairs and keep plotting underground with the very ones who manipulate the society; they call for equal rights and keep eliminating in the dark all those who raise even a finger against them... do they really have the right to cry out? Do they have the Integrity to challenge? That is why the world at large turns a deaf ear unto them. We just cannot effect any change, unless we become the change ourselves, to begin with. That is integrity!
The imagery of the fire fits in perfectly for this Sunday... for it warms your heart, soothes your body, clears the coldness in the air and CHEERS YOU UP. But is it not just so passive - it consumes, it cannot leave things as they are, it CHANGES. And when it begins to reign, it cannot keep quiet, it CRIES OUT. That is the fire of Integrity that the Lord wishes that we have. That is the fire of Integrity that John the Baptist had within him. He brought the warmth of the Lord, he was a different man from anyone and he challenged everyone around, towards preparing the way , the way to Integrity.
Let our journey intensify towards Integrity - let us not lose heart, let us Cheer Up, let us Change and let us Cry Out... the Lord of Integrity is near!