"Sign of Life" - 2nd Sunday Advent Homily

I was working with a married couple one time.

Real tough stretch in their marriage.

It wasn't really bleak, they just weren't connecting at all.

And I just listened more and more.

Finally I just had to say, are there any signs of life here?

And we locked in on one or two and kind of dwelled on that and just things actually got better.

Grew from there.

Did the same thing with the young man who was raised Catholic but

When I talked to him, he was an atheist.

And so we got into it with God, faith and everything.

And well, there were signs of life in his Catholic faith.

And we focused on that.

And then he came back to the church and confession.

Things grew from there.

When I first arrived here at this parish in 2021, there were signs of life regarding the Eucharist and adoration with a few parishioners.

And now it's grown to where we have a

24-hour chapel for adoration.

The chute about which Isaiah prophesies is a sign of life.

It's a little part of a little branch of a tree that shall sprout from the stump of Jesse, the line of David in Israel.

And the chute is Christ, the sign of life.

When it looked like Israel was

defeated and broken and almost dead.

It was still alive and it will grow again.

might be true of our lives when we are crushed or defeated, broken.

We're not dead.

And with the shoot that is Christ, the blossoming bud will happen one day.

We will grow again.

And John the Baptist goes before Christ to tell people the day is here.

The kingdom of God is at hand.

Here is the day Isaiah prophesied about.

It's here.

It's coming.

Get ready.

Get ready for the growth.

And it's all good.

Again, the people waited hundreds of years for this day, the day of the Messiah.

And John is announcing, here it is.

Great news.

The first thing he says to do to get ready, repent.

It means to get away from the fruitlessness.

To get away from the things that don't grow, don't sprout, don't blossom.

Get away from those things.

Maybe get away from those people.

He attacks the Pharisees and Sadducees that are not about growth.

They get attacked by the Lord because they are about the fruitlessness.

And we might have situations where we have people in our lives that are like that.

So the message of repent is to look at your life.

And say to be about Christ, to be about growth.

That's shoot.

So repent, get away from the bad stuff, fruitless stuff, get to the good stuff.

And the good stuff always grows.

Now John brings a message of repentance.

Everyone coming around.

Primarily because of the message that is what's coming.

I don't know if the whole region of Judea is coming out for the repentance talk.

When I preach on confession, I don't know how many people are excited to acknowledge their sins.

To talk about this chaff, which is waste, John says the chaff will burn with uncrunchable fire.

It sounds so much like the Lord in the gospel with judgment.

The good stuff goes off, the wheat and the barn, but the chaff, bad stuff, is going to burn with uncrunchable fire.

Now remember John preached a tough message of repentance because he loved people and he wanted them to be a part of the growth.

But even he acknowledged that what he brought was just human, earthly stuff.

Yeah, he had baptism, but was symbolic only, as he said, with water.

But the one coming after me, Christ, will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.

That brings real forgiveness of sins.

Confession brings real forgiveness of sins.

It's not symbolic only.

And so we get ready for the Lord, we prepare for the Lord by clearing the deck of all the bad stuff.

Not easy, no doubt, but it is the preparation for the coming of the Messiah.

This week, Wednesday and Thursday nights, we have the parish mission for Advent.

And a priest is coming in to speak about the three comings of Christ.

Advent is confusing to me, because it's like, which coming are we preparing for?

You know, His first coming leads to Christmas.

Second coming, well actually, second coming is, this is where it gets confusing.

There three comings, past, present, and future.

Past, 2,000 years ago leads to Christmas.

Present and the Eucharist, future, judgment.

One confession prepares us for all three.

One confession.

We bring our waste, our chaff to Him, our barren branches.

We walk into the confessional with the waste.

And it's tough.

It's tough to acknowledge times we were wasted, drunk.

Or we wasted time and words and idle gossip.

Or Sundays that we wasted by skipping mass, making the Lord's Day a waste.

We bring in our ways, we give it to him, he wants it.

It's like the best Christmas gift you give to Jesus, the best birthday present.

Give him your sins.

He wants them.

He died for them.

You come with the waste, you give it to him, and you leave with the grain and the bud and the shoot.

All the things of growth.

Don't bother with things that are about death or signs of death or the things that are not bearing good fruit.

We walk out with the things of growth.

Isaiah says this is the way it is on the mountain the Lord there is no harm there is no ruin on the mountain It's all about growth Remember in John 15 Jesus talks about the vine

and the branches That any of the branches that aren't bearing fruit thrown out burned the ones that do bear fruit are pruned It's another way to look at confession Pruning them so

they bear more fruit The Lord's mountain is all about

Growth and fruitfulness.

John 6, whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit.

So we are all in the Lord's mountain together in Advent, where it's all about growth and signs of life.