In the second Sunday of Advent, we meet two characters whom we will meet again in Advent – the prophet Isaiah and the evangelist Mark. Isaiah records the Lord’s extraordinary decision that Israel’s exile has ended and they can return home to Jerusalem.

Comfort, give comfort to my people, says your God. Speak to the heart of Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her service has ended, that her guilt is expiated, that she has received from the hand of the Lord double for all her sins. A voice proclaims: In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord! Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God!

Israel is to embark on a new exodus from Babylon just as Israel of old embarked on the exodus from Egypt and journeyed home to Jerusalem. That first exodus occurred in the thirteenth century BCE and made a family into the Lord’s people. The exodus in the sixth century BCE, narrated in Isaiah 40 quoted above, renewed the first exodus and re-formed a nation of the returning exiles. Christians believe that Jesus inaugurated another exodus, forming a new people, a new creation.

“In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord! Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God!” became one of the most quoted texts when Jesus inaugurated a new exodus, a renewal of the first two exodus events. This exodus, however, was not a literal journey, but a movement. It represented a new way of the Lord being with Israel as their savior, and a new way of the people relating to the Lord. John the Baptist used the words that Isaiah used in announcing a new stage of God’s presence among the people.

Does the call of the Baptist in Mark have any meaning for our lives? Yes, it does. The gospel Jesus preached is not just a message from the past. It is the inauguration of a fresh way of God being present in the midst of his people. The words and deeds of Jesus do not lie dormant in the past. The Gospel of Mark begins with “The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” “Beginning” does not refer only to the beginning of Mark, but also to the beginning of a work of God that continues into the present and affects us. God is at work in us. We must open our hearts to receive him. John demands conversion, which means that in Advent we open our hearts and minds and make ready a way in the wilderness of a world that has largely lost track of God’s love.