<\/p>\n
So, the least in the Kingdom of God\u00a0 Is greater than John the Baptist, who is the greatest of those born of a woman!\u00a0 Is there any hope for us then, who certainly don\u2019t have the insight or the zeal or the discipline of John the Baptist? Contrast that thought with response in our Psalm today:\u00a0 \u201cThe Lord is gracious and merciful, slow in anger, and great in kindness.\u201d\u00a0 How can both of these be true?\u00a0 What does it all mean?<\/p>\n
It means we all have cause to rejoice.\u00a0 You see, the coming of Jesus, our savior, changed everything for us.\u00a0 Up until then, the Kingdom of God was not open, and great as any human born of a woman might be, they could not enter the everlasting Kingdom of God.\u00a0 Jesus\u2019 coming put into action God\u2019s plan to save all of us who believe and follow Jesus.\u00a0 Yes, the Lord is gracious.<\/p>\n
And to help us on our journey of life, we have been given great gifts- the Church and the Sacraments- Baptism, the Eucharist, Confirmation in particular.\u00a0 These initiate and confirm us in our faith.\u00a0 And the sacrament of reconciliation gives us a second, and third, and fourth, and on and on, chance to make things right with God as we fall on the way.\u00a0 Yes indeed, the Lord is merciful and slow to anger.<\/p>\n
Now most of us can\u2019t really appreciate the literal meanings of the first reading.\u00a0 We are not shepherds and farmers, and we don\u2019t live in ancient times.\u00a0 We have huge diesel driven bulldozers and earthmoving equipment that can literally move mountains.\u00a0 We have cell phones and electric lights and running water and air conditioning, even in the middle of the desert.\u00a0 These things, by the way, are not what Isaiah was predicting.\u00a0 But try for a moment to visualize the promise that the Lord is delivering through Isaiah. \u00a0\u00a0Imagine threshing a mountain with a hand tool with ease, and water bubbling free in the desert with rivers flowing on bare land. \u00a0\u00a0For nomadic ancient peoples, these things symbolized a dream come true-. a permanent solution to wandering and scraping the land for survival.\u00a0 Well, they symbolize the same thing for us- a dream come true, a state of prosperity and happiness forever.\u00a0 Yes indeed, the Lord shows us great kindness.<\/p>\n
So, rejoice, because the coming of Jesus does for us what the exiled people that Isaiah spoke to were hoping for.\u00a0 Jesus coming guarantees us who believe everlasting life in the Kingdom of God, where we will also be greater than the greatest born of a woman.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thursday of the Second Week of Advent Is 41: 13-20; Mt 11: 11-15 Dc. Larry Brockman So, the least in the Kingdom of God\u00a0 Is greater than John the Baptist, who is the greatest of those born of a woman!\u00a0 Is there any hope for us then, who certainly don\u2019t have the insight or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[175,176],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=255"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":256,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255\/revisions\/256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}