Today the Church focuses on the great figure of St. John the Baptist, the precursor of our Lord’s coming and the herald who announces the Savior’s imminent arrival into the world.  John prepares the way of the Lord.  More specifically, he makes the final prophetic preparations, since all of history throughout all time had been preparing the way of the Lord: everything was leading to this incredible moment in which Almighty God would take on human flesh and walk among us.  Throughout the history of mankind, God used prophetic voices to call his people back to friendship with him.  Prophets, like the resonating voice of Isaiah in our first reading, prepared the people to accept the Messiah when the time would come for his arrival.  The coming of God’s son to earth is an event of such immense significance that God wanted to prepare for it over the course of millennia.  All the rituals and sacrifices of the Old Testament, the figures and symbols, the laws and prophets, all point to Christ.  John surpasses all of the prophets, of whom he is the last.  In him, the Holy Spirit finishes his centuries-long work of prophecy and preparation.  John is the one who at last has the privilege of pointing out the Messiah to the world: “Behold, the lamb of God.”  He also has the privilege of bearing final and definitive witness to Christ through his martyrdom at the hands of Herod.   

Imagine the impression that John the Baptist must have had with his astonishing message of repentance and new life.  We have no reason to think that St. Mark was exaggerating in the gospel passage today, when he reports that all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, all of Judea and the entire surrounding region were drawn to this incredible man, John the Baptist.  He was magnetic and compelling.  People were drawn to his preaching and his life of penance, his call to leave behind the life of sin and start down a new path.  The ritual of baptism, which St. John offered, powerfully symbolizes this spirit of conversion and repentance. 

Immersion in water is a common symbol of death, particularly recalling the destruction of Noah’s Ark and the Great Flood.  But the flowing waters of a river also symbolize life and nourishment and rebirth.  It’s no coincidence that every great civilization in the world was built around a great river, the Nile, or the Tigris and Euphrates, or the Tiber, or the Jordan.  Or the Cumberland.  These rivers were the source of life for the surrounding regions.  Immersion in water then is about death and life, about rebirth and purification, about liberation from the stains of the past.  It’s about beginning again; it’s about death and resurrection, about starting life over again anew. 

Our Lord himself, though free of sin, would participate in this baptism and thus show it to be a universal practice for all.  And Our Lord’s baptism anticipates his death on the cross.  In his baptism, Christ accepts the death that all humanity must bear because of sin, the death that he himself will experience on the cross.  Christ’s baptism shows exactly what he will do in his passion.  Though sinless himself, he enters into the sin of others.  Not in the role of a spectator, but as one who suffers with others, and thus transforms suffering, transforms death, and gives hope to those who feel like they are drowning in their own sins.  Just as Christ emerges from the water, years later he also emerges from the tomb, triumphant on Easter morning, having destroyed death forever.  St. John prepares the world for this.  St. John prepares our hearts for this.  We must do the work of preparation ourselves as well, by prayer and by a worthy manner of life and by good deeds, so that the Lord can come into our hearts without encountering obstacles there.  That’s what Advent is about.  We think about the various ways that God prepared the world for the coming of his Son.  And we ask the Holy Spirit to do the same thing in our own lives.  So in this holy season, let us take advantage of the many graces God wishes to give us.  Let us renew our intention to turn away from those things that we know lead us away from who are meant to be.  Let us beg the Lord for humble hearts, ready to receive the King of Humility when he comes to us at Christmas in the form of a tender and vulnerable child.  Let us ask God also to strengthen us in our own baptisms, with his Holy Spirit and with the fire of his love, so that we would be ready to persevere to the end of our lives in his friendship.  Come, Lord Jesus, quickly, come.