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Master·evangeli.net

Today's Gospel + short theological explanation

Second Sunday of Advent (B)
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Gospel text (Mk 1:1-8): The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God. As it is written in Isaiah the prophet: Behold, I am sending my messenger ahead of you; he will prepare your way. A voice of one crying out in the desert: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.” John the Baptist... proclaimed: “One mightier than I is coming after me. I am not worthy to stoop and loosen the thongs of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

The one "God-who-comes"

EDITORIAL TEAM evangeli.net (based on texts by Benedict XVI) (Città del Vaticano, Vatican)

Today, at the beginning of the new yearly cycle, the Church —as John the Baptist— renews her proclamation to all the peoples and sums it up in two words: "God comes". It is not used in the past tense (God has come) or in the future (God will come), but in the present: "God comes". This is a present continuous, that is, an ever-continuous action: it happened, it is happening now and it will happen again. In whichever moment "God comes".

One of the features essential and characteristic of God is that He is the "God-who-comes". The one true God, "the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob" is not a God who is there in Heaven, unconcerned with us and our history, but He is the "one-God-who-comes". He is a father who never stops thinking of us. And in the extreme respect of our freedom, desires to meet us and visit us: He is also the "God-with-us".

—Jesus comes because He desires to free us from evil and death, from all that prevents our true happiness: God comes to save me.