Today in the middle of Advent, the Word of God presents to us the Holy Precursor of Jesus Christ: Saint John the Baptist. God the Father prepared the coming, that is, the Advent, of his Son in our flesh, born of the Virgin Mary, in many ways and in many forms, as the beginning of the Letter to the Hebrews says (1:1). The patriarchs, the prophets and the kings prepared the coming of Jesus.

Let us look at his two genealogies in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. He is the son of Abraham and David. Moses, Isaiah and Jeremiah announced his Advent and described the characteristics of his mystery. But St. John the Baptist, as the liturgy says (Preface of his feast), was able to point him out with his finger, and it was his task - mysteriously! - to Baptize the Lord. He was the last witness before the coming. And he was so with his life, with his death and with his word. His birth is also announced, like that of Jesus, and is prepared, according to the Gospel of Luke (chapters 1 and 2). And his death as a martyr, victim of the weakness of a king and the hatred of a wicked woman, also prepares that of Jesus. For this reason, he received the extraordinary praise of Jesus himself that we read in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke (cf. Mt 11:11; Lk 7:28): “Among those born of women there has been none greater than John the Baptist.” In the face of this, which he could not ignore, he is a model of humility: “I am not worthy to loosen the thongs of his sandals” (Lk 3:16), he tells us today. And, according to St. John (3:30): “He must increase; I must decrease.”

Let us hear his word today, which exhorts us to share what we have and to respect justice and the dignity of all. Let us thus prepare ourselves to receive the One who comes now to save us, and will come again to "judge the living and the dead".