Second Sunday of Advent
Reading — Isaiah 11:1-10; Psalm 72:1-7,18-19; Romans 15:4-13; Matthew 3:1-12
As we enter this second week of Advent, we are confronted with the words of John the Baptist.
You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath
to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance. … [he has] his
winnowing fork in his hand, and he will clear his threshing
floor and will gather his wheat into the granary, but the chaff
he will burn with unquenchable fire.
Instead, we need the resolve of St. Nicholas to build bridges, to reach out, and to connect. To be connected with the sailors (a rough bunch in those days), he gave citrus to them for their sailing journeys, the citrus to keep them healthy and scurvy free. To connect with the poor young women, he threw gold coins into their parent’s homes to provide dowries, and to ensure that they would not be sold into slavery or thrown into the street. To all he encountered in his native Turkey, he provided gentle nurturing as a bishop of the Church. His resolve was to bridge, to connect, to heal divisions.
This resolved can be illustrated in the story of the Columbia-Wrightsville bridge, just south of Harrisburg. The first bridge was opened in 1814 to connect York and Lancaster Counties. It was a wooden covered bridge, 5,690 feet long (over a mile), and 30 feet wide. Ice and high water destroyed it in 1832.
The second bridge opened in 1834, partially constructed from timbers of the first bridge. In 1840 a second deck was added so that canal boats could be towed across the Susquehanna River, and in 1846 a double track railroad was included with mule and horse teams pulling the cars across the bridge since it was a covered bridge. Steam locomotives would have caused a fire.
On the 28th of June, 1863, with a Confederate Army entering the bridge in order to encircle Harrisburg as part of the battle of Gettysburg, the Union forces soaked the bridge with crude oil and set in ablaze.
The third bridge with stone piers was built by the Pennsylvania Railroad to connect Philadelphia and Baltimore. The Cedar Keys hurricane of 1896 destroyed the bridge deck but the stone piers remained.
The fourth bridge, the “Iron Bridge”, was built in two months using prefabricated iron sections placed on the piers. Trains and cars both used the bridge.
The fifth bridge was built in 1929 for cars, beside the railroad “Iron Bridge”.
Persistence, Resolve, Resources for over one hundred years were provided to keep the wide Susquehanna River bridged, despite fire, flood, war, and congestion.
Relationships, communications, can also be destroyed by fire, flood, war and congestion. As Jesus People, as People of Faith, our resolve is also tested to retain relationships, to communicate through fire, flood, war and congestion.
The Pope went to ancient Nicea, Turkey, with the Patriarch of the Orthodox Church to begin healing separation, and to celebrate the Nicene Creed that both traditions affirm.
Soon after the Civil War veterans, from the North and from the South, convened on many of their battlefields.
American Vietnam veterans return to revisit Saigon and Hanoi.
St. Paul wrote to the young congregation in Rome
May the God of steadfastness and encouragement grant you to live
in harmony with one another…Welcome one another… as Christ has
welcomed you.
Remember, harmony is not everyone singing the same note. Rather, harmony is “a combination of different notes, creating cords and rich sounds”.
“To prepare the way of the Lord” is to do God’s will on earth as it is in heaven.
“To prepare the way of the Lord” is not about judgement, not about burning with “unquenchable fire”.
“To prepare the way of the Lord” is about resolve to bridge build, and when fire, floods, war and congestion arise, then to rebuild, and to restore.
“To prepare the way of the Lord” is to be St. Nicholas in our own day, to reach out to sailors, to reach out to endangered young women, to gently guide.
“To prepare the way of the Lord” is to welcome one another just, as Christ has welcomed us.
Amen
