Second Sunday of Advent: Prepare the Way of the Lord! – Year A

Reflection for the Second Sunday of Advent – Year A  

December 7, 2025

Readings:  

- Isaiah 11:1-10  

- Psalm 72:1-2, 7-8, 12-13, 17  

- Romans 15:4-9  

- Matthew 3:1-12

“Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.”  

John the Baptist’s voice still echoes across the centuries, raw and urgent, cutting through the noise of our distracted lives. On this Second Sunday of Advent, the Church places this wild prophet in front of us not to frighten us, but to awaken us.

The readings today paint two images that contradict each other yet belong together.

First, Isaiah gives us the tender, almost unimaginable vision of the peaceable kingdom: the wolf guest of the lamb, the leopard lying down with the kid, a little child leading them. This is not sentimental poetry; it is the promise that God’s Messiah will so transform creation that even the ancient instincts of predator and prey will be healed. Justice and peace will kiss because the knowledge of the Lord will fill the earth as the waters cover the sea.

Then comes John, all fire and fury, camel-hair and locusts, shouting at religious professionals: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?” One moment we are invited to dream of lions eating straw like oxen, the next we are warned that the axe is already laid to the root of the tree, and every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.

How do these belong together? The answer is mercy and truth meeting, justice and peace kissing—the very reality Psalm 72 sings about. The same Messiah who will judge the poor with justice and decide fairly for the afflicted of the land is the One whose winnowing fork is in his hand, clearing the threshing floor, gathering the wheat, and burning the chaff with unquenchable fire. The gentleness and the severity are not opposites; they are two sides of the same divine love.

Advent is not a season for superficial cheer. It is a season for honest self-examination in the light of the coming King. John’s cry is addressed first to the outwardly religious: “Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’” Religious pedigree, sacramental mileage, years of Catholic schooling—none of it exempts us from the call to “bear fruit that befits repentance.” The axe is laid to the root. What in us still needs to be cut away—resentment, selfishness, indifference to the poor, the quiet conviction that we are already good enough?

Yet the same readings that warn us also comfort us. St. Paul reminds us that everything written in the Scriptures was written for our instruction, so that “by endurance and by the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.” The Messiah who comes to judge is the same shoot from the stump of Jesse upon whom the Spirit of wisdom, understanding, counsel, might, knowledge, and fear of the Lord rests. He does not judge by appearances or decide by hearsay. He sees the heart.

This is the deepest Advent hope: the One who knows us completely is the One who loves us completely. The fire he brings is not only judgment; it is purification. The chaff he burns is everything in us that keeps us from being fully the wheat he longs to gather into his barn.

So we light the second candle, the Bethlehem candle, and we dare to ask: Lord, what crooked paths in me still need straightening? Where have I settled for a superficial peace instead of the fierce, gentle peace you alone can give?

Repentance is not a once-in-a-lifetime moment; it is the daily turning of the heart toward the coming Christ. Every confession, every act of mercy, every choice to forgive instead of condemn, every quiet yes to God in the ordinary duties of the day—these are the ways we make his paths straight.

The wolf and the lamb will lie down together, not because the wolf learns to be nicer, but because the Messiah reigns. And he reigns first in hearts that have made room for him.

Come, Lord Jesus. Burn away what is false in us. Teach us to live already as citizens of your peaceable kingdom. Make us ready—not just for Christmas morning, but for the day when every tear will be wiped away and the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord.

Maranatha. Come, Lord Jesus.