Our Advent this year is curtailed. Last Sunday we had our celebration to launch the new parish of All Saints and our minds were perhaps more attuned to the joy of that occasion rather than doing the 1st Sunday of Advent full justice. But let us rejoice at what we did last week and congratulate everyone for the sterling efforts that went into pulling off one of the great turnarounds in managing to put it all together in the circumstances. Well done to one and all for such a memorable celebration. It just shows what we can do when we put our minds to it. But having now left behind that 1st Sunday of Advent we find that the 4th week is also gone because the 4th Sunday of Advent falls on December 24 . In reality there are only 14 days of Advent left –just a fortnight. So, as you can see that there is much to fit into these two weeks.

Today’s readings however will help us to concentrate the mind and I think that the First Reading and the Gospel complement each other beautifully to provide for us a clarion call to stir us from what ever holds us back in our response to God’s call. Isaiah cries out that the time of exile is complete – “her time of service is over, her sin is atoned for”. What a joyous message indeed. It rings with such fervour that its hard not to be uplifted by its vision. Obstacles are cleared and a pathway is bulldozed through the barriers and fences that otherwise stop and prevent us from acclaiming the presence of the Lord amongst us. And Mark in his extraordinary opening to his book of Good News echoes in just one sentence, the enormity of what has happened. His opening line is revelatory, declaring that what has now come about through the person of Jesus is the completion of the whole of the Biblical narrative, from its very outset in the Book of Genesis to the present day and beyond into the fulness of time. Mark implies by naming Jesus the anointed Son of God, that the powers of this world are overcome because of what his good news will relate, and it begins exactly as Isaiah prophesised. “Prepare the way for the Lord” and in this preparedness we acknowledge with the psalmist that we have “seen his mercy and have received his saving help”.

This is the encouragement which we dig into as we use this short time to make our own paths straight and bring us into the realm of his kingdom. We know that there are struggles and difficulties for so many people, and our hearts must not be hardened so that we fail to recognise the suffering that is shattering so many lives. Let our prayers be ones which call for peace on earth and goodwill to all at the coming of the one who will baptise with the Holy Spirit and be our shepherd feeding us with his love.