Second Sunday Of Advent- Year A -- The Ax Lies At The Root Of The Trees

Men who cut down the beloved, 200-year-old iconic Sycamore tree in Northern England were sentenced to more than 4 years in prison. The tree was featured as the backdrop in movies like Robbin Hood because it sits in the gap between two grassy hills in the English countryside growing right next to Hadrian’s Wall; it was a national treasure.

There is, however, a righteous ax.

Even now the ax lies at the root of the trees, John the Baptist says in our Gospel today.

Therefore, every tree that does not bear good fruit

will be cut down and thrown into the fire.

When the axe of Jesus Christ hits the tree of people's lives; heed the Advent voice to repent!

Produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance.

Uprooting inordinate habits.

John the Baptist fed on locusts and wild honey.

Clement of Alexandria offers the Baptist's diet as example to avoid overeating and gluttony, saying, “I for one would not hesitate to call that devil, the devil of the belly, the most wicked and deadly of them all. John the Baptist maintained extreme self-restraint.

John the Baptist appears in the wilderness, and he calls out, “Repent, for the kingdom of God is near!”

A man named John Hakel says his three-year-old daughter looked at a calendar and asked him, "Daddy, how many BE GOOD days until Christmas?"

Many people want forgiveness without repentance. They do not want to turn from their sinful practices to belong to Jesus Christ.

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

Benedict XVI writes that, “the truth of a man that judgment renders definitive is that truth which has emerged as the fundamental orientation of his existence in all the pathways of his life” (Eschatology, 209).

An illustration of the importance of a straight path”

The dangerous I-90 "bulge" on the original floating bridge to Seattle was a S-curve designed to allow that section of the bridge to open for boats. One night in 1978, a young lady disappeared after failing to navigate around the void at night. When rebuilding the bridge in the 80's, her car was found submerged on the bottom of the structure.

After 41 years of service, more than 300 accidents, and four deaths, that dangerous S-curve was removed in 1981 and replaced by a straight, immovable section.

The verb “to go” means to walk forward and has the biblical association for “walk straight,” which is morally straight.

Grace comes along and straightens us out.

The same park ranger who had initially discovered the fallen sycamore reported seeing new shoots of growth along its stump, fueling hopes that the tree might regenerate itself.

On that day, a shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse, we hear in our First Reading.

This is a prophecy representing a new beginning to the idolatrous Davidic kingdom, which has been cut down by God on account of its sinfulness.

Despite the failure of Israel’s kings to remain faithful to the covenant, the LORD promises to raise up a “shoot” who will “judge the poor with justice and decide aright for the land’s afflicted” (Isa 11.4), thus embodying the ideal of Davidic kingship (see Ps 72).

Sit with this image of new growth after times of unfruitfulness.

From our Second Reading: that by endurance and by the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.

When the axe of Christ hits the tree – the hammering reduces it to a stump by not taking seriously trusting in Christ’s grace and the expectation of Jesus as the returning Messiah with the axe of judgment in hand in his Second Advent.