The Word of John
John the Baptist Receiving Instructions, by David LaChapelle Lections: The Second Sunday of Advent , AD 2025 A Homily: Lord, we pray for the preacher, for you know his sins are great. Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. John the Baptist is the first prophet to appear in over 400 years. And he arises precisely when his people most need to hear the Word of the Lord. A thousand years before John, Israel had been a mighty kingdom at the crossroad of empires, pugnacious under David, magnanimous under Solomon. But division and corruption and endless foreign wars brought about the nation’s collapse; first in the north to the Assyrians; then in the south to the Babylonians. The people of Israel thus lost their temple, their monarchy, their very land, carted off into Exile as strangers in a strange land. By rights, that should’ve been the end of them. It was then the Prophets who sustained them, who assured the Exiles ...
