First Sunday B of Advent Mk 13,33-37

The prophet Isaiah invites us: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” (Mark 1: 3)

These words of the prophet are not only an Advent challenge but also a challenge to the new church year, as well as to the rest of our lives. Advent is the time to prepare for the feasts of the Nativity. Advent is arrival, expectation, preparation. God is coming to us. We get a pattern of how to welcome him.
John the Baptist did not hesitate. He is fulfilling his mission as God assigned to him in his mother’s womb. Baptism and the proclamation of repentance. He confesses when they consider him the Messiah: “He comes after me mightier than I am. I am not even worthy to bend down and untie his shoelaces. ”(Mark 1: 7). In other words, John can be said to live in the presence of God. It doesn’t matter. John is not a man who would be most interested in the needs of the body, food, clothes… John is a man of great spirit who fulfills everything that God expects of him. John is not a reed swept away by the wind. John is a role model who never betrays his conscience and performs his duties faithfully. He is firm in his character, kneeling only before God, for whom he is willing to lay down his life. His life addresses that many from all over Judea and Jerusalem come to the Jordan River and are baptized with repentance to remission of sins. For John’s example, many do not hesitate and prepare for the coming of the Messiah.
Both the prophets Isaiah and John the Baptist are an example of our approach to our obligations to God. John the Baptist teaches by word and deed that Jesus must grow in us. The world’s salvation is not in sweet words, chosen food, soft clothes, pleasant living, but in fulfilling God’s will. As God, Jesus fulfills the will of God the Father. Both the prophets Isaiah and John the Baptist freely do God’s will in their place and to the best of their knowledge. And they teach us that. “Prepare the way of the Lord.” (Mark 1: 3) God asks each person not to hesitate in his life journey and to fulfill the tasks he has received from God. The words “prepare the way of the Lord” always means to do God’s will, and the words “level his paths” are a call to repentance for sins, a call to abandon sin, a call to satisfy for sins committed.

John the Baptist is an example and a model, a challenge, and an admonition for us Christians not to hesitate. They teach us what and who we are to be: oaks not reeds, people of truth, people of faith, people of character. John the Baptist is an example to us so that we should not be fooled by external appearance, comfort, opinion, what others will say, but so that we do not hesitate in what God wants from us. John the Baptist teaches us to follow the simple Christian path, not look to the right or the left, even though our path would not be easy or pleasant. John the Baptist’s life is our school; we must never antagonize God, even if we have to stand up to the whole world. After all, God is above everything, and only in Him can we have everything.
Many Christians are indeed a reed without their own thinking, without their own convictions, without their own opinions, without Christian principles; they forget that they are still standing before God. A Christian must not be an evil merchant who sells everything for nothing. John also felt hunger and thirst and cold in the desert. He didn’t hesitate and was what he was supposed to be. A Christian must not forget that he also has a soul. It must not be one of those about which St. writes. Paul: “Their god is the belly.”
Sv. Francis called his body “brother donkey.” He, too, felt the need for a body. She keeps him in check, controls her sensibly, watches over his needs.
God does not send us to the desert, and we do not have to behave in such a way that we draw unnecessary attention to ourselves or that our behavior, their way of life are like St. John Baptist. We are to fulfill our mission toward God, our neighbors, and ourselves. Only he who is the master of himself and the friend of God can do that. He who does not hesitate will achieve the goal.

Yes, many have hesitated, and yet today, they are saints. Did we hesitate too? God has not ceased to care for us. The proof is today’s call from the Gospel. Even today, many are abandoning their evil paths of life and balancing them, beginning to walk on the right paths. Every sin, weakness, passion, mistake, mistake can be abandoned, and a new life can begin in the presence of God. None of us is excluded from this new life. When we know who we are actually waiting for, whose birth holidays we are preparing for, it deserves a change in our lives, as the old legend says.

The rich king, who lived in luxury, comfort, and dining at the rich table, was not evil, had a good heart, and longed for God and prayed, but could not experience the joy of God in his heart. He felt that God was far from him.
One night, while lying in a soft bed, he could not sleep. He wondered why he had these difficulties with God. Suddenly he heard a strong voice under the windows. He went out on the balcony and shouted angrily, “Who’s bothering me? What is going on? ”Said the hermit, who, with his consent, had a hermitage nearby,“ I am looking for my goat, which has escaped me! ” And the hermit will answer him, “And why is my king so foolish that he thinks he will find God in a soft robe, resting on a golden bed?”

The legend ends positively. The king took the hermit’s words to heart, changed his lifestyle, his relationship with things and people, and died in a mess of holiness.
When we too desire to live in the presence of God, in preparation for the feasts of God’s birth, it is right that we change our relationship with God, our own life, his values, but also our neighbors and things. We don’t want to hesitate anymore—Vice versa. We want to live with God not only in solemn moments but also in daily duties. Today we don’t even have to take off our clothes, and we don’t have to fast. Just a lot easier. Perhaps to give more time and activities to God, neighbor, or your soul.

Advent is indeed a time when we are loudly and powerfully invited to change our lives in the spirit of the words: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” (Mark 1: 3) Let us not hesitate. The car can be repaired, survived without winning, but will not any hesitation today in the call to change life be the last?
Let us ask for strength to fulfill the voice of the gospel, the voice of the caller in the wilderness, in the words of today’s psalm: “I will hear what the Lord God will say. Indeed, salvation is near to those who fear Him. ”(Ps. 85: 9, 10)