Florida Catholic | Sunday Word

2nd Sunday of Advent

“Got Comfort? Got Hope?”

December 7, 2008 :: Is 40:1-5, 9-11; Ps 85:9-10-11-12, 13-14; 2 Pt 3:8-14; Mk 1:1-8

MSGR. MICHAEL V. REED | SPECIAL TO THE FLORIDA CATHOLIC

“Got Comfort? Got Hope?” It’s not just another spoof of the dairy advertisement that features famous personalities sporting milk mustaches, but real questions which our readings want us to affirm.

Comfort is the first word used in what biblical scholars call 2nd Isaiah. Isaiah’s 66 chapters are divided into three sections – 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Isaiah – and cover different periods of Israel’s history. This is important to us because each of these periods of Israel’s past tells us of their trials and hardships. And the people of Israel have had their share of catastrophe as most assuredly do we in our own day. Amazingly, the author’s response to these devastating events is to provide comfort and hope. Don’t give up! Don’t be discouraged because as God’s chosen people we do have comfort. We do have hope. And it’s special because it’s no longer a question, but more an acclamation: “God Comfort!” “God Hope!” Not even these hard times of economic upheaval, lost jobs and disappearing pensions will steal from us the promise and legacy we share as sons and daughters of an almighty God.

In our own time and in the face of new crises, comfort and hope can be elusive. The writer of the second letter to Peter tries to allay the anxiety of those who expected the second coming of Christ to have happened. And not unlike with Isaiah, we can read in between the lines “comfort” and “hope.” This isn’t a delay of the end, we are told. It’s an ongoing opportunity from our God, for whom one day is like a thousand years, to repent of our sins and turn back to his promise of a new heavens and a new earth.

John the Baptist in the Gospel of Mark is portrayed as an Old World prophet whose voice is crying out from the past. He is the messenger proclaiming the arrival of the New World that Isaiah prophesied would come. Comfort and hope are not just the warm feelings of confidence anymore; they are the person of Jesus. God himself, through his Son, will be our comfort and hope. God Comfort! God Hope! It is no longer a question for us but a matter of fact. When we’ve got Jesus we’ve got everything we could possibly need. Actually, we’ve got more than we even now realize, dream or imagine. It is after all “God Comfort!” and “God Hope!” we’re talking about here – not some slogan or campaign, but the real thing.

Msgr. Reed is chancellor of the Pensacola-Tallahassee Diocese.

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