THURSDAY-2^nd Week of Advent: Year-A

1^st Reading: Isaiah 41: 13-20: I, the Holy One of Israel, and your Redeemer.

Gospel: Matthew: 11: 11- 15: A Greater than John the Baptist has never been seen.

What Jesus did was reprimand the crowd. He vindicated John and his mission, reminding the forgetful and the fickle that John was the forerunner, and he claimed that he was the true Messiah.

1.     John was the greatest of natural men/women, yet not as great as the least in the Kingdom of Heaven.

2.     John launched a violent over throw of the kingdom.

i.                   He stirred people to storm and rush into the kingdom just as an army storms or rushes into a city. Cf. Lk 16: 16.

ii.                 A person must storm the kingdom to enter it. Cf. 2 Tim 2: 3-4; Heb 11: 6.

iii.              A person who really wishes to enter heaven will storm it. That is he/she will endure anything to enter heaven. Cf. Lk 9: 23; Rom 12: 2; Eph 4: 23.

3.     John was the last of an age- the age predicting the Messiah. John ended the age of the Old Testament prophecy. He was the last of a long line of prophets who predicted the coming of the Messiah. He was the one whom God raised up to be the end of one era and the beginning of the new era.

4.     John was the promised Elijah, the forerunner who was to proceed the Messiah. John was not Elijah in person, but he was like Elijah in spirit and power and work (Jn 1: 21-23).

5.     A person must hear. A person has ears in order to hear. Let everyone hear the message of Christ Jesus. Cf. Mt 13: 16; Prov 18: 15.

Thought: God expects us to use the faculties we have in order to receive His message: we have eyes to see His Work, hears to hear His Message, mind to reason the Truth, hand to work His Works, feet to go where He wishes. We are to be as committed to the Messiah as John the Baptist was.

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