The Second Sunday of Advent Year B

Gazing on the Gospel - Year B

The Second Sunday of Advent

Mark 1.1-8

Gaze on the people coming out to John in the wilderness. The parents are dragging along the children by their hand, and the old people are hobbling along trying to catch up. They know it won’t be easy to reach the spot where this man who has so excited them is preaching. The whole arid area to the west of the Dead Sea is made up of layer after layer of crumbling rock, cliffs and gorges, dried river beds stretching further than the eye can see. There are no straight paths there. They twist behind rocks, get lost in the scented scrub, and run out in the sand. There are no tarmac roads, just the memory of caravan routes wending around steep contours, via precious watering holes and simple tented settlements. That is why John’s cry is so extraordinary. This will be a straight path, he says: here is direct access to the saving ways of God.


Taken from Gazing on the Gospel Year B by Judith Dimond

Published by SPCK