Readings for the Second Sunday of Advent:
Baruch 5:1-9
Psalm 126:1-2, 2-3, 4-5, 6
Philippians 1:4-6, 8-11
Luke 3:1-6
On an Advent morning 12 years ago, the jazz great Dave Brubeck died, just before his 92nd birthday.
Besides being a man of music, he was also a man of faith, who joined the Catholic Church as an adult. In many ways, it was fitting that he entered eternal life during Advent – in part, because (as we discover with this Sunday’s readings) so much of his life was about hearing, listening and responding.
Brubeck’s journey into the Church began when he was commissioned to write a Mass made up entirely of jazz music. He thought it would be an interesting challenge, and when it finally premiered it was widely praised.
A priest told Brubeck how much he liked the music, but he said he was puzzled by something: why hadn’t he included in the music The Lord’s Prayer?
Brubeck didn’t even realize the oversight. He thought about revising the score but decided against it. He thought that anything he wrote would disrupt the musical structure. He decided to just let it go. But a few days later, something happened that made him change his mind.
While on vacation with his family, Brubeck awoke in the middle of the night, astonished: the entire Our Father had come to him in a dream, complete with orchestra and chorus. He climbed out of bed, wrote it all out, and later added it to the score.
“Because of this event,” he said, “I decided that I might as well join the Catholic Church. Someone somewhere was pulling me toward that end.”
Advent reminds us: we are all being “pulled toward that end,” all of us are being drawn to God. We are being called – called to prepare, to get ready, to follow. We’re being called, like Dave Brubeck, to hear something unexpected, something that will add new music to our lives.
In Sunday’s Gospel, something like that happens to John the Baptist.
“The word of God came to John in the desert,” Luke wrote. “John went throughout the whole region of the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”
John the Baptist listened – and what he heard was so overwhelming, he couldn’t keep it to himself. Like Dave Brubeck, John heard a new music. And he had to transmit it to the world.
This second Sunday of Advent, we might ask ourselves: what are we hearing? Are we letting God’s message reach us? There’s so much battling for our attention. Just turn on the computer, click on the TV or visit the shopping mall.
But some of it may not be out there, but within, within ourselves. We’re distracted by the noise of our own worries, of deadlines, of obligations and expectations, of ambitions and frustrations and the daily grind of living.
To all of this, Advent says: hush. Listen. The word of God is coming – the word that is his Gospel, and the Word that is his Son.
This is why this season is so important: we need to make ourselves ready to receive what God is offering. John cries out, “Prepare the way of the Lord!” Are we doing that? Or is John the Baptist’s voice another one being lost in the din of the season?
In a sense, the call of Advent is a call to conversion. It proclaims a new path, pointing us toward a star and a manger and beyond that, to the cross.
It points, ultimately, to our salvation, and to a life beyond death.
After he finally finished it, Dave Brubeck gave his jazz Mass a title. He called it: “To Hope.” It’s a title that has a beautiful ambiguity. “To Hope” can be a dedication, a toast, or even a verb. Ultimately, “To hope” is the Christian way of living.
In the vocabulary of this season, maybe that title is something more. Maybe it is showing us a direction.
Advent is pointing the way – to life, to salvation and, as Dave Brubeck knew, to hope.
Deacon Greg Kandra is an award-winning author and journalist, and creator of the blog “The Deacon’s Bench.”
