Second Sunday of Advent—Romans 15:4-9

Today, the Bible gets personal. The Holy Spirit is informing us that “whatever was written previously was written for our instruction.” Worded another way, whatever the Holy Spirit inspired the authors of the Bible to write, he inspired them so that he could speak to you and to me.

Do you want to hear God speak to you? Then you have to read the Scriptures, both communally at Mass and personally, in the comfort of your own Domestic Church. In the Bible, when God speaks through a prophet, the prophet always describes it as “The Word of the Lord came to me” or “The Word of the Lord was upon me.” A similar phenomenon occurs at each Mass when we read from the Bible and declare it to be “The Word of the Lord.” What God inspired in the biblical prophets, he inspired to speak to you and to me today. The same Word of the Lord that came upon Jeremiah and Isaiah and Micah comes upon us during the Liturgy of the Word.

God was thinking of us when he made his promises to Abraham and when he reaffirmed those same promises in covenants with Moses and David and ultimately with the New Covenant in Jesus. We are part of the story of the Bible. The Scriptures are intended to show us endurance in the face of difficulties and to encourage us.

If we aren’t finding encouragement to endure in the Scriptures, perhaps we’re not spending enough time with the Scriptures. Saint Jerome famously said that ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.

That’s a heavy statement. It doesn’t mean that you have to be a Scripture scholar to know Jesus deeply, but it does point to the importance of knowing the story of the Bible, the story of Salvation History.

One very popular Advent devotion is the Jesse Tree. The term comes from Isaiah 11:1 which speaks of the coming Messiah as a shoot that will spring from the stump of Jesse, since Jesse was King David’s father. The Jesse Tree devotion involves reading short passages of Scripture each day in Advent to follow the plotline of Salvation History from Creation to Jesus’ birth. If you Google Jesse Tree, you can find hundreds of free resources and reading plans to follow.

This devotion is an excellent way to get into what Saint Paul is writing about in this week’s second reading. Whatever you read as part of this devotion was written for your instruction, to help you endure the struggles in your life, and to encourage you. Do you need some encouragement and endurance amid the Christmas madness out there? Then spend some time with the Word of the Lord.