As we enter into the month of December, we would have put up the Christmas decorations at home, and maybe even at the office or at the workplace.
In Church, the decorations are already up, both inside as well as outside, although the Nativity scene inside the Church would be in its full array on Christmas day.
The Nativity scene would typically have the figurines of the Baby Jesus, Mary and Joseph,the shepherds and the sheep, the cow and the donkey and if there is still space, then there will be the three wise men and their camels.
That would mean that the Nativity scene is already quite crowded enough, and also there is no need to add other figurines.
But let us remember that before Christmas, there is the season of Advent, the 4 weeks of Advent, and today we begin the second week of Advent.
One main feature of the season of Advent is the prophecies that point to the Messiah, the Promised One of God, the coming of the Saviour who would save God's people from their sins.
Besides the prophecies, there is another character that will be showing up in the season of Advent, and it is John the Baptist.
In today's Gospel, John the Baptist makes his appearance with a rather straightforward message of repentance, and also in a unique dressing fashion and rather strange diet.
Besides that, his message was direct and to the point. And if John the Baptist were to come to Church today, he would stand in front of the Nativity scene to block our view and to obstruct photo taking.
Because for John the Baptist, there is no Christmas celebration without the Advent preparation and repentance.
And he may even have an axe in his hand to show that he means business. The message of the axe is clear: Any tree that fails to bear good fruit will be cut down.
John the Baptist’s Advent message for us is that we take a good look at ourselves and to cut off whatever that does not lead us to God.
And we don't have much time, because Christmas is only 22 days away, and we have to hurry and get down on our knees and pray, so that we can see what to cut off, and to have the courage and determination to do so.
As we get busier and busier and with so much to do as we emerge after the 2 years of restrictions, we have developed a strange attitude.
We seem to have a thirst for “revenge”. So there is revenge shopping, revenge traveling, revenge socializing, revenge holidaying, revenge whatever.
It is like we want to break free and catch up on some kind of lost time, so we are busy taking “revenge”.
We are so “revenge” busy, that we forgot about what the past 2 years had taught us, and that is we have a family.
When our movements were restricted, and we had to stay at home and look at each other, as well as getting into each other's way, we may have realized that when everything is down to nothing, we still have something, and that is our family.
One strange thing about photo-taking is that as much as we take a lot of photos, there are not that many photographs, because most of the photos we take are stored in some media.
One thing that we can do this Advent is to take a family photo and have it printed as a photograph.
We can put that photograph in the Nativity scene along with the other figurines of the Baby Jesus, Mary and Joseph, the shepherds and the sheep, the cow and the donkey, and the three wise men.
We can also gather as a family to pray before the Nativity scene.
That is a sign of repentance, because repentance is not a sad and painful thing to do.
Repentance is a joyful experience, because the Lord is making His path straight into our hearts.
Jesus also wants to help us to make our paths straight into each other's hearts so that we can experience family joy and love.
So let us repent and bear fruits of love for the Lord and for each other.