2nd Sunday of Advent - 2025 - Year A

Jeff Bagnall • 26 November 2025

Back in the 8 ^th century BC this first reading is for Isaiah a vision and a hope based on his understanding of God and His relationship with this world. It is expressed by the prophet as best as he can as being like a dream for an ideal king, a descendant of David (son of Jesse), with wonderful gifts of spirit, like wisdom, empathy, understanding and respect for God. But also a dream of an unimaginable peace, even in nature and between humans and animals – in our eyes an impossible world. In addition, again “on that day” it is written, this peace will extend even to the Gentiles – more easily imaginable to most of us here and now, within our understanding of God’s universal love.

The second reading ( Rom 15:4-9 ) is part of the conclusion of Paul’s long letter to the Romans. It is calling for harmony, a lesson that can be learnt from Scripture (which for Paul means what we call the Old Testament) but we can learn from the New Testament. God not only became one of us, but also, for the sake of the Jews, was under their Law and all that entailed; but this self-abasement was so as to live (and die) for all people and thus give glory to God. However, Paul quotes the end of a song of king David ( 2 Sam 22:47-50 ) who ruled over many nations whom he had conquered by force.

Before today’s gospel reading from Matthew ( Mt 3:1-12 ) he has written about the genealogy, the birth with its announcement to the shepherds and the incidents surrounding the Magi with their gifts. But now the preaching of the kingdom begins with John the Baptist; it is a topic found also in the other gospels; but unlike Luke and Mark, Matthew has John straight away preaching the very message of Jesus “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” A significant word for us is ‘repent;’ it means in the Greek a change of mind, and for us a change of our way of life. Most noticeable also is the vituperative language used against both the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the suggestion that physical descent from Abraham is not an assurance of acceptance by God; so we too, if we live aright, will be within the reign of God. Then we hear John announce the coming of Jesus into public life, and who will sort things out; a process like harvesting grain – removing and burning the chaff. And it is a baptism that is the sign of this commitment, even needed for Jews; though this is not the same as Christian Baptism, but is a washing symbolic of the change of life preached with the word “repent!” It may be that the phrase “In those days” which begins the gospel reading, rather than just meaning something like ‘then,’ actually means this new time of the kingdom in which we, today, live.

See Jeffs Jottings – Advent Talks 2022 Talk 2

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Jeff Bagnall was a lecturer for many years at Craiglockhart College teaching RE to many future Catholic Primary teachers.

1st Sunday of Advent - 2025 - Year A

by Jeff Bagnall • 21 November 2025

The book of Isaiah as it is called in the Bible, is an extensive edited collection of writings that are drawn from at least three different time periods. Using the division of chapters and verses introduced in the 13 th and 16 th centuries, the first 39 chapters are from the earliest period when the prophet Isaiah lived, namely the last half of the 8 th century BC. From this section our first reading ( Isaiah 2:1-5 ) expresses in its own way the vision of the glorious future that it was believed God had planned for His creation. The significant political situation at this time is that Judah and its capital city Jerusalem were under threat from other nations. Isaiah, as a court prophet, must have been aware of this as well as of the religious situation. His religious belief was that God (that is to say their god) had chosen them to be the greatest nation of all, expressed at this time as the expectation that Jerusalem would eventually be the focus for all the nations. And so the visionary poem that is our text, is an expression of hope that all the nations will submit to the Law (in the first section of the bible) and together rejoice under Jerusalem’s supremacy in the worship of God. The climax of the vision is that there will be peace among all nations expressed poetically as “turning swords into ploughs and spears into pruning hooks.”

Christ the King - 2025 - Year C

by Jeff Bagnall • 12 November 2025

Throughout most of the history of the Jewish people they developed a grand idea of their kingdom and of an ideal king; they projected this vision back onto king David and consequently a lot of the time looked forward to a new king who would be a true successor to him, or rather to their idea of him. So we read this brief extract of their history, as we celebrate Christ as our own king, with probably a different understanding from them of what the ideal is. David was thought of like a shepherd and as their commander.