Today's readings: Baruch 5, 1-1; Philippians 1, 3-6.8-11; Luke 3, 1-6.

Spirituality is something we speak a lot about nowadays. While the postmodern world acknowledges that secularisation is in crisis and that religion is giving way to spirituality, Christians celebrating Christ sometimes seem to be at a loss.

We speak of journeys, of different paths to salvation, of a pluralism of religions that seem to come together on some basic truths. But how are we to find the way? How is the pilgrim in the lands of the Spirit to identify who and what actually saves us?

This seems to be the major dilemma presented to us on this second Sunday of Advent. In the first reading, the prophet Baruch anticipates that God's promises will eventually come true, so we should not let sorrow and distress obfuscate the beauty and splendour of God.

But in the Gospel, John the Baptist says there are conditions. God's promises are not going to come true as a matter of course, he seems to imply. There needs be a baptism of repentance for this to happen.

Prophets like John the Baptist make us read the signs of the times and find our way when we feel lost. While the Jews were in the desert after the exile, they sorely felt the lack of food, comfort and security. However, more than anything, they were spiritually lost and dry. This spiritual void was something deeper. It was indicative of a misplaced identity.

We've always been taught that it is our baptism that makes us Christians, disciples of Christ, members of the Church and of God's people. It is baptism that gives us identity. But here, before Jesus Christ himself, John speaks about a baptism of repentance.

Today, we find it easier to substitute repentance by character analysis. As we read in the book Selling Spirituality. The Silent Takeover of Religion: "There has been an explosion of interest and popular literature on mind, body and spirit and personal development. We now see the introduction of modes of spirituality into educational curricula, bereavement and addiction counselling, psychotherapy and nursing."

Spirituality is big business and is used to promote efficiency by corporate bodies and management consultants. But is Christianity and the good news of Christmas to be reduced to this?

As US theologian Harvey Cox observed, there is the looming danger that religion could become no more than a service sector to the global civilisation, no longer shaping its values but merely repairing the spiritual damage it inflicts.

Probably the worst outcome of secularisation is not the attempt to eliminate religion but its privatisation, because privatisation erodes the social authority or relevance of religion.

This is our major challenge in society today. Christianity is a historical religion not because it is rooted in the past and so has a history. It is historical because it is rooted in the here and now of history, because it has the power to change history.

John the Baptist was not just a moral preacher, representing some sort of stoic philosophy of life. He speaks clearly about God's judgment on the world and on history. His crisis is our crisis. He is not inviting us to some soft or stereotyped liturgical celebration. He is not speaking gently about baby Jesus.

He speaks of the harsh reality we carry inside and experience out there. Unfortunately for many today, the separation between Church and State means that God should stay out of politics and keep His distance from history and the world. But this is a misrepresentation of what the Scriptures say.

The Lord makes Himself present to reassure us that things can change, that sorrow and distress are not to have the last word, that He is the Lord of history. It may still sound, as the Bible says, a cry in the wilderness. But it's the only way of letting God be God.

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