Rejoice, say screams of joy. Your Savior is in the middle of you. Be always happy in the Lord.

The Lord is close. His peace guards your heart. (The first and the second readings)

Text: Luke 3, 10-18//3 on Sunday AdventC-//on December 16, 2012. Comments and presentation: M. Asun Gutirrez Cabriada. Music: Beethoven. Larghetto. Symphony n 2. Translation to English: J. Izquierdo OH

When all the people asked him: -What must we do, then?10

John's preaching worries those who listen to him and feel need to transform their lives. They don't ask what it is necessary to think or what it is necessary to believe, but it is necessary to do. What is it necessary to do for the encounter with Jesus who comes to our life? As clues we know that the pardon rewards more than the revenge, sharing more that monopolizing: helping the others more than to be useful of them: wiping a tear more than to provoke it; liberating and/or helping someone to be free, more that to enslave. The blessing, the congratulation more than the envy; the solidarity and the generosity more than the egoism... To give life, kindness, beauty, justice, truth.... is what we have to do and the surest way for the authentic happiness of oneself and of the others.

He answered,: -Anyone who has two tunics must share with the one who has none, and anyone with something to eat must do the same.'
11

The answer is clear and it is necessary. It refers to the way of acting with the others. Before these words there end the false "good will" and the religious sentimentalities. The text is current; it says that what it is necessary to do is to distribute and to share what is necessary and just for all, to what all the human beings have a right: the food and the garment, the health, the education, the housing and work. The conversion isn't an only one interior attitude, but it must be evident in gestures and concrete signs of justice, solidarity and of denunciation of the one who defrauds by greed, it monopolizes the necessary thing and prospers unjustly impoverishing others. According to the Bible, the basic demand of the justice is to share and to denounce the injustices.

There were tax collectors, too, who came for baptism, and these said to him: - Master, what must we do? 13 He said to them: - Exact no more than the appointed rate.12

The conversion desire can't remain in nice words. It has to be in the everyday life. The question that we must consider, also ourselves, is thus of concrete: what do we have to do? what do I have to do? If we try that in our ambience there is a little more of peace and of coherence, of justice and of welcome, if by our conduct someone is happier and the society improves in some sense, it will be possible to be said that God is coming and that the program of his Kingdom is already fulfilled.

Some soldiers asked him in their turn, 'What about us? What must we do?' He said to them, 'No intimidation! No extortion! Be content with your pay!.
14

The conversion limits itself in the fraternal relation, in practice of the justice, in the renounce the use of violence and in the professional ethics, attitudes that imply every human being. What means that the way of salvation is opened to all, it doesn't exclude anybody.

A feeling of expectancy had grown among the people, who were beginning to wonder whether John might be the Christ, 16 so John declared before them all, 'I baptize you with water, but someone is coming, who is more powerful than me, and I am not fit to undo the strap of his sandals; he will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 17 His winnowing-fan is in his hand, to clear his threshing-floor and to gather the wheat into his barn; but the chaff he will burn in a fire that will never go out.
15

The present, already past, of John's baptism, opens way to the future, already present, of Jesus's baptism. It is time already of to fan unthreshed grain to (choose), gather the wheat (go to the fundamental, not walk by the branches" and to burn the straw (to eliminate the useless thing, what it immobilizes). My judge is Jesus, only Jesus, which knows me, takes care of me, loves me more than anybody. The life and Jesus's conduct was characterized by the liberating practice of the compassion. Example and model for our way of living and of acting.

18

And he proclaimed the good news to the people with many other exhortations too.

Jesus is the Good News. His whole life is a Good News; he demonstrates it curing, receiving, infecting peace, loving with tenderness, denouncing the injustices, defending the unjustly impoverished persons, liberating them of their fears and returning them their dignity, showing that God is an unconditional love. In Him we see how God is and how is the human being full of his Spirit. Do I announce the Good News? Do I fill of Good News my life and the life of others?

What a joy to know that you are on my part, do what I do! What a joy to feel that you accept me as I am, and that you don't need that I justify myself!

What a joy to verify your inexhaustible, irremovable loyalty as the Rock!

You! What a joy to be able to say to you "I love

What a joy to discover that others love you and that You love them, and to know that their love, like mine, are essential to you! What a joy to be able to give you something of everything what you have given to me earlier!

What a joy to have everything in You, without having I anything!

so much! What a joy Jesus gives me, that you love me

What a joy!

Jos M. Garbayo