“And what holiness is in its essence...means to be set apart. Set apart from sin, that's the negative connotation but set apart for God, that's the positive connotation.”

“The second point that 2nd Peter is making here is that...the reason the final judgment hasn't happened yet is not because God is slow but because he's patient with humanity. He's forbearing with us because he doesn't want anyone to perish but he wants everyone to reach repentance.”

“John the Baptist is proclaiming that the new Exodus is at hand in the same place where the first Exodus ended, right. He's going to inaugurate the new Exodus where the old Exodus ended.”

“So the season of Advent, that we join John the Baptist in the desert, reminds us that God can help us even when we don't have human connections, that God can help us even when we don't have what other people have”

“through the tactile ritual of baptism he is hoping to change our thinking, to remove any obstacles that keep us from recognizing God's boundless love revealed to us in the person of Jesus, the incarnation, the embodiment of God coming to be with us in our very own history to show us the way”

“Advent is a season of metanoia, inviting a radical reorientation of our lives towards God”

“we all have our mountains of problems, our rivers of pain, our valley of desolation and God says 'I'm going to wipe them all away and you're going to enter into the promised land again but you have to forsake your hopelessness and you have to take that step of hope.' Step into the river of hope, God will do the rest.”

“In the gospel today John the Baptist echoes the cry of Isaiah announcing that there is a new way out of emptiness and misery. God picks us up and wraps us round with love that comes through letting divine forgiveness wash over us and then follow Jesus.”

“is there anything that holds us down, keeps us from feeling that freedom that God is calling us to? A freedom of righteousness, a freedom of justice is not the ability to do whatever I want to do, that's not freedom, church. True freedom leads us to a better place.”

“Isaiah was living in stressful times, he prepared a way for the Lord. Mark was living in stressful times, he prepared a way for the Lord. You and I sometimes are living in stressful times and we have to ask Jesus for that intimacy.”

“How many of us have left God's highway and gone our own way? Think about every aspect of your life, if the Lord isn't the king of all then the Lord is not God at all. But if the Lord is the Lord of all then everything in your life will be subjected to God.”

“I see this as a reminder that Advent is not a passive waiting but an active preparation. We are invited to cooperate with God working together to prepare the way.”

“Perhaps our greatest hope in this Advent is that maybe, just maybe we will surrender our false sense of control and the idols of normalcy and in doing so we will like John the Baptist enter the desert where we will be better able to hear and heed those voices so long ignored”

“gossip keeps us away from the image in the mirror, for when we spend our time talking about other people, the evil we believe others are doing, it keeps us away from having the time to focus on our own image”

“We can't do God's road building unless we come with a contrite heart. Contrite heart says, first, 'I can't God but you can' and we allow God to be God. Contrite heart, you can't have a contrite heart if you're always making excuses.”

“We can speak up for someone no one else is listening to, crying out or whispering, singing or in conversation, one voice, your voice can be so powerful”

“Isaiah 40 isn't just the prophecy of the new Exodus, it's also a prophecy of the future forgiveness of sins, of the coming of good news and then finally of the coming of God himself”