Fr Robert Barron in a YouTube Video Commentary

587 BC, the Babylonians came into Israel, destroyed Jerusalem, stole the precious vessels, and carried off the best and brightest to be brainwashed from their tradition, religion and culture in other cities. It was like September 11 times 1000, since this was not just an attack on the people but an attack on the very heart of the people: their religion, their government, their tradition, their family, the destruction of the temple which was God's home on earth! HOW COULD THEY DEFEAT GOD??? Israel thought. We might think of Advent as a cozy season, but when you really pay attention to what we hear in the readings and Gospel (battles, destruction, John the Baptist, etc), it is radical. What did Israel and John preach? "The kingdom of God is at hand!" God is Victor, King, Greater than us... and He is here! And like the temple was destroyed, seeming at the time to be a defeat of God, in Jesus death at the hands of the state and rising from the dead (like the Israelites returning back to the promised land), God shows himself victor, king, and savior.