3rd Sunday of Advent
Dec. 12, 1993
Is 61: 1-2, 10-11
1 Thess 5: 16-24
John 1: 6-8, 19-28
St. Agnes, Eight Mile Rock, Grand Bahama Is.
St. Vincent de Paul, Hunters, GBI
Presenting an old homily because I don't have a new one for today.
“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because
the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring glad tidings to the lowly, to
heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the
prisoners, to announce a year of favor from the Lord” (Is 61: 1-2).
Do the 1st 2 verses of Isaiah 61 sound
familiar? According to Luke 4, Jesus began
his public ministry in the synagogue of Nazareth by reading those same verses
and applying them to himself: “Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in
your hearing” (v. 21).
When the ancient Jewish prophet uttered those 2
verses, he was perhaps announcing his own prophetic mission to the dispirited
people who had returned from the Babylonian captivity and hoped for the
rebuilding of their glorious capital city and its holy temple.
Obviously, the Church, by placing it in our
liturgy for the 3rd Sunday of Advent, has Jesus in mind. Not only do we have in mind Jesus’ own use of
the passage in the Nazareth synagogue, but also note its underlying theme of
joy. That underlying theme becomes more
explicit in the rest of the reading, taken from 2 other verses of the same ch.
61: “I rejoice heartily in the Lord, in my God is the joy of my soul” (v.
10). The joyous theme continues in the
psalm response, taken from Mary’s hymn of praise: “My soul glorifies the Lord;
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior” (Luke 1:46-47); and in the 2nd reading,
from 1 Thess: “Rejoice always, never cease praying, render constant thanks:
such us God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (vv. 16-18).
We see that rose-colored candle on the Advent
wreath, which we lit this morning; and some of you can see the rose-colored
veil over the chalice. Those of us of a
certain age, including me, remember when the priest wore a complete set of rose
vestments on the 3rd Sunday in Advent—which we may still do if we choose and if
we can find the vestments. (The CCD
children had a good laugh yesterday a.m. when I showed them our old rose
chasuble, which I found in the vestment closet.
But they agreed I’d better not wear it.)
Unfortunately, my Advent picture doesn't have 3 candles lit.
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Well, that rose color was to break the somber
violet of Advent, and it went with the theme of rejoicing for this Sunday, the
3rd of Advent. In fact, the 3rd Sunday
of Advent was called in the old liturgy Gaudete
Sunday, using the Latin word for “Rejoice,” from the words of St. Paul with
which the Mass used to open that day.
Why rejoice?
Because the Lord’s coming is near.
The “year of favor from the Lord and a day of vindication by our God” is
at hand. Advent is almost over and soon
we’ll be celebrating our Savior’s birth and our redemption.
The words which Isaiah put into the mouth of the
Jewish people now become our words too:
“I rejoice heartily in the Lord: in my God is the joy of my soul. For he has clothed me with a robe of
salvation and wrapped me in a mantle of justice.”
The Jewish people looked for salvation and justice
from God for a thousand years, their expectation building and
intensifying. So when John the Baptist
appeared along the Jordan River, preaching powerfully—not afraid even to take
on the Sadducees or King Herod—and demanding repentance for all, they wondered
whether John might be the Messiah, or at least Elijah or the prophet like Moses
who were supposed to precede the Messiah’s appearance.
John, as we heard, denied being any of them. He was only a voice, a baptizer in water, the
message, not a voice; the baptizer in the Spirit; the way, not the opener.
The much greater one is already among us,
brothers. The much greater one is
already here, sisters. Most of the
scribes and the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the courtiers of King Herod and
the soldiers of the Roman occupiers did not recognize him when he came. Not that he is here, do we recognize him?
If we do recognize him, then, yes, we can rejoice
on Christmas day and every day that we live in his presence, “whole and entire,
spirit, soul, and body, irreproachable” (1 Thess 5:23). If we do not recognize him, no amount of
Christmas presents, no pile of Christmas cards, no Christmas bonus, no
Christmas turkey, no nothing can give us grounds to rejoice; for there is no
ground under our feet.
During the parish mission, many of us recognized
Jesus and turned to him, honored his mother, rejected our sinful ways. There is still time. There is still time before Christmas to turn
away from sin and turn toward the one whose sandals John was unworthy to
loosen. There is still time before “the
coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thess 5:23) to judge the living and the
dead, to turn to him and make our baptism in the Holy Spirit more than an empty
rite, to make it a rite of salvation because we continue to repent. There is still time to get onto solid ground.
Does turning to Jesus make us perfect? We all know it doesn’t. The devil surely likes to tempt us with
discouragement when we fall again; he doesn’t want us to repent and get
up. But Paul’s prayer in 1 Thess is not
meaningless: “May God of peace make you perfect in holiness. He who calls you is faithful, and he will
accomplish it (5:23-24). If we keep our
faces turned toward Jesus, if we keep our hands in his hand, then he will
gradually do his work in us. So, brothers
and sisters, “rejoice always, never cease praying, render constant thanks; such
is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”
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