THIRD SUNDAY OF ADVENT
17 DECEMBER 2023
In
this section of the Book of the Prophet Isaiah, the Prophet speaks for the Lord
to a people living in darkness. They are
poor and brokenhearted. They had been
captives in Babylon for fifty years.
They have finally returned to Jerusalem.
Because most of them had been born in exile, they are in the Promised
Land for the first time. After a long
journey, they did not find a beautiful temple and a glorious city that their
parents had described. Instead, they
found ruins and destruction and devastation.
Now, they have the very difficult task of rebuilding.
The Prophet
tells them to rejoice heartily in the Lord.
Having freed them from captivity, the Lord comes as a bridegroom meeting
Jerusalem, his bride. He promises that she
will be clothed in a robe of salvation and wrapped in a mantle of justice and
bedecked with jewels. In other words, God
promises that Jerusalem will reclaim her role to reflect God’s glory and power
to all the nations.
In his
Gospel, Saint John sees this prophecy fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ. John the Baptist is wildly popular with the
people. He has struck a chord by
baptizing those who have a change of heart.
But he is also very humble. In
responding to the questions of the religious leaders, he insists that he is not
the Christ, the promised Messiah for whom they had waited for centuries. He is not Elijah, whom the faithful had
expected to come again to save them. He
is not the Prophet, another Moses who will lead his people from Roman control to
freedom. He does not allow his
popularity to go to his head. Instead,
he points away from himself to Jesus Christ, who is coming as the light shining
in darkness.
In
testifying to Jesus Christ, Baptist is the first of many who will encounter him
and become witnesses to other people in the Gospel of Saint John. This will happen to the woman at the well,
the man born blind, and Lazarus. By
insisting on who he is not, the Baptist is pointing to Jesus, the light of the
world, who will reveal his divinity by saying “I am” many times in this Gospel, repeating God’s
answer to Moses in asking his identity.
“I am the light of the world.” “I
am the Good Shepherd.” “I am the bread
of life.” “I am the resurrection and the
life.”
In many
ways, we share the darkness of those exiles returning from Babylon six
centuries before the birth of Christ. We
live in physical darkness. Today is one
of the darkest days of the year. We will
experience only nine hours and twenty-seven minutes of daylight. That leaves us with more than fourteen hours
of darkness. Besides physical darkness,
we live at a very dark time in history.
We witness the horror of war on too many fronts: in the war between Israel and Hamas, in the
wars in Ukraine and Sudan, and in more conflicts around the world. Because of the war, there is no celebration
of Christmas in Bethlehem this year. The
dignity of human life is ignored on a regular basis in our own country, with
gun violence and abortion taking the lives of innocent people. We live in a deeply divided society where it
is easy to shout at one another and argue about what is actually true. We’ve got climate change, natural disasters
and personal insecurity about relationships, jobs, health and retirement.
And yet,
Saint Paul gives us the same advice that the Prophet had given to his
people: “rejoice always.” On this Gaudete Sunday, we wear rose
vestments and light the rose candle.
With John the Baptist, we point away from ourselves and away from any
personal darkness to Jesus Christ, the light of the world. We wait to celebrate his first coming as a
poor infant born in a stable. We wait in
joyful hope for him to come again, at the end of our lives or in the second
coming. This darkness will not
last. Our hope is not based on some
wishful thinking. Our hope is based on
how God’s light has illumined other dark times.
The light of Christ will prevail.
No comments:
Post a Comment