THIRD SUNDAY OF ADVENT
13 DECEMBER 2020
The
Prophet Isaiah speaks to a people who are in a very dark place. They had just returned to their homeland from
exile in Babylon to find Jerusalem and their temple in ruins. In this darkness, it is easy for them to be
discouraged. But Isaiah gives them
hope. He tells them that the spirit of
the Lord has anointed him to bring glad tidings to the poor. As God’s servant, he will heal the
brokenhearted; proclaim liberty to captives, release to the prisoners, and a
year of favor from the Lord. Isaiah
promises them a day of vindication by our God.
This
passage is familiar to us who are familiar with the Gospel according to Saint
Luke. Early in that Gospel, Jesus reads
this passage from a scroll in the Synagogue in Nazareth. He rolls up the scroll and announces that
this prophecy has been fulfilled in him.
That is what Saint John tells us in the beginning of his Gospel. John proclaims that Jesus is the light
shining a world created by God but darkened by rejection, rebellion, and
sin.
John the
Baptist is the first witness of this light shining in the darkness. Throughout the course of this Gospel, Jesus
will repeatedly assert his identity by proclaiming “I am,” as God had told
Moses that “I am” when Moses asked his identity in the burning bush. When John the Baptist is questioned about his
identity, he says what he is not: I am
not the Christ; I am not Elijah; I am not the Prophet. Instead, he is the one making straight the
way to the Lord, who is the Light of the World, who is the Good Shepherd, who
is the bread of life for whom we wait.
We know our
share of the darkness of this world. We
find ourselves in the midst of this pandemic that has changed our lives in ways
we could never have imagined. We dwell
in the darkness of division, anger, hatred, and violence. We inhabit the darkness of confusion about
what is true and what is false. We
huddle in the darkness of fear about our future.
The
Baptist’s proclamation of the coming of the Messiah provides hope that this
darkness will not last. We wear rose
vestments to express our conviction that the Lord has already come to save
us. In celebrating that first coming at
Christmas, we can heed Saint Paul’s words to the Thessalonians. In his letter, he gives the three basic
attitudes which serve as the foundation of Christian hope and holiness.
First, he
tells us to rejoice always. Saint Paul
knew from his own experience that the emotion of happiness is not always
possible. In fact, he knew times of great
sorrow and loss. But he knew the joy of
the Lord’s presence in his life. We can
rejoice at the ways in which the Lord extends his loving mercy, especially when
we find ourselves embracing the darkness of this world with our pride,
arrogance, vanity, and destructive habits.
Please come to our Advent Penance Service. You can participate in the virtual Service on
Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evenings at 6:00. Then come to the church between 7-8 each
night for confession and absolution.
There will be ten priests each evening, with socially distanced and mask
wearing.
Second, he
urges us to pray without ceasing. During
this year of prayer for our parish, we offer many online opportunities to teach
us new ways of praying and reinforcing old ways we may have forgotten. Nourished by the Eucharist, the source and
summit of our life of prayer, we can work at making prayer a daily habit in our
lives.
Finally, we
need to give thanks in all circumstances.
Knowing the joy of the Lord’s presence and sustaining it in prayer, we
can give thanks for all those blessings that we take for granted. A deep sense of gratitude keeps us from being
discouraged. Expressing our gratitude
reminds us that even in the worst of times; the Lord has not abandoned us, any
more than he had abandoned his people at the time of Isaiah the Prophet.
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