Rejoice, Rejoice, Again I Say Rejoice

Homily for the Third Sunday of Advent

In the Gospel passage from St. Luke for this Third Sunday of Advent, John the Baptist paints a word picture of the coming Messiah. He speaks of one who will come and gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. He tells us that he, John the Baptist, would not be worthy to unfasten the sandals of the one to some. Clearly, John the Baptist pictures a Messiah who will come to reward the good and punish the evil. Like everyone else in his time, he had a clear idea of what he was expecting.

Later in the Gospel the disciples of John the Baptist would come to Jesus with a message from John the Baptist. “Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for someone else?” Given the image that he portrays in today’s message, is it any wonder that he might be confused. Instead of being someone so mighty and so lofty that John would have been unworthy to loosen his sandals, Jesus kneels down and washes the feet of his disciples, a job usually performed by household servants. Instead of rewarding the good and punishing the evil, Jesus has been sitting down with sinners and eating with them while admonishing the Pharisees and Scribes who are known for their rigorous practice of obedience to the commandments. Clearly, Jesus was not meeting the expectations that John had preached. Jesus answers the disciples of John by telling them that they should go back to John and tell them what they have seen, what they have witnessed. Jesus has been giving sight to the blind, has been making the lame walk, has been opening the ears of the deaf, and has been healing lepers. In so doing, Jesus has been fulfilling the prophecies of Isaiah and other prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures about the promised Messiah. This should have been proof enough that he was truly the Messiah.

John was not alone in his expectations of the Messiah. At another point in the Gospel, Jesus asks his disciples who people say that he is. The answers that the disciples give him reveal what the people had been expecting. Some thought that the Messiah would be a great military leader who would lead Israel back to power and who would expel the Roman occupation. Others thought that the Messiah would be a new high priest who would bring reform to the Jewish religion and the Temple of  Jerusalem. Some thought that he would be another Elijah, one of the most powerful prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures – so powerful a prophet that he would be able to close the heavens bringing about a drought, and that he would be able to rain down fire from the heavens to destroy the wicked. Nobody was expecting a Messiah who would give himself over to evil men and allow himself to be executed. Yet this is who Jesus was – a man who preached humility and generosity, a man who taught the people that the Kingdom of God was already in their midst.

The liturgy for the Third Sunday of Advent asks us to rejoice. We call today Gaudete Sunday after the Latin word for “rejoice.” However, the reality is that no one can produce rejoicing upon command. We need a reason to be filled with joy. The prophet Zephaniah gives us his reason; namely, we are to rejoice because God is near, the Lord is in our midst. In his Letter to the Philippians, St. Paul echoes the words of Zephaniah: “Rejoice in the Lord always… the Lord is near.” Even the responsorial psalm for today which is taken from the prophet Isaiah asks us to cry out with joy and gladness because the Lord is near. While I would agree with Zephaniah, Isaiah, and St. Paul that realizing that God being near is a cause for joy, I am also aware of the fact that there is a great deal of suffering and brokenness in our world today. That suffering and brokenness makes it difficult for many people to realize the nearness of God in their lives. That is why it is so important for us, the disciples of Jesus, to bring kindness, humility, generosity, and righteousness into the world through our words and actions. St. Paul advises us that our kindness should be known by all. We can be the source of joy in our world if we heed the words and the example of Jesus, for as St. Teresa of Avila reminds us, we are to be the hands and the feet of the Lord in our world today. We are the ones who can preach the Gospel of humility and generosity, the Gospel of Love in our own day and age. We can raise our voices in praise of God who never forsakes us.