Joy itself Rejoices, 3rd Sunday of Adevnt

Today, the 3rd Sunday of Advent, is called Gaudete Sunday. This Sunday is marked by a joy that is as audacious as it is extravagant. A joy that is unreasonable and unrealistic in the face of sorrow and suffering. This joy makes all things new as it spreads throughout creation. From the deepest vast cosmos to the smallest wonders of the earth. And all who dwell within sing with one voice to our God who inspires this joy - Come, Lord Jesus Come!

All of creation (though it still groans under the weight of all we have done to it) waits patiently for what it knows is coming. The Church herself, especially at Advent, waits in expectation for the unexpected. She looks back in wonder and amazement at the first coming, God made flesh in the Incarnation. And she looks forward to the Parousia, his second coming in Glory.

Both Infant and king dominate this season of joy.

 In the first reading Isaiah contrasts the ways things are with God’s promise of the way things will be. He speaks of a creation that has become a ruined landscape, of human systems that have become disordered and how we have made ourselves so much less then what God desires of us. But Isaiah reminds us all that we are not doomed by our own devices. We can transcend them and have a real fundamental conversion of heart and mind. We can respond to God’s call and embrace and participate in his promise of fulfillment that all of creation (both nature and peoples) will be made new in God’s saving Grace.  

But, only then, in some unknown season, will the earth express her fullness; mountains and glaciers,  wild flowers and tall trees, oceans and flowing rivers. In her splendor she reveals God’s Glory.

And every human person should also be free to be fully alive and fulfilled. But, like nature herself we have been diminished by the action of others and by our own actions, our pride and greed, our prejudice and fear, our arrogance and self-love. We have lost faith and so we have lost our way.

But, though we find ourselves diminished, we are not dead. God continues to call from within as the Lord says – I am with you even until the end of time. And called from without, as the psalmist says, the heavens proclaim the glory of God. Day unto day takes up the story and night makes known his Word.

 This confident proclamation of God’s glory is at the very heart of Advent. And it proclaims that with God everything is possible even the impossible. Hands that have been made weak by poverty will be strengthened. Knees that wobble under the weight of sin will be made firm.  Hearts that have been made small and fearful will become more human, more loving and courageous. 

In that time the unnaturally blind who have shut their eyes to the will of God will again see what needs to be seen.

The unnaturally deaf who have shut their ears to the Word of God will again hear what needs to be heard.  Voices that have been silenced will be raised against those who silenced them.  Even our beloved dead, already saved and redeemed, will rejoice as they  join their voices to the living giving Glory to God who has come and who will come again.

And it is by holding onto God’s promise that we are able to strive patiently towards its fulfillment. In the second reading James encouraged us to work diligently like farmers who labor, but who must be patient, for only in God’s time does the rain come, seeds sprout, sprouts grow, growth flower and then in its proper time, come to harvest. There is an ordered, yet unknowable timeline of creation and fulfillment, of transfiguring and redemption.  We see this in nature. We sense this in our hearts.

And all of this (unless we destroy it first) will be made new, made perfect if you like. God promises us this and he will do it. The world will surrender to the Kingdom. We rejoice for, in Jesus, this surrender has already begun.

 John the Baptist, was not the light, but he pointed to the light. He was imprisoned by Herod Antipas. While in prison John hears of what Jesus is doing. We can assume he remembers Jesus’s baptism, but had not known of his work. He sends one of his disciples to find out more. They ask Jesus, are you the one who is to come or should we look elsewhere?

 Jesus never preached himself, but always the Kingdom of God. And we know from Jesus’ life that it was not knowledge of God, but the experience of God that mattered. The reality of the Kingdom needs to be experienced not talked about and so Jesus says, tell John, not what I say, but what you have seen. The lame walk, the deaf hear, the blind see and the dead have been raised. What Jesus did was a sign that the Kingdom of God was present.   And Jesus only did what the Father did and the Father only desires the good for us.

Jesus also tells something important about John the Baptist. What were you thinking? he asks those around him. What did you expect to fine? Something wild like a hollow reed swaying in the wind or a finely robed prince or prophet?

 John was greater than all that. He was greater than all who came before him. And he came to make the way straight for the one for who is coming after him. And we know that was Jesus, Immanuel, God with us.

John was the last prophet, but he was bound to the old world. He pointed beyond this world to what was coming, but he was not part of that.  Jesus says that even the least in the Kingdom of God, by the very fact they are in the Kingdom, is greater than John. Think of it, the least one of us, in the eyes of God, is more precious then a great prophet.

Rejoice, this is good news.  We who are surly the least are not forgotten. In fact, through the Grace of our baptism and our life with the Holy Spirit, who if we let him guides our life, already participate in the Kingdom that is here, but not yet fulfilled. The mystery of this “here, but not yet” is the joy of Advent.

 Advent reminds us that it is not about prediction, but prophecy. Not about the possible, but the impossible. Not about the old way, with its lies and death, but the new way, of truth and life that both awaits us and sustains us.

We acknowledge this by celebrating the birth of Jesus. We live this out in joyful courageous, lives waiting for his coming again when brings with him the fulfillment of God’s promise of our salvation. Establishing once and for all - peace on earth and goodwill to all wh