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THIRD SUNDAY OF ADVENT C


cappie

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Today is the third Sunday of Advent, traditionally known as Gaudete Sunday. Gaudete is the Latin word meaning “rejoice,” and the origin of this name for the third Sunday of Advent comes from the Entrance Antiphon and the beginning of our reading from Philippians today: “ I want you to be happy, always happy in the Lord; I repeat, what I want is your happiness. .”

Just like how in Lent we use the time to prepare for Easter and reflect on things like our mortality and sin, we do the same in Advent to prepare for Christmas. Thinking about how much we need Jesus helps us get ready to welcome and greet him. That’s why we light the Rose candle on the Advent wreath on the third Sunday of Advent. Rose says joy and celebration!

In this gospel, John the Baptist is functioning as a sort of ethical consultant. People are coming to him and asking him for advice on how they should live their lives. The crowds ask him what they should do, and he says that if they have two coats, they should give one away to someone who needs it. Tax collectors, notorious as a group for being unscrupulous and exploiting the people they collected from, ask him what to do, and he tells them to collect only what is owed and no more.

Even Roman soldiers go to John for advice. That is a remarkable thought, that members of the occupying army are seeking out this fringe Judean prophet on the very margins of society and religious acceptability and asking him for direction in their lives. And John provides it, freely and very specifically. He tells them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation and be satisfied with your wages.”

So, what can we learn from John’s words? What principle is John demonstrating to these seekers that they must embody if they are to do God’s will? Justice. John’s words are all about justice. They are all tailored specifically to the situation of the people asking for guidance. John doesn’t issue vague, general pronouncements like, “Try to be a decent person,” and “Don’t be awful to other people.” He speaks right into the lives and contexts and specific circumstances of these people and tells them how to live ethically. John tells them how to do justice right where they are, now, in their own lives.

Often, we think justice is something huge and sweeping, accomplished only with massive movements of people and  negotiations between heads of state. Justice does often require forces that big to move us. But justice starts very small, one act at a time, just as John the Baptist is preaching. How you treat these people is how you treat Jesus.

People tend to worry when “God” and “justice” come into the same conversation. We think of justice as the opposite of mercy, and as full of wrath and condemnation of us and our sin. John the Baptist is certainly not helping our discomfort with his preaching this morning. His winnowing-fan is in his hand to clear his threshing-floor and to gather the wheat into his barn; but the chaff he will burn in a fire that will never go out.’ 

But we’ve already learned that justice and joy are partners in God’s kingdom. God is not out to get us. God’s will is our growing up into the full stature of Christ, becoming capable of partnering with God in bringing God’s justice to fruition on the earth. So how does God do that?

We’re all wheat, brought in as part of God’s harvest, and Jesus in his love for us will cleanse and purify us with his holy fire and burn away those useless things that hold us down and hold us back from fulfilling God’s will. It may not be particularly comfortable, but it will be liberating. We’re all a little chaffy, but there is good wheat underneath those obscuring, besetting sins, and Jesus’ love can burn away all the obstacles that prevent us from following him faithfully.

This is news worth celebrating on Gaudete Sunday. This is news worth rejoicing over. This is the knowledge and the truth that we have the ability to make God rejoice. We might wonder if we have what it takes to live out God’s justice in the world. Well, Jesus comes to us and burns our chaff away so that our wheat might be gathered into the granary, to be used to make the Body of Christ, the Bread of Heaven.

 In today’s First Reading, we hear echoes of the angel’s Annunciation to Mary. The prophet’s words are very close to the angel’s greeting . Mary is the Daughter Zion—the favoured one of God, told not to fear but to rejoice that the Lord is with her, “a mighty Saviour.” She is the cause of our joy. For in her draws near the Messiah, as John had promised.

 

 

 

 

Rose Sunday.jpg

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