Advent 3rd Sun A

Third Sunday of Advent
Reading 1  Is 35:1-6a, 10
Responsorial Psalm  Ps 146:6-7, 8-9, 9-10.
Reading 2  Jas 5:7-10
Alleluia, alleluia.
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring glad tidings to the poor.
Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel  Mt 11:2-11

Back on November 30, a monk in the monastery mentioned to me, that he was giving up something for Advent. That really struck me, because back in the day when I was a child, Advent was right up there with Lent as a penitential season; there was purple in the Church and you gave up things, and then in the 2nd half of the season you had a Sunday when the priest wore pink vestments, except you called them Rose so people didn't think you were wearing pink.

Because Advent was a penitential season then, the meaning of the pink Sunday stood out. Well, Advent isn't penitential anymore (It was never really supposed to be anyway) but today . ..obviously. .. is the pink Sunday of Advent, Gaudete Sunday; and Gaudete is the Latin word whose commanding meaning is "Rejoice !"

Christmas is 10 days away, so we may well ask, why this Sunday of rejoicing today, during all our preparation for the real day of rejoicing, the reason for the season, on December 25?

In our ffluent, technology-rich, media-attached, labor saving, well fed and medically advanced society, just about any day is a day of rejoicing, or at least should be. Thank God for our many blessings. But there is a particular type of rejoicing that we are encouraged to take part in today, atype somewhat foreign to our culture of immediate gratification... the joy of anticipation.

Those closer to my age will remember Carly Simon wrote a song about anticipation.

Anticipation is keeping me waiting. 
Tomorrow we might not be together 
I'm no prophet, I don't know natures way
So I'll try to see into your eyes right now
And stay right here, 'cause these are the good old days.

With God, all days are the good old days. Advent is all about anticipation. We relive the anticipation of the people of God who believed in God's promise and hoped for the Messiah. That anticipating faith sustained them through slavery in Egypt, war with the Philistines, exile in Babylon, persecution by the Seleucids and domination by Rome. They endured lots of sadness and suffering while they waited.

But as any mother knows, all the pain and discomfort of carrying a child to term is outweighed by the joy of knowing that birth will come about, the joy of anticipating a child, a new life that will change the lives of the parents forever. Your parents looked forward to your birth, 
and your birth changed their lives and your siblings lives too New parents-to-be furnish a room for the baby, buy baby furniture and all kinds of baby stuff. During the post WW2 baby boom, there was a lot of joyful anticipation. 

That's the kind of joy we should live today and during the rest of Advent.

But it must be a patient, open & careful joy, however. Sometimes anticipation turns out to be greater, better or at least different from reality when it finally comes, though it should not be so for us at Christmas. For example, every year at Christmas I would receive from my parents one "big" present, and then some smaller ones from my siblings & relatives. One year, in a concession to human weakness, my father changed the rules so that before dinner on Christmas eve we could open ONE present. A particularly significant looking package had caught my eye as it had been sitting under the tree for days; I had no idea what was in it, but I just knew it would be great ! so that was the one I chose to open. 

I carefully unwrapped it (we always reused wrapping paper, so you couldn't tear it) and became thoroughly confused. It was an assembly of thin, pointed stainless steel rods attached at right angles to a circular hub, with a hole in the center. It was elegant and shiny, but that's about all you could say for it. Whatever the labeling on the package said was beyond me. It defied my imagination. I hadn't clue what I should do with it and was more than a little disappointed. 

The sense of anticipation inspired by the great prophets of Israel... Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, all of them... looked to what Israel wanted most.... a king who would unite their divided nation, impose justice, conquer and rule over their enemies. But God wanted to give them something different. A king, but not a power hungry, luxury living monarch .... not a harsh and cruel avenger but a savior of lives and souls. 

Whether in their anticipation Isaiah or the other prophets clearly saw what kind of King the Messiah Jesus would be, John the Baptist did see more clearly. He pointed Jesus out and told the people... "Look, here he is !" But not many believed, and as the Gospels tell us even John wondered at the end of his life in prison... Could Jesus really be the answer ? He's different from what even I expected.

After experiencing the disappointment of my unusual Christmas gift, and after most of the gifts had been opened after dinner and there hadn't been anything for me I considered big, my father suddenly brought in a large box, too large to be wrapped with anything from our collection of used wrapping paper. There it was...the 1960's version of a deluxe Weber barbecue grill with a hood and motorized spit, on which I could attached that shiny assembly of skewers. The strange gift suddenly made sense. It wasn't what I expected. I had the past summer learned the joys of cooking, especially for myself and on our very dilapidated barbecue grill. Though that summer was over, there would be more summers in the future so my parents and siblings decided I should have greater joy and furthermore put it to work for the entire family with my very own grill.

My joy was somewhat dimmed given that it was December in Rochester, with a couple of feet of snow on the ground and temperatures in single digits, so it would be a little while before I could use that grill. But that little while became another season of happy anticipation. 
I knew summer would eventually come. 

Jesus was not and will never be what the world expects. But He will always be what the world needs and will always be good for the world, the whole world. 

In our time of joyful anticipation before Christmas, we should think of what Jesus can do for us, in our lives; what grace can he provide us to be more grounded in reality, to see things as He does; we should think of what part of our faith challenges us, that His simplicity and love can open up for us. How can He help us see better the Father's will that we always pray be done.
 
Jesus will not be a superhero for us, but he Will be a companion for us as we journey through life. He Will a point of reference, a hand to hold and to guide us; He will, in Isaiah's words today "Strengthen the hands that are feeble, make firm the knees that are weak."

Our whole lives are an Advent, rather a series of Advents, for many things, as your time here is an Advent for your college career, but most of all our lives are an Advent for our eternal future. If it is Jesus that we are waiting for, we will not be disappointed when that future arrives, as it surely will. But if we are waiting for anything or anyone else, our disappointment is guaranteed. 

Saint James tells us in his letter this morning: Be patient, brothers and sisters... See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient with it. 

So we must wait, Wait for Jesus Christ to come fully into our hearts and into our world... all that Christmas Day represents, but our waiting should be filled with happiness every day, knowing that what is coming will put our joy to work for the entire human family... knowing that He who is coming has a very big gift for us, even if we can't see the package now.