(Homily for the 3rd Sunday of Advent Yr. A)
Today is the third Sunday of Advent
and the Introit of this Sunday goes thus: Gaudete in Domino semper (Rejoice in
God always). For this, we call this Gaudete or Rejoice Sunday. Today we
are invited to rejoice, not just for the Savior who comes, but more than
anything else, for the Savior who is already in our midst, performing wonders.
That of Jesus is the wonderful mystery of presence and absence (the One who has
come and who is to come). We rejoice
because we can feel his presence and identify his wonderful works. Little
wonder, Christ responded to the disciples of John thus: “Tell John what you saw.
The blind see, the lame walk… and the Good News is announced to the poor” (this
is evidenced in the first reading and in the Gospel). The disciples saw the
Messiah and His mighty deeds. On his part, St. James in the second reading
exhorts us to the patient waiting of the coming of the Lord with the imagery of
a farmer. Notwithstanding the shocking question raised by John the Baptist, the
liturgy of the word today redirects our attention to an important dimension of
the Advent season, and that is the
dimension of joy. In fact, as we may
have it in the Entrance Antiphon: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say,
rejoice. Indeed, the Lord is near” (Phil.
4:4-5). We rejoice in anticipation of the joy of Christmas. Therefore, our
joy is caused by love and for the presence of the One who loves us. The joy of Christmas is derived from the
presence of Jesus Christ who comes to save us, a gift wrapped in swaddling
clothes (Lk.2:12).
In the first reading (Is. 35: 1-6a.10) the invitation to
rejoice is paramount, an invitation particularly to the people of Israel, after
the age-long exilic experience. It is equally addressed to us today. For us,
the Savior has already come to save us, He is in our midst, He is with us and
He will not abandon us. Prophet Isaiah makes himself a messenger of this joy.
“Let the wilderness and the dry land be glad, the desert shall rejoice and
blossom; like the lily it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and
singing” (Is. 35:1-2). He reawakened in those that were
despondent, the awareness of the redemption God promised to His people and its
nearness. He further spurred them on: “Be strong, fear not! Here is our
God…He comes to save you” (v.4).
Even though, in their situation, the redemption and liberation that Isaiah was
talking about (liberation from slavery) was a prefiguration of the redemption
and liberation wrought by and through Christ, The Messiah. Be that as it may,
the promised redemption has been realized in and through Christ. And He is the
reason for our joy. Our joy therefore, should be in Him. We are filled with joy
in the presence of the God who comes to save us and in the salvation he has
already won for us. Just as Adam rejoiced when he saw Eve “bone of my bone and
flesh of my flesh” (Gen. 2:23), so
too we rejoice in the presence of “the Word that became flesh and dwelt among
us” (Jn. 1:14), he took our human
flesh.
Once again, the prophet enjoined:
“Strengthen the hands that are feeble, make firm the knees that are weak, say
to those whose hearts are frightened. Be strong fear not! Here is your God” (vv.3-4). Indeed, it is only the presence of the Lord and his salvation that can
bring joy to the weak, the fearful, and the suffering. No doubt, the reason
for the Lord’s coming was to relieve the sufferings of his people. As Isaiah prophesized:
“Those whom the Lord has ransomed will return and enter Zion singing, crowned
with everlasting joy, they will meet with joy and gladness, sorrow and mourning
will flee” (v.10).
In today’s Gospel (Mt. 11: 2-11) we are confronted with a rather shocking question by
John the Baptist, the Precursor of the Messiah, who we could say knew about the
Messiah more than anyone else. But doubts, existential inadequacies and may be
the desire to help his disciples understand more about the Messiah propelled
him to interrogating the identity of the Messiah, whom he talked about so
passionately. Does it mean John the
Baptist was not sure of what he was proclaiming? The preoccupying and
thought-provoking question of John the Baptist: “Are you the one who is to come
or are we to expect another” (Mt. 11:3),
apparently, not only raises doubt in the minds of his listeners and followers,
but also can lead to despair. Let us not
forget the context in which John the Baptist found himself, the place from
which he sent his disciples to go and ask Jesus. He was in prison in Herod’s
fortress in Machaerus (the place is located very close to where the Jordan
flows into the Dead sea, which is the lowest point on the surface of the earth,
and the prison was fifteen miles south east of there and as such very hot). He
was in the net of king Herod Antipas. Here, is John the Baptist, who Jesus said
that he is “more than a prophet” (Lk.7:26).
He that recognised Jesus before others as the Lamb of God, and as such
indicated Him to his disciples: “Behold, the lamb of God. Behold he who takes
away the sin of the world” (Jn. 1:29).
He once said: “I have seen and I testify that he is the Chosen One of God” (Jn.1:34) and “He must increase and I
must decrease” (Jn. 3:30). How come,
that he of all persons, is raising this question. The reasons for this question
can be many, but let us consider only three:
·
It
does appear John the Baptist and his
disciples had an already made idea and image of the Messiah different from
the real image of the incarnated Son of God. They were expecting a Judge, a
Vindicator. One who should start punishing sinners and rewarding the just,
rather Jesus is meek and merciful, even though at the proper time he will
assume his throne as the just Judge. So the apparent delay in the style of
Jesus in showing the whole world that the Messiah has arrived must have
triggered this quaestio in him.
·
May
be, there is a sort of impatience in
John, he has longed seeing this Messiah, and he can no longer wait for Him
to start manifesting the power of His reign, at least before he dies in the
prison. Probably he was disappointed.
·
The
third consideration could be that after seeing his situation and condition in
the prison (we remember the location of the prison and the insupportable heat),
and maybe considering his own disciples who must have asked numerous questions,
worried about their future and welfare
he sent them to Jesus.
In
all, the question of John the Baptist can raise other interrogations, and even
doubts in our minds. Some scholars maintain that the question of John was out
of doubt, while some church fathers
rather, affirmed that his question was not for himself, rather for the benefit
of his disciples (cf. St. Jerome Commentary on Mathew 2). However, even
doubts do not diminish the faith of the prophet; in fact, we may say that there is no faith without doubt.
Be that as it may, sometimes we may also run the risk of
modelling an image of Christ in our own imagination and according to our mental
schemes, our taste and ideology, according to what is in vogue or even
according to our problems. Some would want a God who punishes there and then, a
self-imposing God, a revolutionary God who comes like a volcano. But we have to accept Christ as He is: humble,
simple, merciful, weak and defenceless (the Child in a manger). We cannot
reduce God to our own categories and mental schemes, because He transcends us.
He is not the one to adjust Himself to our measures and schemes, rather we have
to adapt to the realities of His divinity and humanity. He took the part of the
weak and the poor. At times, we want our expectations of peace and justice, our
aspirations of good and breakthrough to be satisfied, there and then. However,
the fact remains that God works in His own time and way. We have to adapt to
the pace of God. Little wonder, in the
spirituality of Advent are the values of a patient waiting and a trusting hope.
To the question of John the Baptist, Jesus
responded by making reference to his works: “the blind see, the lame work,
lepers are made clean, and the poor received the Good tidings”. His doubt never
diminished the esteem Jesus has for him. Jesus responded not with arguments,
but with facts, and we can see the list. The
disciples were to go back and tell John, not
what Jesus was saying, but rather what he was doing. John, with his knowledge of
the Old Testament, would then understand that in the healing of the sick, the
lame, the blind, was clearly revealed the sign which the prophet Isaiah
declared would denote the coming of the promised Messiah. God was at work in the actions of Jesus. Indeed, these were the works prophesized to be the
features of the messianic time (cf. Is.
35). Jesus manifested in himself the fulfilment of messianic prophecies.
Therefore, it is logical to conclude that: Christ is the one who is to come,
the Promised Messiah. However, in responding to John’s disciples, literarily,
Jesus commanded them: “Go and announce to John…” And it may interest us to know
that in Greek this is parallel in structure to the command of Jesus to his
disciples towards the end of the Gospel, “Go and teach all nations…” (Mt. 28:19). Again, Jesus’ command: “Go
and tell him what you hear and see” (Mt.
11:4), can equally be said to be parallel to the invitation of Peter in his
first letter “Simply proclaim the Lord Christ Holy in your hearts, and always
have your answer ready for people who ask you the reason for the hope that you
have” (1Pt.3:15). In the same vein, we may say that by that
command John’s disciples have become the disciples of Jesus, for he has sent
them through that command to go and teach what they hear and see. This is a
passage of apostolic experience, from John to Jesus. And this transition in the
apostolic experience can only come by if they are not scandalized by Jesus. He
says that the “Good News is announced to the poor, blessed is the one that is
not scandalized by me” (Mt. 11: 5-6).
Interestingly, in Greek the word “scandalon”
stands for a stone that one stumbles over. Then, invariably, Jesus is saying to
John’s disciples that they are blessed if their faith in Him does not stumble
because of the fact that John is in prison. And just like John’s disciples transitioned to Jesus’ disciples we are
called to grow higher and closer to the Messiah.
On the other hand, come to think
about it, the question of John, could be considered a spiritual quest, as one
of the spiritual masters has said, doubts,
anxiousness to know, is better than an adhesion for Christ that is devoid of “anima”, passion and enthusiasm, a
sterile and disinterested faith. The Word of God does not leave us
indifferent, in the season of Advent, His word cannot but pierce our hearts and
stimulate us. Today, many in difficulty,
in crisis of faith and in existential indeterminism, still pose the question to
Jesus: “Are you the Messiah, the Savior”? Humanly speaking, it is normal
that we experience crisis, but it becomes tragic when we do not let it out,
when we ignore or suffocate it. Little wonder, some of our brothers and sisters
in difficult times have abandoned Christ, the Messiah, in search of other
messiahs. But if we go to the root of the crisis, we shall come out of it with
a mature and adult faith.
The passage of the Gospel ended with an annotation thus: “Among those born of women
there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist; yet he who is least in
the Kingdom of heaven is greater than he” (v.11).
Jesus tells us invariably that we are lucky, for we live in the Kingdom of
heaven. John only could say: “it’s
coming” but we could say: “it’s here”. And again to say it with William
Barclay in his commentary what was lacking in John the Baptist was that he
could not see Jesus’ love for us as revealed on the Cross. We are luckier than
John because he could not experience the full depth and density of God’s love
on the Cross as we did.
In the second reading instead, St.
James (5:7-10) makes his voice heard
and he advices: “Be patient, brothers and sisters, until the coming of the
Lord” He invites us to cultivate the attitude of a farmer who works, plants
seeds and patiently waits for the germination and growth of the seeds, in order
to reap the fruits of his labour. Incumbent upon that, we may once again affirm that the image of a patient farmer is a
veritable image in the spirituality of Advent, for more than ever we are
called to assume the attitude of patience. In that passage of his letter, St.
James used the word patient three times, and in Greek patience is translated “hypomone”. Hypomone
delineates the disposition with which a Christian has to confront the
difficulties of his faith-experience. Hypomone in its dynamic structure of persevering when one is heavy loaded
comports the experience of being weighed down and the courage of remaining firm
in view of what or who is to come.
Brethren as it is suggestive of this
Sunday, we rejoice for the New Child of
Bethlehem that makes all things new, it was in view of Him, that God
promised: “No need to remember past events, no need to think about what was
done before. Look, I am doing something new, now it emerges; can you not see
it?” (Is. 43:18-19a). Jesus is
indeed, the New and Definitive Thing that God has done. No wonder, the last
definition of God in the New Testament is the One who makes all things new (cf. Rev. 21:5). As we await in joyful
hope to relive the experience of the Birth of our Savior may He give us the
grace to continue to carry our lading of faith in view of our meeting with Him.
Amen!!!
(Fr. Vitus M.C. Unegbu, SC)
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