Homily for Advent 3B, “Gaudete”, 13 December 2020
Isaiah 61:1-2,10-11; I Thessalonians 5:16-24; John 1:6-8,19-28
I want to speak today about misery. Also about sorrow, and weeping; about grief, and bitter lamentation. We find all that in today’s reading from Isaiah. In a very familiar passage, the Prophet addresses himself to those who are poor, whose hearts are broken, to captives, and those in prison. Isaiah’s poetic imagery continues on through verses which our text then skips. The Hebrew exiles in Babylon to whom he speaks are wearing ashes on their heads; they are clothed in garments of mourning; they are sunk in despondency, shame and disgrace. Their thoughts are on the ruin of Jerusalem, the devastation and pollution of the Temple; on the Holy Land, promised by God, now taken away from them, turned to waste, and inhabited by foreigners. The affliction of these exiles is not simply that of refugees, of the defeated and dispossessed of any era. Worse even than all that: the calamity that has overwhelmed them has theological significance. As far as these people are concerned, they are exiled not only from their home, but from God. They are separated from the prescribed sacrifices of their religion, and therefore from the divine Covenant. The Davidic monarchy has been brought to an end, and with it, apparently, all hope of the promised Messiah. They had been called the chosen people. Now it seems they have been un-chosen. And all this, entirely though their own fault. By their sin they have thrown away their communion with God, and there is now nothing whatever they can do to restore it.
The exile of Israel and Judah in Babylon took place in the 6th century B. C. We understand it as a symbol or sign of the human condition, separated from God by sin, led away from his presence by demons, cut off from joy in him by forces too strong for us to resist.
Of course today is Gaudete Sunday, and Isaiah delivers a proclamation of joy. He speaks of an astonishing, undeserved, un-looked-for, intervention by God. Isaiah cannot but break into song, because something new is here. This will be not just a liberation, a return, a restoration. No, Isaiah sings of something bigger, holier, more blessed, more wonderful even than that. In an echo of the Beatitudes, his prophecy foreshadows, points towards the dramatic and definitive reversal brought about by Jesus Christ our Lord. In Christ, bad news is suddenly changed into good; the disinherited find themselves adopted as children of God; the downward slide towards everlasting death is transformed into an open pathway to heavenly glory.
Today traditionally we focus on the joy of the Gospel, the joy of Christians, the joy that is our right and also our duty. But you can’t enter this joy, or understand it, if you fail to grasp the extreme of wretchedness in which, without Christ, we were sunk, and the contrasting extreme of love and mercy and salvation we receive from God, in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Today’s Gospel presents St. John the Baptist, who came as a witness to the light. But John the Evangelist does not fail to mention the darkness, into which this light came. This darkness is not only all around us, but also within us. Its name is sin, and ignorance of God, and the exclusion or rejection of God, and the establishment of Satan on his throne. So the Baptist came proclaiming a message of joy, in the coming of Christ our light. But first he preached repentance from sin, in order that the Lord’s way might be made straight, and our hearts prepared for his coming.
The reality of our situation in this world is held before us in the figure of the man of sorrows, covered with blood, mocked, insulted, abandoned, crucified. He suffered all this for our sins. Our response can only be both joy and grief. Joy for what he has done; grief for what we have done. Paradoxically, true Christian joy depends upon, is not possible without, true Christian sorrow. So many of the Saints and mystics have found themselves crushed, almost to death, by the sense of their own sinfulness, and also ravished, almost to death, by the graced communication to them of God’s love, mercy and goodness in Christ.
We’re reading at Chapter these days a book of letters from a Russian monk. One of them tells of how a young monk once went to his Staretz, remarking with enthusiasm how some supremely blessed people had been granted to see the holy Angels. But the old man only responded: “Blessed are those who constantly see their own sins.”
Homilists are often tempted to assure people that there is no need to worry, because really, deep down, everything is fine, and will be fine. But I think my job is to tell people they aren’t worrying nearly enough, because the situation is far worse than they even imagine, and all of us are in really serious trouble. I suppose we can think of all the pain and distress of the world, and of our lives; all the sickness, hunger and oppression; all natural griefs, disappointments, frustrations and regrets, even sorrow and death itself, as so many signs, or manifestations that our world is out of order; not as it should be; not at one with God; not yet fully redeemed. Adam has been thrown out of paradise, and the way back in is barred by an Angel with a flaming sword. As for ourselves: insofar as our life is not simply and wholly Christ; insofar as we are not transformed in the Holy Spirit; insofar as we fail truly to live as children of God our Father: we remain in darkness still.
So we constantly cry out: Lord have mercy on us, sinners. But also, we constantly rejoice, because we know the light is stronger than the darkness; Christ has won the victory; in him we have hope, and salvation, and holiness, and life, in total abundance. So St. Paul tells us to rejoice not just once, but again, and always (Phil 4:4, Introit). Paul says that because he has understood who Jesus is, and what he has done, and what a difference he has made, and how close to us he now is. In Jesus we know the love of God, for while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Rm 5:8).
Writing to the Thessalonians, St. Paul links Christian rejoicing to Christian prayer without ceasing, and Christian thanksgiving for just everything. These things go together, and are inseparable, for by them we live a Christian life of complete integrity, spirit soul and body (I Thess 5:23). Living in this way we walk ever in the light; God draws us ever more deeply into union with Himself; we make reparation for our sins; and nothing whatever can cancel our joy.