Messengers of Gaudate

'The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the LORD, the majesty of our God. Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who are of a fearful heart, "Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God. He will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense. He will come and save you."

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy. For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water; the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp, the grass shall become reeds and rushes.

A highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Holy Way; the unclean shall not travel on it, but it shall be for God's people; no traveler, not even fools, shall go astray. No lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it; they shall not be found there, but the redeemed shall walk there. And the ransomed of the LORD shall return, and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness,  and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.'

--Isaiah 35: 1-10

'My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,

my spirit rejoices in God my Savior; 

for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.

From this day all generations will call me blessed: 

the Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is his Name.

He has mercy on those who fear him 

in every generation.

He has shown the strength of his arm, 

he has scattered the proud in their conceit.

He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, 

and has lifted up the lowly.

He has filled the hungry with good things, 

and the rich he has sent away empty.

He has come to the help of his servant Israel, 

for he has remembered his promise of mercy,

The promise he made to our fathers, 

to Abraham and his children for ever.'

--The Magnificat (Song of Mary - Luke 1: 46-55)

'Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains. You also must be patient. Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near. Beloved, do not grumble against one another, so that you may not be judged. See, the Judge is standing at the doors! As an example of suffering and patience, beloved, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.'

--James 5: 7-10

'When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.”'

--Luke 11: 2-6

On Jordan’s bank the Baptist’s cry announces that the Lord is nigh. In exile in Babylon the prophet dreams of hope and new life given in the dessert, a vision of restoration for a broken people. In a house in Jerusalem, the brother of Jesus writes to a congregation to encourage them to be patient like a farmer, and to wait upon the Lord. And the Mother of God sings and rejoices at the good news brought to her by the message of an angel, the promise of God to turn the world rightside-up.  The #AdventWord for this past Sunday was messenger, and all of these are messengers of the hope for which we wait this Advent.

Since the Middle Ages the third Sunday of Advent has been called Gaudate Sunday, and it takes its name from the first word of the introit, or opening hymn, that has often been sung (in Latin) on that day .  The candle color changes from purple to pink – which I heard a priest explain once to a 5th grader as “We take the purple and solemnity of Advent and mix it with the white and rejoicing Christmas to get the pink for Gaudate Sunday,” to which the 5th grader confusingly responded, “But…purple and white don’t make pink.” Gaudate is Latin for rejoice, which might not have been the #AdventWord for Gaudate Sunday, but it is a theme that runs through the readings for the day. Each of them speaks to the fact that the Messiah is coming – or is already here – and there is great joy in that promise, a promise for which John, Isaiah, James, and Mary were messengers. And so are we. 

Google Image search result for 'Gaudate Sunday.'

Isaiah and James may have been separated by roughly 800 years but they both bring a message worthy of rejoicing. Isaiah paints the picture of a desert wasteland being turned into a robust, lush paradise of blossoming flowers. It’s not only a promise being given for the people of Israel in exile at the time, but it is the ultimate promise that God will restore not only Israel but the entire world. This promised time has come, as far as the apostle James is concerned, in the person of Jesus, but it is also not quite fulfilled – already, not yet, as we often say – and so James offers a message to rejoice through patience, akin to a farmer awaiting the harvest to come in. Advent evokes the words of both of these messengers – the promise of God to restore and rebuild, and for us to await the fulfillment of that promise with patience. 

The Visitation and Magnificat (artist unknown)

But the spotlight on Gaudate Sunday is always on Mary and her song called the Magnificat, which we read together at each of our Eucharistic celebrations on Sunday. Mary has already been visited by Gabriel, God’s messenger who brought her the promise that she would be the Theotokos, the God-bearer, and a few months after that, she goes to the house of her cousin Elizabeth – the mother of John the Baptist – and upon being greeted by her cousin, Mary sings this song of praise to God, a song of promise and hope for a world where the powerful have been cast down, and the poor and lowly have been lifted up. Diedrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian killed by the Nazis, called the Magnifcat the most revolutionary song ever sung. It has been so controversial through the years that some countries, such as Indian, Guatemala, Argentina, and El Salvador have all banned it from being sung or said in public because of its imagery that ruffled the feathers of those countries’ governments fearful that poor folks might rise up and take over. In her song Mary is the messenger of the very same good news that her Son will proclaim, and we join with her in rejoicing in God who has looked with favor on our lowliness and who is even still casting down the mighty.

Elizabeth’s boy John would not only be born first, but he would proclaim his own message ahead of Jesus – the message of repentance that I blogged about last week. But after John is arrested, Jesus, in earnest, begins his public ministry, keeping John’s message going and adding the caveat that the promise of God envisioned by Isaiah wasn’t just coming in the future, but it was already here - remember Jesus' first words in the Gospel of Mark, "Repent! For the Kingdom of God has come near!" This week we find John again at the center of our Gospel reading, only now he's in prison, and he’s changed his tune. Last week he was speaking boldly of Jesus’ power, but now he questions it. Why? Perhaps because it’s hard to be positive about the future when one is a prisoner. Also, because Jesus clearly isn’t what everyone thinks the Messiah should be.  Where’s the conquering army? Where’s the reclaiming of the throne of David? People aren’t sure what to make of him, which prompts John to send his disciples to ask if Jesus is the real deal. What’s his response? Jesus sends the message back, not that he is the guy and that John and others should believe his words, but he tells them to believe what they see. Tell John, he says, about the blind you’ve seen given their sight back, the lame you see leaping and the lepers you see cleansed, the deaf who are now hearing, the poor who have had good news brought to them.  This is the message.  This is the promise. This is the hope. This is God’s action in the world. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. From Isaiah’s time, to Jesus, Mary, and John, to James writing in the aftermath, all the way to us who are the inheritors of their message. What shall we do with it?

We should keep Christ in Christmas.  Yeah, you heard me. As we inch closer and closer to that great celebration, we should keep Christ in Christmas by BEING Christ at Christmas, by being the messengers proclaiming the same promises and by doing the work that Jesus himself did and that he names as signs and symbols of his messianic reign here on earth: heal the sick, bring the exhausted and marginalized back into the community, help people see goodness in the world, make known the sound of joy, breathe life into that which was thought to be barren and dead, bring (and be) good news to the poor. What we’ve heard proclaimed today by these messengers – Isaiah, James, John, Mary, and Jesus – are not just nice stories, but they are our commission to go and do likewise, to be messengers of God’s grace, love, and mercy, as they were.

And this is worth rejoicing. The hope of God breaking into the world, yes, but also the awesome and wonderful responsibility and call given to each of us to be messengers of such hope. It is the promise reaffirmed at Christmas – the promise we wait during this Second Advent to be fulfilled in its entirety. We are the messengers, so let us at all times and places rejoice and magnify the Lord. 

The Delight of God

'In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said,

“The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:  ‘Prepare the way of the Lord,  make his paths straight.’”

Now John wore clothing of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. Then the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.

But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance. Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

“I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire."'

--Matthew 3: 1-12

'A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. The spirit of the LORD shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding,  the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD. His delight shall be in the fear of the LORD. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear; but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist, and faithfulness the belt around his loins. 

The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder's den. They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea. On that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples; the nations shall inquire of him, and his dwelling shall be glorious.'

--Isaiah 11: 1-10

Each year I participate in the social media campaign #AddventWord. The word for this past Sunday, the Second Sunday of Advent, was #Delight. When I saw that I was a bit confused. The Gospel reading for the day features about John the Baptist who isn’t exactly delighting in the antics of the Pharisees and Sadducees who have come out to see him – he calls them a brood of vipers, which is a curse that I think we oughta bring back. And they aren’t really filled with delight at the sight of John, either – with his wild looking hair, raggedy clothes, and less than healthy diet of locusts and wild honey – in fact, while they respect him as a prophet, they’re afraid of the guy. John always reminds me of those folks standing on the street corners yelling that the end is near, so yeah, I can understand their fear. John himself may not really be a delight of a person, but make no mistake, what he is proclaiming to the people is most definitely a delight to God and good news for us.

John the Baptist by Lynda Miller Baker

John’s message was one of repentence. The Greek word is metanoia, which literally means to ‘turn oneself around.” To repent is not to drown in self-imposed punishment over the sins that one has committed, but to reorient one’s whole self—heart, mind, and spirit—toward the goodness, the mercy, and the love of God.  This is John’s message—a message that Jesus himself will pick up and run with in his own ministry.

It is repentance that is the delight of God and should be ours, too. We’re not just talking about the Sacrament of Confession, but more than that - a daily effort at reorientation. You see, the religious elites of John’s time were good at the formal kinds of repentance on days like Yom Kippur – the Day of Atonement – but the regular, daily acts of repentance were where they fell short. They believed that their positions were enough. And John was there to call them out on it. He got in trouble, and still today preachers who stand in that same position as John – preaching truth to power – usually do get in trouble for it. But his is a message we all need to hear, especially people like the those religious elites in positions of authority and influence. God’s delight is when we turn our entire selves toward God, and there is no better time of year for us to do that than Advent.

This is the time of year when we hear again and again the promise that God is working something new in our lives.  The vision from the prophet Isaiah today is one of the most beautiful and powerful in all of Scripture, and it is all about metanoia.  A stump shall come up out of the tree of Jesse.  A stump, that which symbolizes death where there once was life.  But even a stump has roots, and lo and behold a shoot will sprout from those roots.  And what’s more, all living creatures will turn themselves around, the prey will lie with the predators, the former having let God quell their fear, and the latter surrendering their predatory instincts.  In the midst of it all, a little child will lead them. As Christians we read Jesus into this vision—he, a descendant of Jesse, is that promised shoot, that little child for whose birth we prepare —but those who first heard this vision would’ve known how it bespeaks the birth of a new innocence in which trust, gentleness, and friendship are possible in an often cruel world.  The whole creation is moving in this direction, turning itself around, calling humanity to partner with all of creation in that turning, in that metanoia. 

Though not technically an Advent hymn – at least not in our Episcopal tradition – I always love listening to Rory Cooper’s Canticle of the Turning this time of year. Set to the old Irish tune Star of the County Down, the song proclaims  “My heart shall sing of the day you bring, let the fires of your justice burn; wipe away all tears, for the dawn draws near; and the world is about to turn.” This is the delight of God – to be turned right round, to metanoia, to – to repent and return to the Lord, as our baptismal covenant reminds us. Thanks be to God for John, Isaiah, and all the prophets who call us to repentance, to metanoia, to the delight of God.

The Canticle of the Turning.

Walking in the Way of the Lord

'The word that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.

In days to come the mountain of the LORD’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it. Many peoples shall come and say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.’ For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the LORD!'

--Isaiah 2: 1-5

'Jesus said to the disciples, “But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man. Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left. Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.”'

--Matthew 24: 36-44

Thus begins our Advent journey, as we walk to Bethlehem and witness once again God being brought into the world. We make this walk together, of course, through our collective worship, our weekly Advent formation series; but also as individual seekers through whatever new spiritual practices we have chosen to adopt this season to help us better prepare our hearts and minds for Christ’s coming. 

The readings for the First Sunday of Advent always take me by surprise. I expect the gospel to be the opening lines of Matthew, which give us Jesus’ lineage and genealogy going back to Abraham, or at the very least I figure it’s going to be Matthew’s backstory of Jesus’ birth, which focuses on the piety of Joseph. You’d think I’d be used to it by now, but it always throws me for a loop that our first Gospel during Advent features Jesus preaching about that day of many names: the Second Advent, Second Coming, the Eschaton, the Day of Resurrection, the Day of the Lord, just to name a few.

And when I hear this passage I think of a sermon preached by the Rev. Cleophus James at the Triple Rock Baptist Church in Calumet City, IL. Rev. Cleophus said in that sermon, “don’t be lost when your time comes; for the day of the Lord is coming as a thief in the night!” The congregation followed that up with a singing of Old Landmark and dancing up and down the aisle. 

The Reverend Cleophus James.

I wish I could say I heard that sermon in-person, but I didn’t because Triple Rock Baptist Church doesn’t exist, and the Rev. Cleophus James was a character played by the late-Godfather of Soul, James Brown, and the sermon and song-and-dance routine was from an early scene in my favorite live-action movie, The Blues Bros. But there’s good news in that movie’s sermon, and in the movie as a whole, as the brothers go from that service, walking by faith and on a mission from God to reunite their band and save the orphanage where they grew up. The Blues Bros. will preach, y’all!

The message Jesus gives in this private homily from Matthew’s Gospel is one that calls his listeners to be prepared for the coming Day of the Lord, be prepared without being anxious. We’ve seen how anxiety over when that day will come causes all kinds of problem. While we know this day will come eventually – we say so in our Nicene Creed each week – trying to prepare for it also brings with it a sense of dread or fear, doesn’t it? So how do we do this? How do we prepare for the Day of the Lord – a day that is coming like a thief in the night -without being anxious?

There is no easy answer for that, but the prophet Isaiah offers some insight. We hear Isaiah preach about a vision God gave him prior to the people of Israel being taken into exile by the Babylonians. In that vision he saw the kind of world that God has always dreamed of for God’s people.  In this world the people walk in the way of the Lord, the way of love.  In this world the people take their weapons of violence—swords and spears—and beat them into life-giving tools—plowshares and pruning hooks.  In this world the people never again lift up a weapon against one another. The vision is concluded with a rallying cry, “Come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!”  But this is not just a vision, it is a promise.  Walking in the light of the Lord is the way to prepare without being anxious.

Anxiety is rooted in fear, and those responses that we may have to any given, anxious situation are meant to protect us from that which we fear. Our sisters and brothers who anxiously fret over when the Day of the Lord will come and who try to predict when it will happen – which isn’t the point! – are simply acting out of an existential fear, that their brains tell them will be appeased if they can get that date right. It’s not their fault, really. But rather than fretting and being fearful about the coming of that day, Jesus reminds the listeners of this sermon that they – and we – are not to live as spectators, guessing about the future, but as those to whom a promise has been given; and we know that God’s promises are always sure. 

Jesus makes this point clearest by referencing Noah, and how Noah prepared for the Flood even during sunny skies, even when people laughed at him. But this, Jesus shows us, is what preparedness looks like. This is what walking in the way of the Lord looks like; it looks like actually believing God’s promises.

And so, Advent is the time for us to move into a mindset of preparedness, even if it’s not really our go-to impulse. When I was diagnosed with cancer and told I needed a liver transplant I was also told that my liver was perfectly fine. This made absolutely no sense to me. If that were the case, why, I asked, could we not just treat the cancer and leave the liver alone? Because, my doctors said, if that happens the autoimmune disease in your system will cause that cancer to definitely come back and within 3-5 years you’ll be in full liver failure. Before that I was not a proponent of preventive care – just ask my spouse – but I sure am now. Just because I couldn’t see it, didn’t mean it wasn’t real. That’s where the promises that Isaiah and Jesus are making in our readings today really come home. Because that is at the core of  their message, and that is what it means to walk by faith, to walk in the Lord, to remember God’s promises are true, always, even if we can’t see them yet. That’s what Advent is all about.

Shortly after receiving my liver transplant in December of 2021.

German theologian Karl Barth said that we live between Creation and Re-Creation, looking backward at what God has done, assured of God’s presence with us in the current moment, and looking ahead at what God is about to do. Nevertheless, it’s scary to hope for something that we cannot see or understand. The future is fearful, but the only thing that is set about it is the promise of God once again breaking through!  And even when the future looks dark, we Christians still light candles.  It’s what we do because while we know that the light of a single candle can cast the darkness of fear aside and remind us of the promised hope that Jesus gave us once and still gives us today. Together let us walk this journey of Advent with our God, casting out our fears and preparing our hearts for the Second Advent and to receive that promised hope.