'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.
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