Good News Proclaimed

“Be strong, fear not!
Here is your God, he comes with vindication;
with divine recompense he comes to save you.”

Isaiah 35:4

Today we celebrate the Third Sunday of Advent or Gaudete Sunday. “Gaudete” comes from the Latin word gaudere meaning “to rejoice” or “to be glad.” Similar to the 4th Sunday in Lent, the 3rd Sunday of Advent invites us to rejoice in the midst of our preparations. We rejoice because Christ is near and we rejoice because Our God has come to save us.

In our world today there may be little cause for us to rejoice. The war in Ukraine, the violence in our own cities, the tens of millions of people suffering from addictions, the oppression of peoples, and many others. If we root our joy in the things of this world, the indeed there is no cause for joy. As Christians we know that our joy comes from something and Someone that is outside of this world, outside of creation. Our joy comes from God — Our God who has loved us from all eternity.

The Prophet Isaiah encourages the people, “Be strong, fear not!” for God has come to save them. At this point the people were about to be taken over by the Babylonians. Perhaps to the people Isaiah’s words were crazy and made no sense: “How can you say God has come to save us? We are about to be decimated!” The Israelites has forgotten about God and the wonders He has done for them and their ancestors — the covenant made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Crossing through the Red Sea, the Covenant at Mt. Sinai, the numerous miraculous victories God brought to them. If God did all that in the past, they could be sure that God will do it again for them now. And, we can be sure that God can do that for us today. This is the Good News that was proclaimed to the people then and it is the Good News that must be proclaimed today — that God has come close to us, so close that He became one of us, that He will deliver us from all evil, and that in Him we will have eternal life.

Let us rejoice today, brothers and sisters, and proclaim this Good News to all those we meet.

Life from a Rock

“And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you, God can raise up children to Abraham from these stones.”

Matthew 3:9

As winter approaches, we see signs all around us that point to this seasonal reality. The barren trees, the frosted grass at dawn, the cold weather. Signs of life in nature are seemingly gone. There is a stillness and a silence. It seems like nothing is happening and everything is dormant or dead. Yet, something is happening. In the seemingly lifeless stillness, life is preparing to be born.

We hear the Prophet Isaiah say to the Israelites, who would soon be exiled, that “a shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse.” Death will come and they will soon be exiled into a land that is not theirs because of their own unfaithfulness, but God promises life will also come and that they will one day return to the land He has promised their ancestors. When all that they saw was doom and gloom, Isaiah tells them that there will be life. It probably seemed impossible to them maybe because it is! How can a new shoot sprout from a stump? How can something dead bring about life? It is impossible. But not for God.

This shoot that Isaiah prophesied about is the One John the Baptist preached about and prepared for his entire life. The shoot that will sprout from the stump is the Lord, Jesus Christ, who will bring life out of death. The message of Isaiah and John is one and the same: there is hope that life will prevail, that life will come out of death, that what is impossible for us is not so for God. John tells the people that if God wanted He could even raise up descendant from a rock that He could bring life out of even what is lifeless. If we place our hope in God, life will come, even if we walk through the valley of the shadow of death and even if we are in a seemingly desperate and hopeless situation, life will come. Light will scatter the darkness. Hope will cast out despair. Life will prevail over death. In fact, it already has. By His death and resurrection, Jesus has already conquered death. In God is our hope, and it is hope that never fails.

We Just Don’t Know

“Therefore, stay awake!
For you do not know on which day your Lord will come.”

Matthew 24:42

Happy First Sunday of Advent! Today we begin our four week journey of preparation for the coming of Our Lord. Coming of the Lord? But He came already over 2000 years ago! That’s correct, but we also know that Jesus will come again at the end of time. But not only that, Jesus also comes to us right now, right here. Those are the three “comings” of Jesus we generally speak about when we mention the “coming of the Lord.” So we know for sure Jesus came 2000 years ago and that He comes to us at this very moment, but we do not know when the end of time will be. We just don’t know.

The Lord tells His disciples that just as the people at the time of Noah did not know a flood was going to devastate the world, so too will they not know when the Son of Man will come again. In other words, we should always be ready. But, to go a step further, why should we always be ready? I mean yes, because we do not know when the end of the world will come and we do not want to get caught off guard, but should we always ready simply out of fear? No, because a relationship founded upon fear is not the type of relationship Jesus wants with us. We should want to be ready because of who we are waiting to return to us.

Think about a new teacher who is trying his best to manage his classroom, prepare effective lessons, and deliver instruction in a way that is fun, relatable, and memorable. There will be times when the classroom will just not operate in the most ideal of ways, and of course, those are the days when the principal decides to stop by to observe. So, this new teacher moving forward will try to be prepared because he does not want his principal to come in again and observe a dysfunctional classroom. If this teacher prepares well everyday moving forward only because he is afraid of a negative evaluation, he will inevitably leave the profession in less than five years. A teacher cannot build his teaching career on the foundation of fear of being disciplined or fired because if he does, he eventually will be. Rather, a teacher must build his teaching career upon the reason why he first wanted to teach. His passion for teaching. His love for the students. Only when his passion and love for education is both the foundation of and at the center of his planning and preparation will he be an effective teacher, a teacher who loves what he does. Although the teacher may not know when the principal will come around to observe, he will always be ready and prepared because he knows he is there not for a good observation by the principal, but that he is there for his students, and when he finally realizes this and lives this out, anyone who comes through the classroom, whether it be a new student, a parent, or the principal, they will find a teacher who is there because he loves his students and that will shine through, and that will, hopefully, be the lens from which they will view this teacher.

That’s the same with our faith. If we just go to Church, pray, and go to other Church functions simply because we want to get on God’s “good side” and earn brownie points, it will never take root and soon we will find ourselves getting burnt out and maybe even leaving the Church. We should do all those things in preparation for Our Lord not simply because we are afraid of going to hell, but because we love the Lord and the relationship we share with the Lord is one that is based on love and not of fear. Yes, we prepare because we know neither the day nor the time, but more importantly, we prepare because the One who has called us and who has loved us from all eternity is coming to us. How blessed are we?

The Last Judgment by Jean the Elder Bellegambe, c. 1470-1534