Reprised from 2021

Zephaniah 3:14–18a; Philippians 4:4–7; Luke 3:10–18

            Today we celebrate the third Sunday of Advent, which is called Gaudete Sunday, from the Latin translation of Philippians 4. "Rejoice in the Lord always." Always rejoice. We depart from the somber tone of this penitential season for a time to celebrate the light that is dawning on us. We also recently celebrated the Feasts of the Immaculate Conception and Our Lady of Guadalupe.

            The readings today give us our marching orders for Advent and beyond. The Latin word adventus, the source of our English term, indicates an approach or onset. Advent is the onset of Christ's coming again. As our readings suggest, it is a time of hope, of looking forward to a joyous event, but from the perspective of people who are definitely not in a joyful place at the moment. Often the expectation of the Messiah's coming dawns when His people are at their lowest, when they feel bereft and oppressed.

            Zephaniah prophecies during the reign of Josiah, a time when the king is attempting to bring the kingdom back from its fall into idolatry. The Assyrians have been chipping away at the Kingdom of Judea and demanding their tribute, which always means an oppressive tax on the people. All these events are considered the result of the sins of the People of Israel. But Zephaniah tells them that God is letting go of that penalty and that they will be delivered from their oppression. Amid their strife, they are called to rejoice in their deliverance.

            The letter of St. Paul to the Philippians is much the same. Paul is writing from prison. Paul wasn’t a popular figure in Philippi, at least not with those outside the Church. If you remember the account in Acts, he expels a spirit from a slave girl who is following him around and prophesying in a loud voice that Paul and his companions served the Most High God. Her owners weren't too happy about that because her prophecies were a source of income for them. So they beat Paul and Silas and threw them into prison. Paul had his share of trouble in Philippi for sure. But Paul tells the Philippians, whom he obviously loves, to be joyful. He knows that all his tribulation has a purpose. We can choose to do the same. We can obsess about our trials, or we can rejoice because we know the one who has overcome the world.

            Some of us tend not to dwell so much on where we are now but on where we've been in the past. We beat ourselves up over past mistakes and sins. The crowds in our reading from Luke today could be doing the same, but they don’t. Instead, they recognize their need to change, and they ask the Baptist what to do. He gives them concrete steps on the right path. First, he tells them to repent, and then he gives them a path. Clothe the naked. Feed the hungry. Give what you have in excess to the poor.

            These are the steps to holiness. Do good for others. Love your enemies. Take care of the poor in your midst. St. John Chrysostom said that “the poor are physicians, and their hands are an ointment for your wounds.” And if you've ever worked with the truly poor, or if you've ever visited the sick, or fed someone who was hungry, you've experienced it—that sense that what little you've done helped you more than it helped them because it brought you outside yourself to recognize Christ in the other.

But the first step is to repent. Turn from your sins and accept God’s mercy. Repent! The word repent is the translation for the Greek word metanoia, which means to turn. The Greek word for sin is hamartia, which literally means aiming at the wrong thing, like an archer who aims badly when shooting at a target. When we sin, it’s because we’re aiming at the wrong thing. The remedy is metanoia, to turn to the right target. Matt Maher has a great song, the chorus of which is this:

“If you’re looking for a savior, all you gotta do is turn around.”

That’s it, turn from your sins and back to God. Regardless of where you've been, your sins are old news, and they are swept away. The Baptist is saying, “All of that past stuff was true, but you are forgiven. Now go and leave all of that behind. Go and sin no more.” That is the message of Divine mercy, the good news.

            And for me, that is good news. I am a far different person now than I was in my young adult life. I drifted away from the Catholic faith in my late teens, and I wandered for a long time—about 20 years. I did plenty of things of which I'm not proud. And I could go on carrying those failures as many of us do, but the call to repentance is not a call to self-judgment and condemnation. In fact, to hold on to our sins and doubt God’s mercy shows a lack of trust in God and, in a strange way, a form of pride. The call to repentance is a call to recognition of our failings and conviction to reject them. Then, ultimately, the call to repentance is a call to mercy, forgiveness, and healing—to letting go and moving on. That's what Advent and Lent are all about—helping us to recognize our brokenness; helping us to recognize our need for healing; helping us to recognize our need for salvation.

            For the Israelites in our first reading, there were plenty of reasons for anxiety. If we look around our world today, we can find many reasons to be fearful and anxious: pandemics, political division, the threat of violence and war. It’s harder to find civil conversation in a public arena. We seem to have less and less of a shared culture and shared morality on which to base our decisions. Our world is more chaotic than ever, or at least than we remember in our lifetimes.

            But every era encounters these moments of chaos and doubt. Look at the letters of St. Paul. Look at the words of the prophets like Zephaniah. The more things change, the more they stay the same. We're not seeing anything new. We're seeing the latest version of the same old thing—which means we're still seeing the same result of our fallen nature playing itself out. We're still seeing those same human failings that we've always seen. We're still seeing the effects of sin and the wounds they create in our lives and the lives of the people we love.

            But we still also encounter the effects of redemption in our world. We still encounter those moments of grace individually and collectively. We have that moment of grace when we set aside our own needs to take care of the homeless, or to visit the sick, or to comfort others who are in pain. We have moments of beauty, our Advent celebrations, and the joy of the season to come. We have moments of grace, and we must remember that the story is not over. Advent is here to remind us of that. The man who came here and suffered that defeat (point to the crucifix) has overcome the world. He is coming again on the clouds in power and glory to make an end of all defeat. And He comes to this altar today to give us His body and blood and to make us one.

            And that is why we rejoice.