|
Sunday 3 Advent (C): Read Zeph 3, 13-18a;
Is 12; Phil 4, 4-7; Lk 3, 10-18
Despite his tough, moral talk, John the Baptist filled his hearers
with great expectation. They wondered: could this be the Messiah? They intuited in John not just a moral teacher, but a man
so filled with personal integrity, so inspiring, that his very presence stirred the depths of their longing for the presence
of the Christ. But John is no impostor: he makes it clear he is not the Christ. He also makes it clear that the Christ whose
coming is very near will also have some tough talking to do, and tougher action to take. He will rid the world of its chaff,
those incapable, because unwilling, of accepting baptism in the fire of the Holy Spirit. But He will also gather unto Himself
those who have longed for His coming with expectation, whose lives may not be perfect, but whose hearts seek the consolation
of His mercy in that same fire of the Holy Spirit.
It may seem out of place, somehow, to read from the Gospel about John the Baptist on this third Sunday of Advent, “gaudete”
Sunday, when the Church desires to awaken in us the joy of the coming of the Savior. John hardly seems a jolly figure. Of
course, that is precisely the point. Our tendency can be to understand joy as jolliness, like the “jollity of Jupiter”
in Gustav Holst’s orchestral suite “The Planets”. The Baptist seems more like Mars. Yet the martial arts
of the Baptist seek nothing other than to slay the enemies of true joy. To the crowd who asked him, “what shall we do?”,
John replied effectively, “don’t be selfish but give.” To the tax-collectors, he said, “don’t
be greedy and dishonest, but fair and just”; to the soldiers, “don’t abuse your force and authority, but
be respectful, truthful and honest.” The evangelist could have probably gone on with other examples: priests, be holy
and humble of heart; husbands and wives, be faithful, open to God’s will and self-sacrificing for your children; public
servants, respect the law of God and serve the common good, etc..
To know true joy in one’s heart, spirit, body, relationships and work, freedom from sin, from ambiguity, double
motives, mundane habits of thinking and acting, are all necessary. We all like clean clothes, but nobody likes to do the laundry.
John the Baptist and all the prophets before him, as well as all the apostles and pastors after him, must point out where
we are in need of cleansing so that we can be truly free to rejoice in purity of heart. The Messiah came to dwell with sinners,
but in order to cleanse them of the defilement of sin, not to bless their sin. The Baptist heralds that coming precisely by
calling for repentance, a profound and willing change of heart whereby the sinner desires to surrender his sin to the cleansing
fires of the Holy Spirit of the Messiah.
If John appears to be a prophet of doom and gloom, we must ask ourselves if that is because we are unwilling to exchange
our “worldly jollity” for heavenly joy. Sin has such a knack of fooling us into thinking that things are the opposite
of what they are, that words mean the opposite of what they mean, that sin is not sin but having a “jolly good time”.
Surely this is why so many today justify their sin and have the naivety, or the audacity, to expect Jesus simply to accept
them as if they were without sin. They expect the Church to change Her teaching, the catechism to be rewritten and the Scriptures
to be edited by someone from the “in-crowd” of modern liberal thinking. But contrary to such a self-deceptive
approach, the John the Baptists of history speak up about what is and what is not sin, and they do so, not to leave us groveling
in abject guilt, but in order to lead us forth to the joy of repentance and salvation. The Baptist embodies tough evangelical
love and therefore tough evangelical joy. A priest, prophet or pastor who leaves his people in their sin is culpably blind,
culpably lazy or culpably cowardly. If a parent sees a child do what is harmful and does nothing, he or she is failing in
the fundamental responsibility to love that child. But how much that child will love their parent, at least later on, when
they understand that discipline and correction put love before popularity! True joy is like the spiritual energy which is
born from the warmth of true love, and true love cannot coexist with sin, although it madly loves the sinner. Joy does not
exist in a vacuum, whereas sin is very much at home in it.
Of course, the Baptist’s cries to prepare the way of the Lord by turning away from sin would only be effectively
made possible by the suffering, death and Resurrection of that same Lord. The Baptist’s cries and the baptism he administered
foreshadow the Crucifixion of the Messiah. Christian joy pours forth from the wounded side of Christ, the water and blood
which signify the destruction of sin and death and the opening up of the spring of eternal joy. As today’s responsorial
canticle puts it: “My strength and my courage is the Lord, and he has been my savior. With joy you will draw water at
the fountain of salvation”.
Most of us have reason, sometimes overwhelming, to live with a nagging sense of pain, sadness and even depression:
a difficult childhood, abuse of any kind, a broken marriage, a betrayal in love, an invincible sense of worthlessness sometimes
made worse by a failure in work or in love. There are perhaps moments or periods where we can escape from this inner plague,
but, when the party is over and the lights are out, it returns relentlessly and without pity. People try to cheer us up, offer
diversions and distractions of one kind or another, some healthy, some unhealthy. Yet for many it is almost impossible to
be rid of that radical anxiety which sounds deep within us like an alarm bell that never stops. Do not our addictions, mental
illnesses, compulsive behaviors and awkward characters all speak of that hidden pain we are unable to face?
But what if there were Someone whose presence in our lives were capable of turning off that alarm-bell? Probably for
must of us, there is indeed some-one or even some-two who can help greatly to bring us peace. Yet very quickly the noise within
can start turning them away, even a spouse, and we can find ourselves repeating that most tragic of antiphons: “no-one
can really understand my pain.” It is so easy, alas, to get sucked down into a whirlpool of existential Angst, an experience that cannot be far from hell itself in the sense that we get lost in self-concern and self-pity.
The Gospel proclaims that Christ, the Messiah, can reach down and set in counter-motion that whirlpool. Christ alone can live
your pain with you and, indeed, feel it more deeply than you do yourself. To believe and trust in Him as the silent guest
of your deepest heart is already to know the hope of healing and freedom from whatever plague afflicts the foundations of
your being. Essentially, that trust and faith in Him is nothing other than the act of repentance, that which the Baptist cries
out for in the inner desert of your heart when he urges: prepare the way of the Lord! And what is the way of the Lord if not
the highways of the human heart? Why else does He come if it is not to fill the valley and canyons and potholes left by the
sufferings of life, and lay low the mountains of our pride and illusory self-exaltation?
Neither the Baptist nor the Messiah he heralds comes with a magic formula to transform the inner landscape of our spirits.
The Baptist rather cries out: stop! Look this way for the One who desires to come into your life in its past, present and
future, and make yourself ready to welcome Him! Jesus comes to establish an eternal relationship of love with each one of
us: to walk our walk that we might walk His walk. He comes to engage us in an intimate, wordless dialogue, in a profound spiritual
embrace that we may learn to forgive ourselves, forgive those who have deeply pained us and so be healed in surrendering our
personal history to Him. Many of you have probably already begun the journey of that deep and absorbing relationship with
Christ. Gaudete Sunday for you is thus a celebration of what has been and what is yet to come. To those who still feel He
is far, I say: behold, He is near, at the door of your heart; listen for His knock, and open, not fearing your own confusion
or dishevelment. He comes not to condemn, but to save you, and if you would but open and trust Him, He will bring you the
unfading joy of His divine love.
This deep encounter with the Messiah is the meaning of Holy Communion. All the sacraments, our Sunday Mass attendance,
our prayers and works of charity and our sufferings are all intended to deepen our knowledge, love and profound awareness
of the presence of Christ within us, in others, in the Church and in the world around us. Like any relationship, it requires
work and perseverance, commitment and time. Unlike any other relationship, only the Messiah can liberate us definitively from
the grief of our sin and of our human experience, for He alone can cleanse us with the fire of the Holy Spirit. In Him is
the final and definitive well-spring of true joy: we need only press our lips against His wounded side to know the power of
His healing love and divine joy. John the Baptist’s own joy was full when, as the Bridegroom’s friend, He heard
the voice of the Bridegroom Himself come and claim His Bride. My brothers and sisters, it seems almost impossible to believe,
but that Bride are we, and Christ the Messiah will not rest until He holds us in the eternal joy of His arms. So, rejoice!
Be not anxious, be not afraid, be not dismayed. Rather: be Christ’s!
Msgr. Peter Magee
Sunday, December 14th,
2003: St. Matthew’s Cathedral, DC – 10.00 am
|
