3rd Sunday Advent --We are called to experience joy and hope!
The Reverend Billy Graham tells of a time early in his ministry when he arrived in a small town to preach a sermon. Wanting to mail a letter, he asked a young boy where the post office was. When the boy had told him, Dr. Graham thanked him and said, "If you'll come to the Church this evening, you can hear me telling everyone how to get to Heaven."
"I don't think I'll be there," the boy said. "You don't even know your way to the post office."
Do you want to go to heaven or want experience heaven?
Now we look at the readings again, there is tremendous hope and joy promised. So for example, in the first reading this is what the Prophet Isaiah has to say:
“Strengthen the hands that are feeble,
make firm the knees that are weak,
say to those whose hearts are frightened:
Be strong and do not fear!
Here is your God, he comes with vindication,
With divine recompense he comes to save you.”
The community to which Isaiah was writing lived in rather dark times. Hezekiah was the king of Judah at the time and Sennacherib the Assyrian king had laid siege to its capital, Jerusalem. The entire nation was in the danger of being wiped out. The famous inscription of Sennacherib said, “I shut up Hezekiah like a bird in his cage.” But as is promised in today’s readings, God says, “Be strong and do not fear!
Here is your God; He comes with vindication, with divine recompense he comes to save you.”
God did deliver the city just as he had promised. As Christians we find this prophecy fulfilled in an even better way. God came to us in Jesus and brought the most hopeful and joyful thing that could ever bring to humanity: our salvation. Our lives are not easy, but today just now, our God comes to save us. When John’s disciples came to ask Jesus if he was indeed the Christ, he pointed to the signs of the kingdom right there in their midst:“The blind regain their sight, The lame walk, The lepers are cleansed, The deaf hear, The dead are raised, And the poor have the good news proclaimed to them.” When does it happen? The second reading tells us about the need to be patient and avoid grumbling just as a farmer who has to be patient for the crop to grow.
There are three things I suggest we do for the rest of the two weeks before Christmas. These are my three practical implications for this week.
1. Make our hopes and joys realized and shared! Can the hope and joy promised in the scriptures be ours this Christmas? Some of us have children, close relatives, and friends in Iraq; I personally know friends in the congregation that have lost jobs; I know people that are sad because of broken marriages and depressed because relationships did not materialize. I know people whose immediate family members are hurting because of illness. I know children and young people in this congregation who are hurting because their parents are going apart. Where is the hope? To those whose days are dark and to those whose days are bright, my suggestion is, make the prophecy of Isaiah your own. Take this reading home, read it again and again and claim the promise God is making. In other words, do we want Isaiah’s prophecy to come true for us? If we do, then, let us invite God into the situation that we are in: Is it Unemployment? Illness? Relationship? Happiness? Contentment? Peace? Anxiety? Hurt? It does not matter what situation we are in. Let us open our lives for Jesus to enter in. Isaiah’s words are a prophecy and it has to come true for us now as it did for the Israelites. Let us believe that this prophecy is for us: “Here is your God, he comes with vindication, With divine recompense he comes to save you.”
2. “Make your hearts firm, because the coming of the Lord is at hand.” I also want to draw our attention to what St. James is saying to his community in the second reading “Make your hearts firm, because the coming of the Lord is at hand.” Even as we make God’s prophecy our own, let us fulfill our own obligations so that today’s prophecy can come true for us. Let us make peace if there is peace to be made; let us root out sin in our lives since it becomes an obstacle between God and us; let us share with those in need the things God has shared with us; let us be kind and gentle with people of all nations, cultures, and races, embracing them as our brothers and sisters; let us refrain from judgment so that God may spare us. Let us “make our hearts firm because the coming of the Lord is at hand.”
3) We need to open our hearts and let God transform our lives: Today’s readings remind us that our lives can also be transformed if we are patient and place our trust in God. The message of Advent is that God is present among us, in our everyday lives. We must prepare our hearts to recognize and welcome Him by allowing a metánoia (a change of thinking about God, ourselves, and the world) in us during Advent.
Today, today, just now, Jesus comes to us. In this Eucharist, Christ comes to us in the here and now. His words to us are the same that God spoke through Isaiah:
“Be strong and do not fear! Here is your God; he comes with vindication, with divine recompense he comes to save you.”
