THIRD SUNDAY OF ADVENT

Readings:  Isaiah 35:1-6 James 5:7-10 Matthew 11:2-11

 

The Third Sunday of Advent continues to prepare us for the coming of the Lord Jesus among us. During this special time of Advent, we are called to embrace a holy mind so that we may perceive for the benefit of our spiritual growth the true spiritual meaning of the Words of God given to us.

This Sunday is called “Gaudete Sunday” from the first word of the Entrance Song in Latin, giving a call to rejoice.  As a symbol of this rejoicing the penitential violet visualize of the vestments are changed to rose colour.  So, the Mass text and readings today are full of joy, because the Lord is near.  In the Gospel Jesus indirectly claims to be the Messiah. He points to the actions that exemplify the presence of the Messianic age. He praises John as a prophet and one even greater than a prophet, a person who prepared the way of the Lord.

 The First Reading from the Book of Isaiah echoes the anticipation of God’s chosen people. The people believed that God would come and save them from their worldly suffering. To them, God’s coming was perceived as a second Exodus. In their perception of the coming of the promised Messiah, the people visualized a transformation of the physical world where the entire creation would rejoice. They were once weak and feeble without the wisdom to rely on God’s strength. Once more the weak hands and feeble knees would be made strong. Those who are physically blind, they would see again. Those who are deaf, they would hear again.

 The Second Reading from the Letter of James reminds Christians to be patient until the coming of the Lord. He tells them that waiting for Christ’s coming requires patience.  He asks them to have patience that does not lose hope, no matter how hard is the situation.  He asks for a patience that is strong and at the same time gentle.  It is a patience that manifests a quiet which will give them strength. James finds a helpful example at hand. The farmer has to wait for various processes of nature to take place as he awaits his crops.

  In the Gospel of today taken from Matthew we find ourselves at the mid-point in Jesus’ ministry.  This passage given to us is about discovering the identity of Jesus as well as that of John the Baptist. John knows that he is the precursor to the messiah and he does not fully know that Jesus is the real messiah. So he sends some of his disciples to Jesus with a question whether he is truly the Messiah who is to come, or did they have to wait for another. 

John in his Gospel tells us that Jesus is the true light, which enlightens everyone, and he has come into the world. He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.  Seeing and hearing! Jesus insists on these two verbs: seeing and hearing! Jesus gives sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf.

 Jesus turns to John the Baptist, and describes him to his listeners. He asks them what they went to see, what they went to hear… And Jesus replies on behalf of his listeners: what you want to see is at once everything and nothing, at once the greatest of the children of men and women, and yet the most inferior to the least of the elect of God! John the Baptist is the greatest of all the prophets, for he announces and reveals to the Jewish People the Messiah, the Lamb of God: “Behold, the Lamb of God!” (Jn 1:29)

 While the Gospel speaks of the Messiah already here, we at this very time are, in a sense, still waiting in anticipation.  Jesus, of course, is already present and working through his Body, the Christian community, the Church.  But he still has to come more fully into our own lives.  As the Opening Prayer suggests, we need to “experience the joy of salvation” – that power of healing and wholeness which Jesus can bring into our lives.  We feel that there are still many, including Christians, who have not yet experienced the deep joy of becoming complete in Christ.  The first coming of the Lord was accompanied by miracles that helped the people of the time to believe in the messenger of God.

- @Avinash Bitra OFM Cap