Third Sunday of Advent

Scripture Readings

There is an irony we have to contend with. Almost always, the most important things are the least reflect upon. Hope, for example; it is not every day that we reflect upon hope. Yet, think about it! Hope is to every human person what breath is to life. These days when I visit my parents in India, returning back to ministry in Dayton is a gut-wrenching experience. I am not sure how I actually walk out of my home leaving my aging parents behind. But I do so in the HOPE that I will see my parents again. In fact, HOPE is the ONLY reason I am able to leave. This week the world buried Nelson Mandela. He spent twenty-five years in prison for standing up for equality. How does a person not lose his or her mind after being confined in a cell for twenty-five years? This week was the first anniversary of the children killed by the gunman in Newtown. How can these people move on? I think the answer is HOPE. For that matter, if you have ever been in a crisis – cancer, tumors, surgeries, accidents, divorce, and death – what is the only thing that sustains you? The HOPE that tomorrow will be better than today! Hope… Hope is to us what breath is to life. A pregnant mother hopes that the baby inside her is well; a young man or woman hopes that someday he or she will be married; a student hopes that he or she will pass the exam; a poor person hopes that tomorrow he or she will be a little less poor; even a dying person hopes that the other side is better. Hope… without hope there is no reason to go on.

As is customary for us Catholics, every third Sunday is Gaudete Sunday or Rejoice Sunday. The scripture readings focus on joy. But, what is the reason for that joy? The answer again is HOPE! The people to whom Isaiah proclaimed today’s first reading, were in exile in Babylon for fourty years.  The three institutions that governed their entire life – temple, priests, and worship – was completely destroyed. All these years they experienced the intense distress that God had forgotten them. They clung to the only hope they had that, one day God will once more be in their midst. Finally, after fourty years, they hear the words that they hoped to hear: 

“Strengthen the hands that are feeble,
make firm the knees that are weak,
say to those whose hearts are frightened:
Be strong, fear not!
Here is your God,
he comes with vindication;
with divine recompense
he comes to save you.”

The people were so thrilled to hear this message that their joy knew no bounds. They broke out into song, they wrote poems about their hope and they found that even nature was celebrating with them. That is why today’s first reading begins with the words: 

“The desert and the parched land will exult;

the steppe will rejoice and bloom.

They will bloom with abundant flowers,

and rejoice with joyful song.”

About five-hundred years later the people of Israel were waiting in hope yet again. Heavily burdened under the Roman Empire, the people longed for liberation. We can hear that eager and hope-filled expectation as John the Baptist sent his disciples to Jesus to ask the question, ““Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?” And I hope you hear poetry, song, joy and hope in Jesus response as he says,  

“Go and tell John what you hear and see:
the blind regain their sight,

the lame walk,
lepers are cleansed,
the deaf hear,
the dead are raised,
and the poor have the good news proclaimed to them.
And blessed is the one who takes no offense at me.”

So what practical implications can we draw from these readings:

1. Jesus teaches us HOPE. One of our common experiences is how our hopes get dashed. Hopelessness is also a reality. When a cancer overtakes someone we love, when a beloved child is lost, when addiction consumes someone you deeply love, when you simply see no respite from financial burdens, when depression or debilitating illness sets in – we experience utter hopelessness. Right now in Syria, in Palestine, in parts of Africa where there is ethnic conflict of innocent children die of starvation, hopelessness real. Folks, the reason why the Christian story makes sense to me is it is the story of a God who teaches me never to abandon hope. It is the story of a helpless couple, a baby born in stable, and the story of a man who only gave hope to the weak and sinful and yet who brutally murdered upon a shameful cross. The cross in the culmination of human hopelessness But the Christian story tells me that even in the darkest hour, there is hope. The baby in the stable and my Savior on the cross teach me never to abandon hope.  

2. God is the culmination of all our hopes. We are entering the third week of Advent. And look around you… there are lights, there are decorations, there is beauty, there is life. It is not that hopelessness is not real, but every light, every tinsel, every glitter is a sign of that people have not abandoned hope. These lights and decorations stand for little hopes, medium hopes and huge hopes. However, all these hopes would one day cease but for the HOPE of all hopes - JESUS. Jesus is the culmination of all human hopes. As Jesus says in the reply he sent to John the Baptist in today’s gospel, the blind, the lame, the deaf, the poor, the afflicted, the lost and the dying, they all see in Jesus the hope of all hopes. It is He who leads us from death to life, from despair to hope, from darkness to light, from sin to freedom, from mortality to immortality, from damnation to salvation.  

3. Let us give hope! For a moment, look at these gifts around the altar. These gifts are small hope-filled gestures. But then, also look around you. Each person sitting in here is a bundle of hope.  because Jesus is HOPE and HOPE is Jesus. 

   - Fr. Satish Joseph