Third Sunday of Advent
I did not have Mass last Sunday evening. I decided to take my puppy out for a walk around the Church. It was almost half-way through Mass, and I saw a woman trying walking toward the Church. We have probably seen each other, but this was the first we had met to speak. Thirty seconds into the conversation, she said to me, “Father, I want you to pray for me!” Before I could even ask, she said, “My husband and I are in the midst of a divorce. I have experienced all kinds of abuse – emotional, physical, sexual. And now he trying to alienate our children from me!” She gave me a few more details and I sensed that she could have gone on. But I did not want her to miss Mass even if it was the later bit of it. I encouraged her to go into Church and pray and offered to meet with her if she would reach out.
I could not forget this woman the rest of the evening. She is going through the worst time of her life. She is fearful of losing everything. She could have been anywhere else that evening. But when I met her, she was walking into a Church. In her time of great despair, in her time of hopelessness, she was coming to God. Despair is real. But in times of despair, there is also hope.
Today is Gaudete Sunday, or “Rejoice Sunday!” Today, I want to reflect this Sunday “Hope Sunday.”
Isaiah's Hopeful Vision
When Isaiah proclaimed “Be strong, fear not! Here is your God, he comes with vindication; with divine recompense he comes to save you,” (Is 35:4) the Assyrians had already destroyed the Northern Kingdom and the Babylonians had devastated the Southern Kingdom. The Temple of Jerusalem – the very dwelling place of Yahweh and the symbol of the identity of the Hebrew people – had been desecrated and razed to the ground. The citizens of Jerusalem had been exiled into Babylon. The entire land of the Hebrew people lay ravaged. If there was a time when the people felt totally abandoned by God, this was it. Like many of us at a dark and frightening time of our life, God felt very distant to them.
It was to this hopeless, despairing, and humiliated people Isaiah proclaimed, “Be Strong, Fear Not! Here is your God! He comes to save you!” These words offered a glimmer of hope for the people. Eventually, God worked history in a way that saw the exiled people back in Judah. They not only rebuilt the Temple but rebuilt their lives. Despair ended in hope and joy.
The Christian Story - A Story of Hope
The story of God’s people, just us ours, contains both despair and hope. In reality, the story mirrors life. At some point in our lives, we have all had our hopes dashed. Life comes with its share of awfulness, aches, pain, despair, hopelessness, and finally death. When a cancer overtakes someone we love, when a beloved child is lost, when addiction destroys a family, when financial burdens cripple a home, when depression sets in, when marriages fall apart, we experience utter hopelessness. Besides our personal lives, the wars and violence in Ukraine, in Gaza, in South Sudan, the rape of women, the starvation of children, the killing of the innocent – our world is very broken. These days, I have conversations every day with immigrants who not only have their hopes dashed, but fear of inhumanity and cruelty is making normal life impossible for them. Hopelessness is real.
In the midst of the hopeless that life may present us, the Christian story mirrors Isaiah’s words to the people in exile. It is the story of a God who came in solidarity with the hopeless. The Christmas story is the story of a helpless couple hopelessly searching for a place to give birth. It is the story of the Son of God of a baby born in stable. The Jesus story is the story of a man who only gave hope to the hopeless and yet was brutally murdered on a cross. The same cross became the ultimate symbol of hope.
The Christian story is the story of a God who does not abandon us in our hopeless but enters our lives to give us hope. The child lying in the stable is our God. The man hanging on the cross is our Savior. The Christian story teaches us to never abandon hope.
Hope for the Hopeless
It is the context of Isaiah’s prophecy that I would like to reflect on the gospel reading. When John was arrested, he sent emissaries to Jesus to ask if he indeed was the Messiah. Jesus said to them in reply, "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” (Mt 11:4-5). Jesus’ response revolved around the hope he brought to the hopeless.
I think of the woman walking into the Church in the midst of the despair. That woman is every one of us at one point or another of our lives. That woman teaches us a very important lesson. Our hope lies with the One who made heaven and Earth. Our hope is the One who came to live among us. Our hope is the One who died for us. Our hope is the One who day-after-day, week-after-week comes into our lives in the Eucharist. Our hope is Jesus Christ.
If there is someone in the Church who is in despair, know that God never abandons us. God is forever our hope. I even encourage you, like Jesus, to offer hope to someone even in the midst of your own struggles. Often offering hope to others is one way God bring light into our lives. And if there are people here whose life is going great, there is a greater call to us to be the face of God to those in need.
- Fr. Satish Joseph