The world is afraid. The “wars and rumors of war” have moved from far lands to the late-night terrors of our imaginations. Men and women of Good Will despair that the enemies of God are winning, ashamed of our insignificance and frustrated by our limited energy. Yet this is not only a condition of Our Times; Rudyard Kipling wrote a century and more ago, “If you can keep your head while all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you…” Readings for the Third Sunday in Advent, Gaudete Sunday, help us to keep our heads as we expect Divine Intervention.
Zephaniah begins his oracle by calling out Jerusalem and environs for their hardness of heart and lack of faith during crisis. Then comes a dramatic & audacious switch (3:14-20): “The Lord has taken away the judgments against you, he has turned away your enemies. The king of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst…”(v.15b) Can there be light at the end of the tunnel? Is there a rose asleep under the snows of winter? Dare I see God where nobody else would guess that God is present? (Deborah A. Block, in FEASTING on the WORD, C 1:54)
Paul brings the Advent of Christ to the Philippians rather simply, for him: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. THE LORD IS NEAR!” (4:4-7, emphasis mine) Most agree that Paul was looking for an immediate Second Coming–is Jesus making the scene disguised as a hungry man at Shepherds’ Supper…or the mother of three kids at the Clothing Center…or the faithful saint now crippled and short of breath, a shut-in waiting to Go Home?
Luke’s Gospel introduces John the Baptizer, who prophet-like begins his message with a tirade: “You brood of vipers!” (3:7ff) The One Who Is To Come isn’t coming to trim the hedge, but is even now bringing an axe to get to the root of the barren culture! And “the people were filled with expectation” (v.15) Why did they go out where the wild things are, leaving their safe comfort? What drew them to expect Something More? What restless spirit is within humans that occasionally drives us to test the borders of our comfort zones?
A prayer by Donna Schaper reads in part, “O God, we know that salvation is at hand, and yet we walk as a people in danger, a people unconvinced that your time is nearly here, that it has in some ways already arrived….Help us understand what it is that we worry about, and then place us back on your path. Send us straight to Bethlehem: through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
God Bless Us, Every One Horace Brown King
My blog presenting scriptural thoughts for the upcoming weekend can be found every Tuesday at this space.
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