Today, we celebrate the
third Sunday of Advent. This Sunday is often
referred to Guadete Sunday, from the Latin word to rejoice. The priest wears a rose
colored vestment today and a rose colored candle is lit on the Advent wreath,
as symbols of the joy and rejoicing we should recognize today as part of our
celebration of the Advent season and of our waiting with expectation for the
birth of our Savior on Christmas, less than two weeks away. It might seem strange to
us to hear a Gospel reading about John the Baptist being imprisoned on this
Sunday dedicated to joy and rejoicing. And then John asks a
question that is completely unexpected, as he sends his disciples to look for
Jesus: “Are you the one who is to come,or should we look for another?” Is this the same John
the Baptist was spoke with such strong, confident words last week, just a few
chapters earlier in Matthew’s Gospel, telling us to repent, for the kingdom of
God is at hand, and foretelling the coming of the Messiah, the one who would
baptize us with fire and the Holy Spirit.
Is John having doubts as
to who Jesus is? Is he caving under the pressures of life in prison? Or is John changing his
preconceived notions of what the Savior would be like and deepening his belief
in Jesus, since he probably expected a strong military leader who would lead
Israel back to greatness. And now as proof that
Jesus has brought a salvation and a redemption that is different than what Ancient Israel expected, Jesus explains that he has not gained
military victories, but rather has healed the poorest in society: the
blind, the lame, and the lepers.
During Advent, we are
called to prepare for and await the coming of Christ into our world with hope
and expectation. We are called to seek
out experiences of repentance, experiences that will mold us and transform us
in our journey of faith. Today, perhaps the
message we receive from John the Baptist is that we need to acknowledge our
vulnerability and to be real as we approach God in the midst of all that is
going on in our lives. So often we do not know
what is going on beneath the surface of someone’s life, do we? We can see someone who is very successful in a
career, who has a supportive and loving family, and who was educated in the
best of schools. Yet, if the person is able to tell you
what is going on in his heart, he might tell you that he is scared and lonely with
the things that are confronting him in life, that he is struggling with an
addiction that he can’t control, that he lacks confidence, self-worth, and
self-esteem.
As a priest, what I try
to do is preach words during my homily that get to the core of what is going on
in your daily lives, to apply God’s Word to the reality of what we are dealing
with on our journey. Last Sunday evening, I
visited the confirmation class and had the opportunity to answer some of the
questions the youth had of me, such as: As a priest, have you ever wished that
you could get married? Has there ever
been anything that has made you doubt God?
What do you like most about being a priest? Those are good questions, and as you can
imagine, some of the honest answers to those questions don’t fit into neat,
tidy little boxes. Sometimes, we struggle
with our doubts. Sometimes, we try
something and we fail. Sometimes, we
feel vulnerable and wounded and out of sorts.
Sometimes we don’t have the answers and don’t even know what questions
to ask. And that’s ok. That is reality. And we are called to bring all of that to God
in the midst of our journey this Advent season.
Our journey through Advent
may be edifying and comforting this year. Or it can be just the opposite - the
reality many of us are facing in our lives may be very harsh and troubling. We may want an easy journey to go down, but our road might be filled with a lot of detours and pot holes
and stops along the way. I mentioned to you last
week traveling by bicycle for 2 years in Winnipeg, Canada, often in the snow
and ice. When I left that
assignment in Canada, I went down to the country of Ecuador in South America, where I served as a missionary in a rain forest jungle for 3 years
– quite the other extreme. I traveled throughout
the jungle mostly in a canoe on my trips to the various villages there where I
did my work. And mind you, these were
not narrow, tranquil rivers, but rather rivers the looked about the width of
rivers like the Mississippi in places. One day, I was offered a ride in a canoe
owned by one of the governmental agencies in town, so I did not have to pay my
passage. We were supposed to leave at
noon, but after many delays, we did not leave until early evening, when the sun
was starting to set, and we had at least a 4 hour journey ahead of us. By the time the sun set,
we traveled through the darkness of the jungle with only a small flashlight on
the canoe lighting up the way. I thought
– this cannot be the safest thing in the world, what we are doing. About halfway through the journey – the
canoe slammed into a large object in the river, and I felt like I was being
tossed around the canoe like a ragdoll.
Through my mind, I heard my voice cry out – Oh no, this is where I am
going to die. However, everything returned to calm, and by
some miracle, the canoe did not overturn.
We had hit a large tree that had fallen into the river. What a frightening experience we had gone through. We did end up making to the village that
night – very late and very shaken up – and very, very thankful for having
arrived safely. Unfortunately, I can
tell you story after story of things that happened to me as a missionary, many
of them quite frightening and dangerous experiences. Many times I knew that I was putting myself
in a dangerous situation, but I had no other choice but to hope for best many
of those times. I knew that being a missionary meant taking a
lot of risks, but I also knew that God was calling me to that life, and that I
would do my best and trust in his will. I recently heard a radio program on National Public Radio that stated that real courage comes out of our vulnerability, not out of our strength, that we can see beauty coming out of the struggles we endure, coming out from underneath the things we didn’t think that we’d recover from. Well, I definitely felt vulnerable as a missionary many times, and I had to walk by faith every step of the way to make it through. As I mentioned, that is what our Advent journey is about in many ways: It is about how we approach God in our vulnerability, in our questions, and in our searching. We can think of the vulnerability in which John the Baptist approached Jesus in our Gospel today. What we do with our doubt and our struggles and our inadequacies is a big part of what Advent is about. Think of the vulnerability you may being experiencing in some aspect of your life right now. Ask yourself how you can use that as a stepping stone in approaching God in your Advent journey and in your preparations for the birth of our Savior into the world.
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