3rd Sunday of Advent, Year A, 2001 Homily

Today is known as Gaudate Sunday, Gaudate is Latin for rejoice. It takes it's name from the opening antiphon: 'Rejoice in the Lord, again I say rejoice, the Lord is near.' Just as we do on Laetare Sunday in Lent we are supposed to wear Rose coloured vestments, although we don’t have any in this parish but we do have a rose coloured candle in the Advent wreath.

The readings express this theme of rejoicing in the immanent coming of the Lord. John's disciples ask Jesus if he is the one who is to come. 'Look around you', they are told. 'The blind see, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the Good News is proclaimed to the poor and happy are those who believe.'

These events really are a cause for rejoicing; the Lord has come and is working miracles among us. Our salvation is at hand.

It is very interesting to speculate just why John sent his disciples to ask Jesus if he was the one who was to come. Scripture scholars over the centuries have wondered why John did this. Either he knew Jesus was the Christ and couldn't understand why his own disciples were still hanging on to him. So he sent them to ask Jesus this question and presumed that once they met Jesus they would see for themselves that he was the Messiah and so become followers of Jesus.

Or, alternatively, that John knew Jesus was the Christ and yet could not reconcile for himself the fact that Jesus did not adopt the same sort of lifestyle that he did. It must have been hard for a man so steeped in the ardours of a penitential life like John the Baptist to find himself proclaiming the coming of a Messiah who went to grand parties with Pharisees and allowed prostitutes to anoint his feet and was found in the company of notorious sinners.

It is interesting for us to speculate on these things. I tend towards the first explanation. I think that John understood that Jesus came to save sinners and therefore was not surprised to hear that he was found in their company. Years of prayer and fasting generally bears fruit in the shape of wisdom and insight. I think it is clear from what we know of John that he certainly possessed these qualities in full measure.

It is common for a prophet to be frustrated by the dullness of his pupils and followers. They are often so attracted by the person that they forget to hear the message.

John had spent a lifetime waiting for the Messiah, he knew in his soul that he was to come. He must have yearned for the moment he would meet him, and then one ordinary day Jesus comes through the crowds and asks for Baptism. John recognises him immediately and is thunderstruck: 'It is I who need Baptism from you.' Jesus turns the tables on him, just like he turns the tables on so many others. 'No, we must do what is fitting.'

We only realise with hindsight how fitting it was, that Jesus himself was Baptised. He entered into our lives so fully and shows us so clearly the way to go. We must be Baptised as he was Baptised, we must undergo a Passion just as he underwent a Passion, and we will rise to new life, the new life he won for us.

For now we wait. The Apostle James in today's reading tells us to wait: 'Wait patiently, brothers, for the Lord's coming.'

We praise God on this Gaudate Sunday. We thank him for all he has done for us. We rejoice that through the coming of his Son Jesus we have been saved. We do what we can to imitate his life, to follow his Gospel of love. We join together at least weekly to celebrate the Eucharist, sharing the bread that is his body and the wine that is his blood. We take seriously his plea to the Father: 'May they be one, Father, even as you and I are one.'

We do all these things, yet mostly we wait. We wait for one of two things: his glorious coming at the end of time, or the moment of our own death when we know we will meet him face to face. The balance of probability is that it will be the second of these two events that will come first, although we really don't know. But this waiting is not easy, it is not something we are particularly good at. We often get distracted and go our own way, we pursue self interest and forget that there will be a day of reckoning.

We often become afraid, especially when through illness or accident we are confronted with the reality and feel that death could be immanent. We know that it is the moment we have been waiting for, we know that it will be the most important encounter of our lives. It is the encounter we have been longing for, and we know deep in our hearts that as we break through that barrier it will be a moment of inexpressible joy.

In the locker room of a sports club a group of men were having a great chat about things, generally sorting the world out. One man said: 'I have had it proved to me again and again that we are all basically selfish. As long as we look after number one everybody else can go to hell.'

One of his companions contradicted him and told him of the following events. Each day he took a long walk and at a certain point on the journey he called in at a newsagents to buy the evening paper. One day when he went in to get his paper the shopkeeper was standing at the window with tears in his eyes. Our friend asked him what was wrong and he pointed to an empty park bench across the street next to a bus stop. 'You see that bench, every day at about this time an old woman would be sitting there knitting for an hour or so. Once I asked her what she was doing. She said that her son had joined the navy five years ago and was in a base at the other end of the country. He hadn't written to her in all that time but she know that he had a girl friend and a young baby and that the reason he hadn't written she was sure was because he was too ashamed to say that he couldn't afford the fare. But one day when they had saved enough they would come and get off the bus just here. In the meantime she said that it helped her to come here each day and wait for them and pray for them and knit clothes for the baby.'

The shop keeper took a deep breath and then said, 'You know, I looked out there a little while ago and a bus stopped and they got off the bus. And when she laid eyes on her little granddaughter for the first time, it was the nearest thing to pure joy I have ever seen. I will never forget that look for as long as I live.' There were tears in his eyes.

The next day our friend went back to the shop for his paper as usual, but he had had time to think about what the shopkeeper said the day before. He went in and looked the shopkeeper in the eye and said: 'You sent that young couple the fare, didn't you?' 'Yes,' he said, 'I did, and I'll never forget that look of joy as long as I live.'

There was dead silence in the locker room. No one wanted to be the first to speak.