Gaudete! Rejoice!

3rd Sunday of Advent, based upon readings: Isaiah 35.1-10; James 5.7-10; Matthew 11.2-11

Gaudete, gaudete Christos est natus

Ex Maria virginae, gaudete.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Christ is born of the Virgin Mary: rejoice!

I won’t attempt the rest of the Latin but it translates as:

The time of grace has come, This that we have desired;

Verses of joy, Let us devoutly return.

God has become man, Nature marvelling;

The world has been renewed, By the reigning Christ.

The closed gate of Ezekiel is passed through;

Whence the light is born, Salvation is found.

Therefore let our gathering, ow sing in brightness

Let it give praise to the Lord: Greeting to our King.

Today is Gaudete Sunday, the day we light a rose candle and not a more sombre purple one. It’s a counterpart to Laetare Sunday in Lent which you might have heard called Refreshment Sunday, or maybe more commonly Mothering Sunday. The Latin names come form the entrances which would have been sung on those Sundays at the start of the roman catholic mass. 

In Lent it’s a day where the fasting is relaxed, the same is true in Advent, and I guess would have made a lot more sense in to our forebears who would have celebrated a 40 day Advent, beginning after St Martin’s day on the 11th November. Our Orthodox siblings still observe this tradition, with Advent being marked from the 15th November. 

And I’m a big fan of a 40 day Advent, I think the 3 and a bit to 4 weeks that has become our tradition just isn’t enough to get your teeth into. And of course our Advent looks very different to how it would have been when these traditions first evolved. 

40 days to prepare our hearts and minds, 40 days of penitence and prayer. In the deep depths of winter. Cold, dark and austere. There really would have been a need for Gaudete; for the reminder of hope and promise of light and salvation, so close now, as we draw towards Christmas Day.

Our readings this morning are centred around this hope. When I first started to do work with the hospital chaplaincy, I was told the most important books of the bible when it comes to caring for people are Matthew and James, and we have both of those this morning, I’m always excited when that happens. Let’s start with the gospel; John the Baptist is locked in prison and after hearing reports of what Jesus has been up to, he asks the question I’m sure we must all ask when we experience difficulties in our lives, or see the suffering of others: “Are you the one who is to come”. 

Jesus is there, John has met and baptised him, been witness to the Spirit descending and the divine voice "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased". Jesus’ reply has echoes of Isaiah as he tells John: the things that were promised would reflect the coming of God’s kingdom are happening. 

 

Jesus gives hope to John’s disciples, telling them that even though no one greater than John has ever existed, in God’s kingdom everyone will be even greater. 

In the reading from James, the community are being advised to be patient, and are told what good waiting looks like; they’re reminded that waiting is not time wasted. When we’re waiting for Christmas or Easter we almost double down on our efforts, any extra focus we have on God through these seasons isn’t to merely pass the time, it’s to work on ourselves and our relationship with God. 

It’s the kind of waiting that helps us to look both inwards at the inner work we need to do but also outwards, to see how the changes in ourselves effect the way we see and interact with the world, hopefully leading to positive changes which benefit every part of our lives and help shape the communities we’re part of. This is the patient waiting James encourages, one which deepens our faith.

Finally, as the ultimate promise of hope, we have the Isaiah reading; a promise of what the kingdom of God on earth will look like. There’s that very jarring line “your God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution” which frankly sounds terrifying, but then it’s followed by “he will come to save you” and we hear that divine retribution is so far beyond our human understanding; When God’s kingdom comes, the whole of creation will be healed and made holy. 

Our Advent is generally not as austere and penitential as in the past, there may not be the same need for Gaudete Sunday as a pause from Advent, but as we look around us there is still, I believe, a need to have days dedicated to joy and hope, and to remind us that just as God came to earth, God’s kingdom will come and heal all things, but also to remind us of the joy we have in waiting for that, because our job is to reflect the spirit and hope of the kingdom here and now. 

It's worth pointing out that the Isaiah reading is completely out of place with everything around it in the book of the prophet. The chapters either side are doom laden, filled with despair and devastation. The world is in a difficult place right now, and you or people you love may be suffering as a result; the cost of living is so high, there’s a war in a country not too far away and not too different from our own, and far right ideology is rising, you may feel there’s more hate than hope evident. It’s easy to get stuck in a loop of despair…but our work, as we patiently long for better days, is to stick out, like the Isaiah passage, to be the hope, healing and holiness rising above the despair.

Leonard Zander Vee writes:

Sometimes, like John, we wonder if the crucified Jesus is the one.

We thought maybe he’d make our lives easy, but he calls us to live more deeply.

We thought he’d erase our suffering, but we discovered him next to us in our pain.

We thought he’d put us on top, but he tells us to identify with those on the bottom.

We thought he’d make us strong, but he calls us to learn strength through our weakness.

We thought he’d destroy our enemies, but he asks us to love them.

We thought he’d make us leaders, but he invites us to be servants

Our God turns everything on its head, inverting all we think we know as humankind. What other narratives are there where God has been born defenceless, as one of God’s own people? Stories of god’s and divine beings are usually about strength and power, not weakness and vulnerability. But we believe in a God whose idea of vengeance is to heal all things and take away our pain.

The translation of the Gaudete I read earlier was from the popular song often sung in Advent or at Christmas. The entrance to the Latin mass would be more accurately be:

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice. Let your forbearance be known to all, for the Lord is near at hand; have no anxiety about anything, but in all things, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be known to God. 

If we believe in God, and in the Christ who came amongst us, and in the Spirit who resides within us there is always a spark of joy and hope to be found somewhere. So as we focus on that spark of hope, the flickering of our rose candle, Gaudete! Rejoice! Amen!