Third Sunday in Advent 2020
“Proclaim liberty to the captives.” Those words from Isaiah have never had such meaning for the prisoners of the world. Haven’t we all felt a lot like prisoners for at least part of this plague year 2020? Our governors, for the most part, have often acted like prison wardens, telling us to stay on lock-down in our homes, to wear masks that make us look like criminals, putting many of us out of work and relying on the government to delay our rents and give us food. I can really better empathize with those who are detained in jails and prisons much better today.
So if we could all get the magic vaccine that not only keeps the vaccinated from contracting this Chinese-sourced disease, but also prevents its transmission, we would feel like freed captives, would we not? That’s what the sacred writings are helping us today to feel, to add to our personal deposit of faith. In so doing, we will get better in touch with St. John the Baptist, the precursor of Our Lord Jesus.
We begin with Isaiah chapter 61, written in Babylonian exile. You’ll immediately hear a discontinuity when you experience this at Sunday Mass. The lectionary has removed the middle part of the reading, but it adds so much to what God is revealing so we will put the excised portion back in place.
Prophets were anointed by the Spirit of God to bring His word to people who needed to hear it. Here God is comforting the Jews who have been afflicted by exile. He promises a garland of victory, not the ashes of the burned Jerusalem, and He promises a rebuilding of the city and a temple that had been ruined by worship of false gods even before being burned down by Nebuchadnezzar.
In last week’s reading from chapter 40 of Isaiah, God gave double retribution for the sins of His people, Israel. This week He promises a double portion of rewards, including servants to guard abundant sheep and goats and to plow their fields and dress their grapevines. Moreover, other nations will bring tribute, as they had done centuries before to Kings David and Solomon. And the joy promised, please note, will never end. Everlasting happiness.
Before their apostasy, the Israelites had been set up as a people of right worship, serving the one true God in the Jerusalem temple. And there was in the temple a Court of the Gentiles, because the whole purpose of Israel was to attract all the nations to right worship, but they let down their God by worshiping idols and committing all kinds of injustice against the poor, the widows and orphans and foreigners. But the restored people would make all that right, as Isaiah saw it. All nations would give Him right worship, and live justly.
The psalm is taken from St. Luke’s Gospel, where Mary, carrying the tiny baby Jesus in her womb, visits Elizabeth. This is her song, and she sings it because she said “yes” to God’s call that she become mother of the Messiah. In her the promise of Isaiah would grow and from her would come to birth.
In today’s epistle, probably the earliest of St. Paul’s letters, we hear his guidance of a young Christian community in the north of Greece. The spiritual gifts, especially prophecy, were strong there, but Paul cautions them to “test everything,” that is to gauge any prophetic utterance against what they have already been taught about Jesus and the Church. Thus they would be ready when Jesus returns.
Finally we hear the inspiring words from the first chapter of John’s Gospel, the testimony of John the Baptist. The most important question anyone can answer from seekers is “who are you?” John tells the priests and Levites, the temple leaders, a strange answer. Others had started rumors that John was the Messiah. He starkly declares, “I am not the Messiah.”
And, no, he’s not Elijah or the fabled prophet preceding the Messiah. Actually, Jesus later said that John was too humble here. John says he’s helping the people to repent and get straight so that the path would be clear for the ministry of the Messiah.
Doing that requires a call to repentance, and that is John’s ministry. You can still visit the place in the nation of Jordan where John was baptizing as a call to repentance. So answer the question today John answered: who are you, really? The right answer is you are a disciple of Jesus, conscious of your own sin, hungry for forgiveness and the presence of Jesus in your life, and eager to live your life so you may attract others to Christ and His Church. Come, Lord Jesus.
