Third Sunday Of Advent: John The Baptist

There is a story of a Spiritual Master who went to China. There he gathered a group of disciples to prepare them for enlightenment. When they became enlightened, they stopped attending his lectures!

The moral of the story: It is not credit to a spiritual guide that his disciples sit at his feet forever!

In the Acts of the Apostles it almost always says that followers of Jesus healed by announcement or by a command—

Jesus said: The lame walk. In Acts 3:6, a follower of Jesus says, “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.”

Jesus said, Lepers are cleansed. In Acts 9:6, a follower of Jesus says, “Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you; rise and make your bed!”

Jesus said, The blind see. Acts 9:17 says, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus...has sent me that you may regain your sight.”

Jesus said, The dead are raised. Acts 16:18 says of the spiritually walking dead beguiled by the spirit of this world, “I charge you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.”

In all these cases, they healed not by asking the Lord to heal, but by boldly exercising the authority the Lord has already delegated them. You already have that delegation in you by baptism and confirmation.

As Bishop Barron says, although the ultimate healing is from sin and spiritual death, physical healings in this life are an eschatological anticipation, a hint and foreshadowing of what is coming in God’s time and in God’s way.

2). But, then notice that Jesus added: “Blessed is the one who takes no offense at me.”

Before the Cross of Christ, prophets, even the greatest like John the Baptist, are necessary when wills are weak. When reason is blinded by sin. They discover and uncover the pathology and say “discard it or there will be judgement.”

Then God became Christian.

There is still the Prophetic spirit of the coming judgement from the Lord to all the living and the dead, as our Second Reading says, which is worded: ‘the coming of the Lord is at hand.” However, for St. Paul and St. James and all the Saints of the New Covenant, this is not a cause for fear but rather of a continuing source of the deepest joy in this life.

So much so that today on Gaudete Sunday, St. Paul proclaims his joyful anthem: Rejoice in the Lord always. I shall say it again: rejoice! Your kindness should be known to all. The Lord is near. Philippians 4:4-5

The Good News for us is that even the least saint has the potential to be greater in Christ on this side of the Cross and resurrection than on the front side during the Old Testament era.

3. Lastly, in today’s Gospel, John the Baptist is in King Herod’s prison.

John had a question from prison whether Jesus was the Messiah and John got a clear answer by Jesus in code since Jesus responded with Isaiah 35:5-6, that everybody knew was a description of what the Messiah would do, about the blind seeing and the deaf walking.

But, what about us, if we were John the Baptist’s cellmate? Would our doubts and fears be relieved by God’s Word given to us in the Bible?

In this season of joy, consider that Jesus told St. Faustina:

It is not always within your power to control your feelings. You will recognize that you have love if, after having experienced annoyance and contradiction, you do not lose your peace, but pray for those who have made you suffer and wish them well (Diary, 1628).

Then, as per our First Reading from Isaiah 35:1:

The desert and the parched land will exult; the steppe will rejoice and bloom.

They will bloom with abundant flowers and rejoice with joyful song.

Amen.