3rd Sunday of Advent C. Dec. 15, 2024
Zephaniah 3: 14-18a; Philippians 4:
4-7; Luke 3: 10-18
Theme:
“Rejoice in the Lord always. I shall say it again: rejoice!”
We are in the third week of our Advent
Journey, a time of preparation and repentance for Jesus' “three comings” (at
Christmas, the end of time, and his daily coming into our lives). The liturgy
of the first Sunday, with the candle of hope lit, urged us to always stay awake
in prayer and with hope. On the second Sunday, we lit the candle of peace. The Scripture
readings called us to prepare the Lord's paths. In the spiritual sense, the “Lord’s
paths” are our relationships with God and our brothers and sisters that we need
to repair. Sins damage and transform them into spiritual mountains, hills,
valleys, and crooked roads. Hence, we must repent. The liturgy of this third
Sunday of Advent, Gaudete Sunday (Rejoicing Sunday), with its candle of
joy lit, teaches us that the Advent season is the time we await the coming of
our Lord, not with sadness, anxieties or worries, but with joy and gladness.
Our
Gospel passage is a continuation of last Sunday’s Gospel. It is situated at the
beginning of the section about the preparation for Jesus’ public ministry (3:1
– 4:13). Luke places this big section between the Infancy accounts (2:1-52) and
Jesus’ Ministry in Galilee (4:14 – 9:50).[1]
Luke’s pattern of setting John the Baptist before Jesus has a purpose. He
intends to clarify the relationship between John the Baptist and Jesus because
the evidence in all four Gospels shows that there was tension and
misunderstanding between the followers of John the Baptist and those of Jesus
regarding the divine identity of their masters (John the Baptist and Jesus.)
Luke attempts to bring a solution by emphasizing John’s prophetic role (see vv.
1-6) and humility in his testimony about himself not being a Messiah as the
people thought he was (see vv. 15-16).[2] Our pericope is preceded by the first part of
John the Baptist’s preaching (vv. 1-9), and it is followed by the story of the
baptism of Jesus (vv. 21-22).
This Gospel text is an exhortation. Luke
structures it in the form of questions and answers. The crowds ask questions,
and John the Baptist answers them. The questions and answers move from what the
people are expected to do (vv. 10-14) to the divine identities of John the
Baptist and Jesus (vv. 15-18).
Indeed, this Gospel continues last Sunday’s story in which John the Baptist, a traveling preacher, called them and all of us to radical repentance: “Prepare the way of the Lord. Make straight his paths. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low. The winding roads shall be made straight, the rough ways made smooth, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” (Luke 3: 4-6). That was the assignment of repentance that John the Baptist gave us in last Sunday’s Gospel, and I hope we already did it. If not, we have a few days before Christmas to do it. Then, in today’s passage, Luke tells us that the crowds react to the sermon of John the Baptist and express the desire to repent and be baptized. Note that these crowds do not consist of the Pharisees or high priests because Luke informs us that the Pharisees and high priests rejected the baptism of John the Baptist in Luke 7:30 and 20:5, respectively. So, here in our story, these people are instead the ordinary Jews (see v. 8) and those who are on the fringes of Jewish society, such as the tax collectors and soldiers who accept John the Baptist’s baptism and are ready to repent. You and I are part of these people as we, too, have accepted to repent.
Let us pay attention to the structure of
their question: “What should we do?” When we search for the meaning of life, we
ask this question, too. It is a question about the future. Do we look to the
future? Are we filled with expectations like these people of the Gospel? Do we
believe in the coming of Jesus at Christmas, at the end of time, and in his
daily coming into our lives? If so, then each one of us should also ask the
same question to find out what we should do so that our Lord might come to be
born in our families and hearts this Christmas.
The people in our Gospel story got
different answers. To the crowds, John the Baptist says, “Whoever has two
cloaks should share with the person who has none. And whoever has food should
do likewise.” (V. 11). To the tax collectors, he answers, “Stop collecting more
than what is prescribed.” (V. 13). And to the soldiers, he replies, “Do not
practice extortion, do not falsely accuse anyone, and be satisfied with your
wages.” (V. 14). As we too ask the same question to John the Baptist to know
what we should do, I invite you and myself to do an examination of conscience
and imagine what his answer could be to each of us depending on our jobs,
responsibilities, and ministries (schoolteachers, students, nurses, judges,
parents, children, priests, lay ministers, etc.) We need to take our
preparation for the three comings of Jesus seriously. Through this examination
of conscience, we will know our spiritual mountains, hills, valleys, and
crooked roads that we must fix before Christmas. Remember, we should do this work
of penance with joy as Prophet Zephaniah (first reading) and Saint Paul (second
reading) ask us.
In our first reading, the prophet
Zephaniah invites “daughter Zion” to rejoice. Zion, the holy Temple Mountain in
Jerusalem, stands for the people of Israel, including us today. Instead of
being afraid and anxious about things that sometimes we cannot control, prophet
Zephaniah exhorts us to shout for joy, to sing joyfully, to be glad, and exult
with all our hearts. Why? Because our Lord, whom we are waiting for, will be in
our midst soon at Christmas. He will rejoice over us with gladness, renew us in
his love, and remove disaster from among us, says prophet Zephaniah (3:14-18a).
In our second reading, Saint Paul, too, calls
the Philippian believers and us to rejoice. “Brothers and sisters, Rejoice in
the Lord always. I shall say it again: rejoice!” (Phil 4:4). Saint Paul wrote
this letter when he was imprisoned. At that moment, he did not know if he would
be executed or released. Regardless of the decision about his sentence, he
invites the Philippians and us to have no anxiety at all. Instead, we should
make our requests known to God by prayer and petition. Then, the peace of God
that surpasses all understanding will guard our hearts (see Phil 4:5-7).
Let us pray in this Mass that we might always
rejoice, no matter what we go through. We also ask God's grace to help us know
the sins that we might renounce. Amen.
Rev. Leon Ngandu, SVD
SVD USS Biblical Apostolate Coordinator
[1]
See the outline of the Gospel of Luke suggested by Michael Patella, “Luke” in The
Jerome Biblical Commentary for the Twenty-First Century. Third Fully Revised
Edition, ed. By John J. Collins, Gina Hens-Piazza, Barbara Reid OP, Donald
Senior CP. (Great Britain: T&T Clark Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2022), 1298.
[2]
Michael Patella, “Luke” in The Jerome Biblical Commentary for the
Twenty-First Century. Third Fully Revised Edition, 1308.
No comments:
Post a Comment