In Advent, we have a month before Christmas to explore three sets of fours. They are:
* Hope, Love, Joy, Peace (symbols of our four Advent candles, with the candle representing Jesus in the centre)
* Death, Judgement, Heaven and Hell (the Four Last Things, to be meditated upon in prayer in our Christian tradition as journeys of the soul into the afterlife)
* And: Patriarchs, Prophets, John the Baptist, Virgin Mary (which are also symbolism of the four Advent candles)
Today, the Third Sunday of Advent focuses on John the Baptist, and is also known as Gaudete Sunday, because of our reading from St Paul’s letter to the Philippians: ‘Rejoice in the Lord, always!’ – Gaudete means ‘Joy’ in Latin. In some churches today they will be lighting a pink candle on the Advent wreath and will be wearing rose-coloured vestments, to mark out this joyful Sunday as unique. We do red candles and purple vestments in Advent here, but that ‘Gaudete’ – rejoice! – is the same among all these churches today.
Joy is not the same as happiness. The word ‘rejoice’ appears 74 times in the New Testament. The joy God brings through the Incarnation and the Holy Spirit is a foundational aspect of what it is to be Christian. That is not at all to say that we should or even can be happy all the time. When someone is forcing a sense of happiness, you can tell. Our full range of emotions are gifts from God, who through Jesus has felt everything we feel, keenly and authentically. Joy is unique, and a profound part of being human.
‘Rejoice and exult with all your heart!’ The prophet Zephaniah promises that all will be renewed and restored in God’s love, and that salvation will come through a union of rejoicing between God’s joy and the joy of the people. God says he will overturn his people’s oppressors. God promises that he will bring his people home and love them as children. God and the people rush to embrace one another in a love so strong that even death is nothing against it.
Joy is not a fleeting thing, but something that wells up in us from the depths of who we are, as a light that abides in God and likewise abides in us. At Pentecost, the book of Acts tells us that when the Holy Spirit’s wind and fire gave new life to the disciples ‘they were continually filled with joy’. In Matthew 2:10 the wise men, our traditional Three Kings, see the star, and ‘they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy’. Rejoicing with joy, a double joy, even as their route is uncertain, their journey long, their path through dangerous terrain. We too see the star. We can, even in the darkest of places, be strengthened by its promise and moved in the essence of our being by its inextinguishable light. Joy does not deny the reality of darkness. It meets us in it. It is the light of Christ, that flaring truth of God’s love for us in the incarnation, that brings genuine hope to everyone longing for illumination.
The flaring anger of John the Baptist, when he turns to the crowd surrounding him in this morning’s Gospel, calls them ‘a brood of vipers’, the children of poisonous snakes, lays an axe at the root of our complacencies, our easy choices, and the outcomes of dark, dangerous tendency human beings have towards being with the right people, rather than doing the right thing.
Though it may not sound it, this frustration from John is all about joy. John knows the truth about joy, knows it’s accessible to every person, knows that Jesus embodies that joy and offers it. Do you not realise, John implores, that the way you live is suppressing the joy that is already within you? Grasp this, if you wish, and God’s tender embrace will hold you eternally.
John the Baptist is the last prophet in an Old Testament lineage that stretches back into the pages of our bibles to Zephaniah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Isaiah. Salvation is coming, he says. At this point in Luke’s Gospel, as John strides out of the wilderness, meets crowds with his claims and his offer of baptism, his words and actions foreshadow the arrival not of Jesus the baby, but Jesus the man, Jesus the nobody, the carpenter from Nazareth with an illegitimate and strange family.
This is the man John claims is so powerful and so significant, that John, in all his influence and fame, isn’t worthy even to touch his shoes? And it’s understandable that the crowds hungry for spiritual nourishment, trapped in their poverty, suffering under political occupation, would be not only confused but possibly heartbroken or angry at John’s suggestion that Jesus, this truly unremarkable man surrounded by woodshavings, who was born in the dirt, could save anyone from anything.
Christ will come in judgement (we know this by faith); it is a judgement framed by the innocent love and mercy of his coming as a divine baby, far from home, in the dirt of a shelter made not for humans but for animals. That’s where our God’s human story takes us.
And in Luke’s Gospel, John the Baptist prepares the way for Jesus by hinting at the Messiah’s revolutionary expectations. All this ‘brood of vipers’ bravado may sound harsh, but it’s nothing compared to what Jesus desires. John says: if you have two coats, give one away; if you are a soldier, accept your wages and don’t exploit anyone. Jesus says to the rich young man: give away all your possessions; to his fishermen disciples: their fishing boats and nets are irrelevant and their new life is to walk with him wherever he goes, even to suffering and the crucifixion.
St Augustine speaks about John the Baptist’s Advent message this way: ‘The voice of one crying in the wilderness is the voice of one breaking the silence. [It is as though he says:] I speak out in order to lead him into your hearts, but he does not choose to come where I lead him unless you prepare the way for him.’
John’s message is not mere conceptual spiritual argument. It’s a pragmatic call to social justice. Are you rich? Share your wealth. Are you powerful? Humble yourself. This week Rowan Williams strongly criticised Britain’s role in the war in Yemen. Millions face slaughter or starvation. The UK sells weapons to Saudi Arabia, which fuel this brutal conflict. Rowan Williams’ desire for justice – our own desire for justice – has much in common with John the Baptist’s words for us this morning. Search your conscience, John says, and dare to change.
What, then, does our worship really mean? What is the purpose of our Eucharist, the bread and the wine consecrated as Christ’s Body and Blood, the readings of hope, and joy, and John the Baptist’s holy message? The theologian Dennis Smolarski offers an insight: ‘Worshipping God is more than correct actions and an avalanche of words. It is an affair of the heart, a combined effort [of us all], each leading the others to a deeper love of God the Divine Lover, and to a deeper commitment toward one another, as [we] share the Bread of Life and the Cup of Eternal Salvation.’
What we do with our voices, our hands, our minds, our hearts, matters here and now, because we matter so much to God. And God is coming. Joy is coming. Hope is coming. Peace is coming. Love is coming. John the Baptist’s fierce words ask us to be open to receive Jesus, the saviour who lived, died, and lived again. Seek justice. Seek mercy. Support the poor. Recognise that you and I are in need of healing and forgiveness. Free your mind; free your heart. O most holy Jesus, source of truth, source of wisdom, come quickly, and show us what love really means. Amen.