Third Sunday of Advent, cycle B
John 1:6-8, 19-28
When I was growing up back in the age of the dinosaurs this was one of the two Sundays in which the vestments were pink, or maybe rose would be a better term. When I was ordained, I received a deacon’s stole as a gift; one side is pink and the other purple. Double purpose. Many years ago, I had the opportunity to put on my pink stole for the first time, and the priest told me to change into purple, because he himself would not be caught dead wearing a pink vestment. Anyway, this third Sunday of advent is called “Gaudete” Sunday in Latin. It means Sunday to rejoice.
In the olden days Advent was like a mini-Lent. It was a time of fasting and doing penance as we prepared for the coming of Christmas. Yes, we gave up candy. In our grade school one of the teachers, Sister Suzanne, asked us to tell what we gave up for lent. Candy was very prominent. One of my classmates said she was giving up candy because her dentist had told her to do that, and we were treated to an impromptu lecture on sacrifice by our teacher. During lent, the period in which you could break out the candy began at noon on Holy Saturday. I’m not sure we ever figured out when Advent ended.
We don’t spend much time thinking about Advent as a penitential season, so it seems to make even less sense to have a day of rejoicing. With Christmas decorations everywhere, we are already in a holiday mood. But for the moment, why should we rejoice?
Saint John Chrysostom had some thoughts on this. He was one of the fathers of the Church, and lived in the late 300’s. We still have a lot of his writings. In a homily he gave about advent, he said that advent is a time when we look to the coming of Jesus Christ. The first coming has already occurred. It was that moment two thousand years ago when Jesus was born, which we will celebrate on Christmas day. It was a moment that changed the universe. Because up until that moment we human beings really had no hope. It was reflected in the belief in many parts of the world that life after death would be a pale imitation of life on the earth. Think about that. It would almost be better to have no life after death than an eternity in which nothing much happened, you just hung around underground somewhere. Some of the writers of the bible seemed to believe that. Saul summoned the ghost of the prophet Samuel who was upset because he was awakened from his sleep. The writer of the Psalms talks about going down into the netherworld after death. Jesus in his first advent changed all that, made it possible for us to share God’s life.
The second coming of Christ is when we ourselves will die. Paul tells us that we will be judged. It’s hard to imagine this, of course, but it is a doctrine of our religion, we call it the particular judgment. At that moment Jesus judges our lives. Now you and I have consciences. We know when we are doing right and when we are doing wrong. In the particular judgment, we will see our whole lives and Jesus’ judgment will not be a surprise to us. We will get what we deserve.
The third coming of Christ is what the church refers to as the general judgment. It’s a moment when all our sins, even the most shameful, are revealed to the entire world. It’s part of God’s justice, because we human beings like to compare ourselves to each other. This will be a moment when we recognize real saints and sinners, and for many of us, it will probably be a moment when we will feel regret that we did not make better use of our time on earth. This is the moment when Jesus will separate the sheep from the goats.
In the Book of Revelation we learn about the fourth coming of Christ. That’s the end of time when Jesus returns to rule whatever has become of the world by then. It’s the dawning of the metaphorical thousand years of his rule, with Satan no longer in the picture. It’s the transformation of our world into the kingdom of Heaven. And some of us will be there. Hopefully all of us. It’s the time when as we proclaim at Mass, Christ will come again.
Saint John Chrysostom knows that thinking about these ultimate matters is frightening and can keep us from sleeping well. But there is a remedy, and that is the sacrament of reconciliation. If we want Jesus to forget about our sins, he told his disciples that they had the power to forgive sins, and for Jesus, forgiving is forgetting. If you haven’t been to confession for a while, this is a good time to make sure that the three Advents that you still must go through will be joyful times.
