Zep 3:14–18
Phil 4:4–7
Lk 3:10–18

by Desmond Knowles

There is no mistaking the theme which rings out loud and clear in today’s liturgy – it’s a message of hope and rejoicing. The dawn is beginning to break and the Lord is very near, closer to us than we realize. Christ’s nearness is the strength which touches all our lives for he is now working with us and in us. This call to rejoice, lift up our hearts and be happy, presents us with a challenge and requires some soul-searching in the face of the problems confronting us at any given moment. Sadness is so much part of the fabric of our lives that we are inclined to ask – what have I got to rejoice about, with an alcoholic husband, with a wife who has cancer, with a severely handicapped child or a with a bereavement in the family? If times were better it might be easier to feel joyful.

The dreadful happenings of the world around us give little cause for rejoicing. While we continue this earthly journey we experience a bitter sweet mixture of joy and sorrow. Christian joy does not come from the absence of sorrow, pain or trouble but from an awareness of the presence of Christ within our souls. Paul was in prison when he made his call to the Philippians to be happy and rejoice in the Lord; Zephaniah was rejoicing at the height of the Jewish exile when things could not have been worse politically and the nation was at a moral low point. Both their plights were more disastrous than ours yet they did not allow personal circumstances to rob them of this joy. They had it because they were grounded in the peace of God.

How are we to attain this spiritual joy which should be rightfully ours? We ask the same question as John was asked by the people. He replies in uncompromising language that the secret is to commit ourselves to God’s way and in so doing find our peace. Happiness comes from doing good, being honorable and showing concern for those in need. Experience shows that the giving of what we have will certainly make demands on us. Sharing made demands on Christ who came into our world and pilgrimaged with us from the cradle to the grave. The joy which stems from our faith means that whether playing or praying, laughing or weeping, walking or dancing, Christ shines forth from us. No one who has ever experienced this joy would exchange it for all the pleasures and comforts of this world.

If the gospel is Good News, could this conclusion be reached from the expression on our faces? We should be a joyful people constantly experiencing an abiding feeling of happiness because things of great value have been promised to us. The test of Christianity in troubled waters is not to be over-alarmed at what is happening but to face the world with hope and confidence. The purpose of our whole being is happiness.

First Reflection

Advent is the story of the God who comes. God is love...and love cannot stop reaching out to us. God is life… and his creative power keeps sustaining us. God is light… and light must shine. Who can stop God from coming? It is the mystery of our freedom that we can.

One classical mistake is the conviction that we must first prove worthy of God by the perfection of our efforts.

I wrongly imagine that some day I will have advanced from the tatty agitations and carping comments of everyday life … and then, into that pure, anesthetized air of perfection, I will be able to invite God. I will then have a home worthy of him! But that is like the little boy who was afraid to go to school because he did not know how to write his name. It is easy to forget that when God came in Jesus he was content with a cave as maternity unit and an animals’ feeding trough for a cradle. Mary knew that all she had to offer was the virginal womb of her nothingness.

If we had the planning of Christmas would we have arranged things along God’s lines?

The later gospel story would show Jesus invited to many unlikely tables, and now already there were many unlikely faces turning towards John. They were excited by the glimpse of a God who would relate to us in our sinfulness. One didn’t have to be already perfect to come to him. And so they came willingly, tax collectors and soldiers, hardly foremost in the ranks of piety at that time. But those who congratulated themselves on their religious observance were not ready to hear.

They did not know their need of a Savior. They had no need of Advent…a God coming to save, to salve the wounded.

Our classical mistake makes us imagine that our meeting with God will take place in the Great-out-there, the land of perfection. Some day I will be ready, God, to meet you. The way of incarnation is God telling us that he wants to meet us in the Little-in-here… in our droughty caves and smelly feeding troughs… in our fears of future and wounds of past … in our sins and failures, our frustrations and regrets. God is not waiting on the richness of our perfection. Who do we think we are that we could ever be worthy of him?

All God wants of you in Advent is that you would let him be the God who comes…the God of love, the God of life, the God of light. What God wants is that we would open up the poverty and neediness of our lives…our cave and feeding trough.

O God of love…desiring to reach into our hearts…come to the unredeemed area where we block your love…where we know jealousy, impatience, hurtfulness and anger. We are poor and we need a Savior. Come, Lord Jesus, come.

O God of life, come to the wintery branches where our lives bear no fruit, where our efforts have failed, where our courage has faltered, where the sap of energy has died. We are poor and we need a Saviour. Come, Lord Jesus, come.

O God of light, come to the dark depths where we live with obscure fears and untamed forces. We are poor and we need a Savior. Come, Lord Jesus, come.

Second Reflection

‘What must we do?’ The sinners who came to John discovered a new energy in their lives and a willingness to do something about improving. His message touched the winter of their lives with a glimpse of spring…‘Someone is coming’ And the sap of energy began to race through their veins.

The celebration of Advent-Christmas is intimately related to the return of the sun after the winter solstice. From my desk I look through the window over our precious vegetable garden, now in the sleep of mid-winter. The hard grip of frost is breaking down the upturned sods into a fine tilth. The scattered compost, in losing its former composition, is returning a rich, tacky substance to the earth. Spring sowing will be in more fertile soil, thanks to winter. I have learned to love the contribution of winter’s night-sleep to spring’s morning-energy. The thought of the first crocus peeping through the grass, like the flickering of the eyelids of mother earth makes the sleep of winter loveable. That’s the glimpse of future that we call hope. Someone is coming… Someone more powerful. As fire is a more powerful element of change than the water in which John stood. Fire to warm the bones, to light the night, to melt and purify and change things. Fire to boil and bake and cook. Fire to draw people together and flames to tickle the imagination. Or fire to threaten destruction, to consume the rubbish and empty chaff of life. John’s message of life was a mixture of fear and hope. Fear that a dire sentence would fall unless people amended their ways. And hope that something could be done about conversion. Fear on its own would have paralyzed initiative.

It was the glimpse of future which generated the energy to ask, ‘What must we do?’

O God, may I always know you as Someone-is-Coming. May I experience my loneliness as a space for your company, my darkness as the stretching of my sight to your vastness, my coldness as the need for your warmth, my inertia as the sleep which restores energy, my winter as an enriching season before spring’s excitement.

Take me and use me, Lord, to be someone-coming for others. Make me caring towards those who are neglected, sensitive towards all who are hurt. Use me as good news for those who only know the sadness of sin, as the spark of joy for those who are down and depressed.

How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of one who brings good news. Grant me beautiful feet, Lord.

After the northern kingdom fell to Assyria (721 b.c.e; see 2 Kings 17:13–23), the southern kingdom of Judah cozied up to the conqueror for survival. Conventional wisdom dictated that a small, well-located kingdom should appease its powerful and aggressive neighbor. But the prophets carry several consistent themes, among them an insistence that the chosen people must act according to a wisdom that is deeper and better than the conventional. The people would ignore this deeper wisdom only at great risk.

History tells a sad tale. The kings and the people of Judah too often ignored their chosenness and imitated the occupying nation, one of the cruelest and most corrupt empires in history. Too easily the people forgot their God, the God of creation and history, the God of freedom and justice and compassion.

Like other prophets, Zephaniah found this situation intolerable. His book contains fiery speeches condemning the wicked, especially those children of Israel who ought to have known better. Jerusalem will be destroyed, he warned, and a smaller, more worthy nation shall take the place of the favored people who have ignored their God.

The book ends on a much more hopeful, if ironic, note. It describes what will happen after Jerusalem has been brought low. Today’s verses reflect this conclusion: “Shout for joy, Jerusalem! The Lord has removed judgment from you, the true king of Israel is in your midst. Your savior will rejoice over you and renew you in his love. He will sing because of you, as one sings at festivals.”

The climax of Paul’s instructions to the church at Philippi describes the essence of Christian behavior: “Rejoice in the Lord always. It should be obvious to everyone that you are unselfish. Although Christians are certainly not supposed to try to impress others, certain Christian virtues ought to be recognizable to all, beyond question. The Lord is near, always. Get rid of all anxiety. Place all your needs in God’s hands, in every form of prayer. And God’s own peace, a peace beyond anything we can understand, will guard you in heart and mind.”

People thronged to John the Baptizer, and, in response to his demand that they repent, they asked what they should do. He told all to share clothing and food with those who have neither. He demanded honesty from tax collectors and fairness from soldiers. We may infer that everyone else had to be fair and honest, too.

The evangelist illustrates John’s mass appeal in compact, masterful strokes. That tax collectors and soldiers would even approach him in the first place suggests his power to change people’s lives, for they were feared and loathed by nearly everyone else. Luke portrays John as a most important, charismatic figure, who insists in this episode that the best is yet to come.

People wondered whether John could be the messiah. He said: “I only baptize with water, but there is someone coming who is greater than I. He will baptize in the Holy Spirit and fire. He will separate the wheat from the chaff, saving what is worthwhile and destroying what is not.”

This latter statement carries the menacing tone of the early portion of the book of Zephaniah. The one who is coming demands even more than the unselfishness, honesty, and fairness that John has preached. Like the prophets, John reminds us of the demands that reside at the heart of God’s law. We must act in faith, justice, and mercy. We must be honest and fair. We must endure fire, disappointment, even destruction, because we are blessed with a peace beyond anything we can understand. To do less is to render ourselves useless.

The prophet Zephaniah and Paul both sound almost ecstatic in today’s readings as they proclaim a time for rejoicing. In this season of joy, we might hear this announcement with particular interest. Who of us wouldn’t appreciate more joy in our lives? With our own pressing problems, and the never-ending crises facing society, rejoicing isn’t a consistent experience. Yes, we hear the call to joy, but the challenge is how to find it on a more permanent basis.

Each of the readings offers an answer to, “How?” Zephaniah reminds us that the Lord is in our midst and “you shall fear evil no more.” We are enveloped by the presence of God and showered in God’s love. Paul tells us that, “The Lord is at hand,” and we need “have no anxiety about anything.” If we have needs and problems, we should simply present them to God and then be at peace. The gospel of Luke offers its particular response in an interesting exchange between John the Baptist and the multitudes who have come out to hear him. Who are these people? What are they looking for? These are ordinary people like us, looking for words of comfort, searching for answers to the riddles of life, hoping to find joy in the midst of everyday hassles. They ask the Baptist: “What then shall we do?” And what answer does this great prophet offer? Not a word about more government spending, better education, economic reform, jumping on the bandwagon of one cause or another, or getting therapy. What he says is: share what you have; don’t cheat people; don’t bully anyone; be content with what you have. Sound rather ordinary? Precisely!

We may have singular moments in life where we experience the excitement of a significant achievement, the ecstasy of sexual union, the rapture of falling in love, and the like, but the greatest teachers of mankind have always taught that if we wish to experience joy on a consistent basis, we need to find it in the ordinary people, places, times, and situations that surround us. But this often has not been part of our training and experience. We await the spectacular and fail to see the wonder in what’s ordinary. We look at the big picture and miss the artistry in the fine details. We are awed by oceans but not by a cup of cool water. We marvel over mountains but not over the faces of our loved ones.

According to our readings today, the “secret” of joy is being more aware of the loving presence of God in our lives, allowing this loving God to share our burdens, and living with simple codes of good behavior, “content” with what we have. This should encourage us to know that we are in good hands, and that we should find joy in the ordinary things that surround us. The smile on a child’s face. The touch of a wife’s hand. A call from a friend. A Christmas tree all lit up with ornaments. The glow of a fire. The smell of roasting turkey. The lights and colors that play off the faces of thousands of people crowding a shopping mall. Ordinary things, in ordinary events, with ordinary people—it’s all there, if we only take time to really look.

Eliminate grandiose expectations of what you need to be happy. Take time to notice and appreciate the ordinary things that surround you every day. Meditate on the loving presence of God within you; humbly make your requests known to God. Always be honest and forthright and your joy will not be affected by guilt and shame. Don’t lie or cheat, and be content with what you have at the present moment. It will give you all the joy you can handle.

John the Baptist must have been a powerful preacher. In today’s gospel we find ‘all the people’, including tax collectors and soldiers, coming to ask him what they should do in order to be saved, to share in God’s friendship. Of course, it was not his words that attracted people. From his frugal and committed lifestyle, they sensed that God was with him and they wanted to share in whatever it was that he had.

Things have not changed. People still hunger for God. They seek him here. They seek him there. Perhaps they lose heart. They do not see his influence at work in anybody’s life. Where will they find him? How will they know the real thing? Through the lives of true disciples. ‘By this will all people know that you are my disciples if you have love one for another.’ ‘Let the one who has two coats give to him who has none and the one with something to eat must do the same.’

Money talks. Genuine charity opens many a heart. Certainly its absence crushes the poor. Preaching alone never converts anybody. Making God’s kingdom present on earth is every baptized person’s privilege and responsibility. Advent is a reminder of our destiny.

Imagine God singing joyfully over you! It’s hard to think of God getting excited about us. Our lives are mostly small, anonymous; we are each granted “fifteen minutes of fame,” as Andy Warhol once said, and that is not always good. Why would God even notice us? Unless our misery becomes too deep and our wails very loud, there is not much in our lives to draw divine attention.

Zephaniah writes at a time before the great exile, when the nation was about as dissolute as it was going to get. In chapter 1 of his book, he declares forcefully that “the day of the Lord,” a very dark day indeed, is coming. But in this final passage, he proclaims the joy that will follow, the restoration of the people to the happiness God always wants for us.

The prophets always declare the best of times in the midst of the worst of times. Our joy has its roots in God’s delight in us, and that is a given, even in the darkest hours.

The Lord is near. That is the message of Advent, that God has chosen to become like us and share our food and our fate. God left glory behind and chose the womb. It is an amazing thought.

We often think of God as far away, above and beyond our experiences. Through the person of Jesus, the early Christians understood that God was near, had walked their roads, and was returning soon. More than that, through the Spirit present in their assembly, they knew that God was in their midst. Paul says anxiety has no place in a relationship this tender. Anxiety should be replaced by offering our needs to God in prayer, with gratitude. We are not trying to win the favor of a distant deity. We are in relationship with the One who is as near as our next breath.

So we who are worried about many things can relax. And beyond that, we can rejoice. God’s peace stands guard over our hearts and minds, and no human concern can take that peace away.

You get a sense of how hungry people are for a prophet when you read John’s advice to the crowds. He says very simple, obvious things. Share with the needy. Do not cheat. Do not throw your weight around. And people are ready to call him “messiah.”

In our time, people are still aching to be saved by some great leader. Dozens of contemporary gurus offer their books, seminars, and communes to people looking for salvation from themselves and the world that disappoints. The new gurus say simple things: do not eat too much junk, be nice, go for a walk in the woods, and do not worry, the aliens will save us. And many are ready and eager to follow. Unlike the new gurus, however, John the Baptist was not interested in being proclaimed the fearless leader. He pointed immediately to the one who was to come, and humbled himself. What a strange thing to do with power, to lay it down.

John was, of course, anticipating a real messiah who would do the same. We call this good news, the way of surrendering power in order to be lifted up. We have a goal beyond good rules for living, as we follow this leader. Not mere good advice, but redemption from all that kills.

The life of a preacher is not always easy. He sometimes plays the role of ‘prophet without honor’. I have had some small experience of that. Some years ago I gave a talk on Irish television. The subject was unemployment and I took as my theme, John the Baptist’s reply to the people who asked him: ‘What must we do, then?’ John said: ‘If anyone has two coats he must share with the man who has none and the one who has something to eat must do the same.’ I took the view, which I still hold, that what was true about coats then should be true about jobs now. People holding two or more jobs – and there were and are many such people in Ireland – should be encouraged to relinquish one in the interests of the unemployed. I was astonished at the outcry I caused. Letters were written to the papers and complaints were made to the broadcasting authorities.They suggested to me that I should issue a statement. The latter is called in media circles a ‘damage-limitation’ exercise. I didn’t comply, suggesting instead that they release the full text of my talk. They didn’t. It was my last appearance on the programme.

Oddly enough, it was the only time in my life I had quoted a body not generally acclaimed for their radicalism. The Irish Bishops in one of their pastorals stated: ‘Men with an already adequate salary or pension, women with comfortable livelihoods and no economic need to work, have surely in present circumstances an obligation not to seek or hold on to jobs at the expense of others, especially younger people who cannot find work.’ The circumstances alluded to there have greatly worsened since then. It is no secret that the bulk of work being done by people in the black economy is by people with jobs.

Job-sharing is now firmly established on every government’s agenda, at least promoted in theory if not so often operated in practice. People are not so reluctant to share their work but baulk at the prospect of a diminished income. It is not the labour they resent sharing but the fruits thereof.They continue to pay lip-service to the Christian message as long as it does not hurt their pockets. Meanwhile, unemployment grows alarmingly and the gap between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’ continues to widen.

Our global record is even worse. The pittance we give in aid is a paltry restitution for what we pillaged from the Third World to create our thriving economies. ‘The goods we possess are theirs, not ours,’ St John Chrysostom stated bluntly about the poor, long before the era of colonial conquest. Regarding aid, St Gregory the Great was equally blunt: ‘More than performing works of mercy, we are repaying a debt of justice.’ About the plight of the poor in the Third World, the modern media have left us with few illusions. To our plaintiff plea, ‘But when did we see you hungry?’, the terse reply might well be, ‘Nightly, on television.’

‘What must we do, then?’ The answer John the Baptist gave to those who first posed the question is even more relevant for us today. ‘Share.’ Solidarity with the dispossessed of our own world and the deprived of the Third World is an urgent priority for those who wish to be Christian.

The story of John the Baptist had been spreading all through the country. Consequently more and more people started to turn up. They came from all sides in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening, and sometimes even during the night.

They wanted to be cleansed. to be healed, to be touched, to be washed: they wanted to be baptized. He was baptizing, baptizing, baptizing until he got a stiff arm. like someone who did not stop playing tennis in time.

He had become fashionable. Ladies in Jerusalem talked about him in their parlors: Have you been there? Did you see him? Did he talk to you? Did he baptize you? And men, gentlemen from Jerusalem walked in the sun tor hours in order to see and hear him.

John was definitely a man who corresponded to a need. People had been hoping so much and so long tor a change, a real change. And when they saw him at work baptizing in the river Jordan. they started to hope again. As the gospel says: “The people were full of anticipation.”

John gave himself completely to his task and mission. He was there day and night washing people of sins he knew he could not wash off. He worked with a symbol, with a prophetic sign. and they thought it was the real thing. John knew that what he was doing was like washing wounds due to poisoned blood. He was washing them externally, without being able to do anything about the internal poisoning.

His task was only to prepare and announce. His mission was very external. He could not reach the cause. He couldn’t really touch sin, the poisoning, and the human disorientation itself.

They asked him: “What should we do?” The gentlemen from Jerusalem asked. The ones who had parked their chariots and horses outside. under the trees along the river. The ladies from town asked him, too.

He said: If you have two pairs of trousers. you must share with the one who has none; and if you have something left to cat. share with the one who is hungry.?

The local city-council administrators came, along with some officials from the customhouse. They, too, asked: What should we do?

He said: Ask no more than the rate, and don’t put it in your own pockets. No bribes, no nonsense.?

The soldiers and the police who were sent to keep order also came to him: What about us? What should we do?

He said: No intimidation, no extortion, no violence. Be satisfied with your regular pay.

Yet it seemed he said all this without too much conviction. He could give advice; he could wash. purify, and clean. He could amend, patch up, and repair. He could warn, advise, recommend, and urge, but it was like pouring oil and spices over rotten food.

He was not the Christ. He could not change humanity. He could only baptize with water. That is why he started to insist: Don’t think that it is me. Don’t think that I will be able to change you. I baptize only with water. Someone else is going to come after me. He really will change your mind, your heart, your soul, and your body. He insisted: Please, forget about me. Let me get smaller and smaller. Let me be forgotten. It is he who comes after me who is going to change you.

In the end, they came to arrest him. They chopped off his head and put it on a silver tray carried by a beautiful girl who, up to then, had never seemed to use any head at all. He lost his head because of the sin he had not been able to eradicate.

Saint John was right: This world can change only if people change their minds and their ways. Saint John was right. It is only tire and Spirit that are going to do it.

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, let us be willing to receive them. Let a feeling of expectancy and anticipation grow among us during these days of the coming of the Lord.