Today, the third Sunday in
Advent is sometimes called Gaudete Sunday. Gaudete means “rejoice” in Latin, and
it’s the opening word of the first reading we heard, which has been been read
on this day right back into the Middle Ages.. “Rejoice!” says Paul to the
Philippians. In fact, he says it twice – “and again I say rejoice”. We
light the pink candle on our Advent wreath in church because today was traditionally
a day when the Advent fast was relaxed. “Are we nearly there yet?” Yes, we are.
We’ve nearly made it to Christmas
The reading is a wonderfully
joyful one...unless, of course, your life has just gone pear-shaped, you’ve got
a chronic illness, you’ve lost a job, you’ve been bereaved, you’ve fallen out
with a friend or family member, or encountered any one of the many disasters that
life can throw at us. It that’s the case, then Paul’s cheery words can just feel like a kick in the teeth. It’s like when
someone says “cheer up, it may never happen” - but it already has. “Turn
that frown upside down” people say – well, no, sometimes we can’t, and we shouldn’t.
It’s all very well for Paul, we might
think. Life was obviously going swimmingly for him. If he was in our shoes, he
wouldn’t be so irritatingly jolly.
Except that if we read the
whole of his letter to the Philippians, we find that isn’t so at all. In fact, when
he writes these words, Paul is under arrest. We know that because he tells us
so at the beginning of the letter. He’s been imprisoned by the Romans, and is
being guarded by Roman soldiers, and that’s never good news. Paul knew that sooner
or later his message would probably get him into trouble, and it did. You don’t
tangle with the might of Rome and get away with it. Eventually he was executed
for his faith, and it’s not hard to see why. He was preaching about another
kingdom, the kingdom of God, and that sounded like rebellion to the Romans. He followed
another ruler, and to add insult to injury, it was Jesus, who they thought they’d
got rid of on the cross, but who Paul insisted had been raised from death. They
couldn’t be doing with people who made trouble like that.
Even as Paul writes to the Philippians,
he knows that the writing is on the wall for him.
And yet, still he says “rejoice”.
But of course, he doesn’t just
say “rejoice” and that’s the key to understanding this passage. He
actually says “rejoice in the Lord”. When it’s all going wrong, when the
sky feels as if it’s falling on our heads, simply being told to rejoice is an
insult. We have to have something to rejoice about, some reason for rejoicing,
something to find joy in, and for Paul, the cause of his rejoicing is Jesus.
His resurrection was the proof for Paul that nothing, nothing could defeat God’s
love. No army in the world, no disaster, not even death on the cross had the
last word; the last word belonged to God.
The resurrection wasn’t just
an amazing miracle to Paul; it was the proof that in the end, love wins, that
it is stronger than hatred. He didn’t think that God would prevent bad things
happening – after all, God hadn’t swooped down and saved Jesus from dying – but
his resurrection showed that even though sometimes love seems wasted, goodness
seems pointless, they never are. Their effects are eternal, and spring up in
the most unexpected times and places. At the beginning of his letter to the Philippians,
he says that what has happened to him – this cruel imprisonment - has actually
helped to spread the Gospel, because his message has now come to the imperial
guard, the soldiers who are guarding him, and that it is changing lives even
among them. When he calls the Philippians to rejoice, he isn’t calling them to forced
cheerfulness, he is calling them to see that in all times and all places, God is
at work, that, as he puts it here, the Lord is near.
In the Gospel reading today,
John the Baptist also preached about God’s nearness, but in a much starker and less comfortable
way. He doesn’t mince his words with those who come to him. I’ve never called people
a “brood of vipers” from the pulpit, and I don’t plan to start doing so
- I think you’d probably be complaining to the Bishop if I did, and with some
justification. But we do all need shaking out of our complacency sometimes.
There are times when we need to change. We know there’s no quick fix to problems
like the climate emergency. There’s no superficial answer. We can’t just hope
that clever scientists or politicians will come up with a magic wand which
enables us to go on living as we do; we know that all of us will have to learn
to live differently if there’s any hope of the human race living at all.
Whether it is big things like
that, or the many smaller, but just as devastating problems we face
individually, it is easy to wallow in blame and guilt, or just to try to close
our eyes to them. One of the reasons we do that is because, deep down we don’t
really believe that anything can change. But John’s words, stark as they seem actually
lead us out of that despair. He preaches about the possibility of change,
calling people to share what they have, treat others fairly, do their jobs with
integrity, whatever they are. He preaches about a God who loves his people
enough to want them to be transformed, washed clean in the waters of baptism,
able to start again. He doesn’t abandon us or give up on us. In a lovely poem
about John the Baptist, Charles Causley describes him as someone who’d “hold
your hand/ and bring you to land/ and wash your fears away.” John preaches
about a God to whom each one of us matters, and who sends his Son knowing that
he will face the worst human beings can do to him, to show us just how much
each one of us matters.
That kind of love and
commitment is what, in the end, changes people towards the good. Fear can’t do
it. Force can’t do it. Only love can really transform us. Once we know that we
are loved by God, that we matter to him, we can never entirely unknow that. It will
glow in a corner of our hearts to be discovered on even the darkest day. And if
we believe it for ourselves, we have to believe it for others too, so it will
change the way we treat them too.
And that is our cause for
rejoicing. As Paul sits in his prison cell, he knows that he is not alone, that
God is right there with him in the darkness and the fear, and right there, too,
in the hearts of the Roman soldiers who are guarding him, leading them to
wonder how this prisoner manages to find joy even in the midst of terror and
maybe, for some of them, enabling them to find that joy for themselves. And it
can do the same for us.
Rejoice in the Lord
always, and again I say rejoice. Amen
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