A homily by Fr.
Gene Tucker, given at Trinity Church ,
Mt. Vernon, Illinois, on Sunday, December
11, 2011.
“GAUDETE SUNDAY – A REFLECTION”
(Homily texts: Isaiah 61: 1 – 4, 8 – 11, I Thessalonians 5: 16 – 24 & John 1: 6 – 8, 19 - 28)
Today, the Third Sunday of Advent,
is generally known in churches which follow the liturgical tradition as Gaudete Sunday. The name comes from the first word of the
traditional Introit for this day, as we hear it in Latin. The text begins:
Gaudete in Domino semper: iterum dico, gaudete.
In
English, the Latin reads:
Rejoice
in the Lord always, again I say, rejoice.
You
may recognize that these are words which come to us from St. Paul, as he writes
to the early Christians in Philippians 4: 4ff.
(Notice how our reading from I Thessalonians 5: 16 - 17 captures much of
the same sense: “Rejoice always, pray
constantly.”)
So,
gaudete means “rejoice”!At this point, you may be searching your liturgical memory to recall that Advent is traditionally a time of penitence, a time for soul-searching, a time of preparation for the Lord’s coming to us in His birth at Bethlehem, and a time for preparing for His final coming again at the end of time.
This time of preparation is signified by the liturgical color violet (or in old English usage, dark blue, which is our practice here at Trinity). May I ask you to hold that thought about preparation/penitence for a moment? We’ll come back to that issue shortly.
I think this would be an excellent occasion point out the overall pattern of the flow of the liturgical colors as they unfold throughout the year. The general pattern is:
Violet (dark blue) – White – Green
Each of these colors convey a meaning, which is:
Violet
(dark blue) Penitence/preparation
White Celebration
Green Growth in the faith
which is the product of our
preparation and subsequent celebration
Applied
to the pattern of violet (dark blue) – white – green, the pattern lays out like
this:
Advent Violet (dark blue)
Christmas White
Epiphany Green
Lent Violet
Easter White
Pentecost Green
Now, let’s return to the business of penitence and preparation, and lay these concerns alongside the idea of being able to rejoice during such a period as Advent.
How can we rejoice if we are examining our consciences, our hearts, and our daily lives? How do these two concepts go together. How do they manage to live together?
I think the answer lies in God’s goodness and God’s graciousness.
Simply put, we serve and love a holy God, a God who demands holiness from His people in every aspect of their daily activities, thoughts and contemplations.
If we are honest about it, even the briefest reflection will convince us that we fall far short of God’s standards of holiness. As we say in our General Confession, “We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness, which we from time to time most grievously have committed, by thought, word and deed, against thy divine Majesty….”[1]
God would be well within His rights to condemn us all, and to cast us aside and out of His presence forever, wouldn’t he?
I certainly know that the pattern of my life at certain times would confirm that God ought send me away, to allow eternal separation from Him to be my fate.
But I also know that the holy God whom we worship and adore is a compassionate, merciful and loving God, a God who is more ready hear our prayers than we are to pray, a God who is more ready to give than we either desire or deserve (as the Collect for Proper 22 says so well).[2]
And so, remorse over our sinful state can be combined with rejoicing. It is possible for the two concepts to exist together, side-by-side, but only if penitence precedes rejoicing.
In fact, remorse sets the stage for rejoicing, for it is our own honesty before God which allows that same God to shower us with His forgiveness. The two go together….they are inseparable, one from the other. Remorse over our sins and confession of them allows God to bless us with His forgiveness.
We would do well to turn to our readings for today, to see this process at work:
In Isaiah, chapter 61, we read this: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good tidings to the afflicted; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor….”
Here are words which convey God’s graciousness, God’s acting to free His people from bondage. They inspire in God’s people in every age a cause for hope, a cause for rejoicing.
Similarly, our gospel reading from the Fourth Gospel recounts John the baptizer’s message….The thrust of John’s ministry was to “bear witness to the light” as the writer of the gospel puts it. That light is Jesus Christ, the one who is the Christ, God’s anointed one. John captures the liberation that Jesus Christ brings as he said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” (John 1: 29)
We can claim God’s forgiveness, made known in the person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ, by confessing our sins and by claiming God’s forgiveness.
So today, we live out the reality of penitence and rejoicing, side-by-side, in the traditional liturgical color which is appropriate for this day: rose.
This idea might require some explanation: The color rose is a combination of red and blue.
Liturgically, we’ve already made the observation that (dark) blue is a color which can be used for penitential seasons of preparation, like Advent (or Lent, when violet is more appropriate).
Now, let’s recall what we use the color red for, liturgically…that is the color which comes to us on the great Feast of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came down on the assembled believers, lighting above the heads of each one as flames of fire (see Acts 2: 1 – 4). On the Feast of Pentecost, bright red is used.
We are safe in making a connection between the action of the Holy Spirit and the color red. (It’s also worth noting that bright red is the appropriate color for services of ordination, at which time the Holy Spirit’s presence and power are invoked in the singing of the ancient hymn Veni, Creator Spiritus.)
So today, we wear rose-colored vestments, combining the dark blue of penitence with the simultaneous presence of the power of the Holy Spirit to convict us of sin and to liberate us from it.
As our Collect for this Sunday says, “Stir up thy power, O Lord, and with great might come among us, and because we are sorely hindered by our sins, let they bountiful grace and mercy speedily help and deliver us….”
May it ever be so.
AMEN.
