Readings for Advent III: Zephaniah 3:14-20 I Isaiah 12:2-6 I Philippians 4:4-7 I Luke 3:7-18
The third Sunday of Advent is gaudete – a day of joy and gladness. On the other side of the calendar, at the halfway point of the time of suffering, of Lent, is laetare – the Sunday of inner joy, of refreshment. To wait for something for a long time, even if it is the birth or resurrection of Jesus, and to devote all one’s attention to it, and to take on various inner and outer disciplines, is hard. That is why – a small stopping place and a breather.
Both of these Sundays, in church tradition, are united by a softly rosy color, which, if observed and practiced, can be seen in the liturgical vestments and in the color of the candle that is lit. Seen through modern eyes, when we can fill this time of waiting in diverse and individualistic ways, holding nothing back and denying ourselves nothing, it is hard to imagine the Middle Ages and such a sudden rosy flicker in the midst of darkness. Today’s Advent season, with wreaths, candles, chocolate calendars and celebrations, is something completely different from the remembrance of the “last things” – death, judgment, heaven and hell – in the medieval Advent, and, keeping this contrast in mind, the meanings of the liturgical readings can expand.
“Shout for joy, rejoice, be glad with all your heart! Do not let your hands drop! Rejoice, rejoice! Do not worry!”
These are the verbs of our readings for this Sunday, to which we should respond. Somehow we have to let them “happen” in us.
Joy, in the biblical texts and in the enthusiastic recipes of the Western world that prepare us for Christmas, is found at both ends of a wide spectrum. The pre-holiday rejoicing, and all the events connected with it, have at this point been set spinning, or have been set spinning like a wooden top, and it cannot be stopped. Emptied out, it will stop of its own accord, at the beginning of January.
The background of the liturgical readings, however, hints at dramatic, gloomy events and moods, such as in today’s world, as if to joy were attached some “but”, “and”, “in spite of”, “anyway”, which is dissonant with the customary practices of the Advent season, and threatens the bright attitude and feeling adopted for the season.
Paul in prison does not try to cheer up himself and others with cheap words and say – smile, forget and distance yourselves from everything unpleasant, and all will be well! Maybe it will not. And he knows it. Maybe prison means having to meet death. Often prisoners, embraced by loneliness, break down, yet thoughts of those close and dear on the outside allow them to send words of greeting full of hope. Perhaps the last ones, who knows?
The theologian Elsa Tamez reflects on Paul’s letter in the light of the letters of Latin American political prisoners, and concludes that joy and happiness are themes that very often run through the prisoners’ letters. In the vicinity of misfortunes, persecution and possible death sentences, prisoners draw strength by writing or speaking about joy, in order to overcome both their present pain and the pain that might await them in the future. But their concern is connected not so much with their own situation as with the recipients of the letter. In their thoughts they are together with their loved ones, their fellow travelers, and they call on the recipients of their words to free themselves from the sorrow caused by their imprisonment and persecution, and they urge them to rejoice and not to be anxious.
Moving from Latin America to Latvia, the thought about joy in captivity is continued by the shared memories of the Latvian Soviet-era political prisoner Lidija Lasmane and the Russian-Ukrainian political prisoner and poet Irina Ratushinskaya about celebrating Christmas in the “small zone”, about joy in the midst of darkness, insecurity, doubt, loneliness – in a place of imprisonment in Mordovia, in the mid-1980s, about which Lidija herself has spoken and which Irina included in her autobiographical account “Grey is the Color of Hope”.
“We gathered together at the table and the words of the prayer ‘Our Father in heaven’ rang out in Lithuanian, Latvian, Russian, Ukrainian, even though the Orthodox Christmas was still ahead. Pani Jadwiga shares out the communion wafer from Lithuania, so that each gets a small piece. This little wafer, no thicker than a sheet of paper, arrived in an envelope from her relatives. The censor let it through: either she did not understand what it was, or she decided not to confiscate it, because no direct instructions had been given for it. “Silent night, holy night…” sing Galya and pani Lida, in two languages. And we, in spite of our different convictions of faith, did not doubt that in this moment, God looked upon us and visited us. Then we pray for Olya [in solitary confinement], that she too may feel relief in her loneliness: that she may not freeze, that she may not give in to sorrow.”
The book of the prophet Zephaniah, in the words of some Bible scholars, is called the saddest book in the whole Bible, and it has been given this description: “There is no morning dew, no grass, neither tree nor blooming flower dwells there, but all around fire, smoke and ravens look out from the windows of abandoned buildings”. And yet, in the midst of the smoky mire, with the means of expression and the vision of God that he had, Zephaniah shouts for joy and conjures up a hopeful festive scene for the sorrowful.
Isaiah and Zephaniah speak about the continuation of time – what it might be in the real, chronological future of time. After the end of time, visionarily, utopically. When Christ comes a second time, or when he had already once come, but we did not understand. On that day, at that time – there will be relief and gladness, all will be gathered together. And in the midst of everything, at the very center, will be those who usually are left with the leftovers and who are pushed aside. It will be joy, not only because one blind person has been healed and can see, but the sight of the rest will not be their superiority and power.
Are we already living beyond that day and it no longer has anything to do with us? Or are we still only waiting for that time and have no real grasp of it? Is it a merging of time, and is there no linear separation between was, is and will be?
From our perspective we see that God began to fill this time with the preaching of the eccentric, disheveled and inconvenient John the Baptist. To the ever-relevant question of seekers: what shall we do, how should we live, John gives the first directions – give to those who have nothing, from what you have. Be honest, generous and at peace with what has been allotted to you.
In our narrative of salvation this is only the beginning. Perhaps the incarnate Immanuel – God with us, who comes and comes, each year anew, must once again let the threshing floor be winnowed, washed and set alight with the flame of the Holy Spirit, which does not destroy but transforms in such a way that it does not even occur to John the Baptist, or to us.
Over the revelation of God’s glory and over the “nature” of God that has been revealed in Jesus Christ, there lie centuries-old theological traditions and assumptions. They are both a protective layer for the endurance and transmission of the mysteries of faith, and a tarnish that has to be cleaned away with lye.
It may be that today, so many centuries after Jesus’ birth, we are still only crumbling our bread with the needy, giving away the surplus, the coat that has become too tight, and timidly, only a little, are able to respond to the scorching, purifying, but not destroying or condemning fire of God.
To the fire in which the burning bush is not consumed, but which sanctifies the ground beneath our feet. To the fire that illuminates the darkest night and leads to liberation. To the fire in which the burning Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, together with the Son of God, unbound and unharmed, praise God in the furnace.
Even today there is time, and the mercy of God’s heart continues to be revealed, and a rising star from on high looks upon us. Time has not yet ended or passed us by.
Come, Lord Jesus, come and gather the wheat into your barn, burn up our chaff, and let your joy come to pass in us!
theologian Arta Skuja
(image: Arta Skuja “Light from Light” III)