catholicPittsburgh.org

Reflections on the Third Sunday of Advent

By Rebecca Mertz

The readings for
this Sunday:

Isaiah 35:1-6a, 10

James 5:7-10

Matthew 11:2-11

Late in labor with my second child, roiling with pain and exhausted from pushing, I became convinced that the birth I’d anticipated for nine months was never going to happen.

In a similar way, we struggle every Advent in the midst of all the pain and suffering in the world to believe in the arrival of the Messiah. Where is God, we cry out, in the political upheaval rocking so many nations, in the rampant spread of AIDS throughout the world, in the wars in Iraq and Sudan? To believe in a Messiah in the midst of all this sorrow can seem irrational.

Yet, in this week’s readings we’re asked to do exactly that. In the famous passage from Isaiah we are exhorted to be strong and fear not because a Messiah is coming and the “eyes of the blind will be opened, the ears of the deaf be cleared, then will the lame leap like a stag, then the tongue of the mute will sing.” And in the second reading, James exhorts early Christians to “be patient” because the “coming of the Lord is at hand.” Finally, in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus offers an imprisoned John the Baptist some hope by quoting Isaiah’s promises, and referring, however obliquely, to his own divinity.

There is a sense of longing in these readings, of the desire to believe that despite great injustice in the world a savior’s arrival is not only possible, but imminent. Yet, isn’t there also an underlying tone of arrival on very human terms, with the promise of endless joy and vindication for all the wrongs we’ve suffered? Jesus reflects the public’s longing for such a savior when he asks the crowds what they were hoping to find in John the Baptist: “What did you go out to see? Someone dressed in fine clothing? Those who wear fine clothing are in royal palaces.”

The flip side of our difficulty in believing rationally in a Messiah is the desire to turn the Christ into the King of “Sparkle Season,” a glittery, excess loving, egg nog swilling holiday guest who can be ushered in and out of our lives along with the Christmas tree.

Whether we believe in an absent Messiah or a convenient one, ultimately Christmas still comes. The arrival of the Christ is ongoing and inexorable, a central mystery of the universe. Every woman who’s given birth understands this truth. Despite all the Lamaze, the preparation, the best-laid plans the child will arrive on its own schedule, in its own way, with its own agenda. And so will the Messiah.