Third Sunday of Advent (A)
Advent is a season of disappointment. It reminds us of how disappointment is, necessarily, part of our human and our Christian experience.
Whoa.
“Okay, Father”, you may be thinking. “That’s not what my priest says! Advent is a season of hope and joy!”
And so it is.
And yet…
Without disappointment, hope is useless. Without disappointment, hope is meaningless. Without disappointment, hope is unnecessary.
How is Advent a time of disappointment?
Disappointment is often defined as a failure to meet a hope or expectation. During Advent, we hear readings from Isaiah which speak of the lamb resting beside the lion, the baby by the cobra’s lair, the disabled experiencing blessing and welcome – the establishment of a peaceable kingdom where none need fear any harm ever again. A kingdom of justice, love and peace. We look at our world. We look at our lives. We look at our Church. We may feel tempted to write off these promises as mere fantasies when we see how far we still are from the fulfillment of these promises. Advent only magnifies this sense of disappointment. It is little wonder that many sensitive people experience deep depression during this time of year. They are in particular need of true hope.
But we can say more.
Such an experience of disappointment during Advent reminds us of other such experiences. How often life fails to meet our expectations! A man and a woman decide to marry. A person takes on a job in a field he has always loved. Another person moves into a community where she has always wanted to live. Each of these people enter this life change with expectations. Inevitably, some expectations will not be met. Spouses find that they didn’t know each other as well as they thought, or that they are only beginning to notice habits that the other has which now they find annoying. The new job may include aspects that the new employee finds very difficult. The new community has its characters who can make life rather interesting. And all this will be true even in the best of marriages, the best of jobs, or the best places to live. We learn that some of our expectations were wrong. Life refuses to be all we want it to be. What do we do now?
This sense of disappointment can be especially sharp when it comes to our faith life. We learn about God who is Love. We learn about the Church, which is the Body of Christ, where every member is welcome and important and necessary to the Body. We learn about what a parish is supposed to be. Then we see our own parish, or our own priest, diocese or religious community. In some ways, each one embodies these teachings. In others, each one falls short.
We may even feel disappointed in God. How so? How can God disappoint? Remember that disappointment stems from unmet expectations. We bring to God our expectations of who God is and what God will do and how God will do it. When God does not follow our expectations, we will feel disappointed or even disillusioned. Can we stop and ask ourselves if the problem isn’t with God but with our expectations of God? Can we allow God to be God, to learn from Him, and to let Him adjust our expectations to who God really is and what God is really about and who we really are as His children? Or, do we try to force God to do it our way, and skulk away or storm off if God will not do it our way?
Every Christian must face this test at some point in his or her spiritual journey. Every saint has faced this test. Even Christ Himself was tempted by the devil in precisely this way. Accordingly, this Sunday’s Gospel shows us a moment when John the Baptist faced this test.
Earlier in Matthew’s Gospel, when Jesus first came to John for baptism, John was shown by the Holy Spirit that Jesus was the Messiah, the Christ. John announced this and believed it. Now, we find John in prison. He has heard about what Jesus and His disciples have been doing, and John is puzzled. John preached of the coming judgment, and Jesus does not seem to be meeting that expectation. Besides, if Jesus is the Messiah, and John is Jesus’ herald, what is John doing in prison? So, John sends people to ask Jesus if he really is the Messiah, or if everyone should wait for someone else.
Notice how Jesus responds. We see a great example of the way Jesus taught. He doesn’t just say “Yes, I am the Messiah!” Why? Because John the Baptist’s definition of “Messiah” needed some tweaking. Jesus needs to rearrange the dots that John connected in one way, so that John can connect them in a different way and begin to see what Jesus is truly about and how He really is the Messiah. John the Baptist was right about that last part. He needed to learn a little more about what that meant.
What does Jesus say? He tells John’s disciples to tell John all they have heard and seen. People with various illnesses and disabilities are healed and restored to God’s people. The dead are raised to new life. The Good News is announced to the poor. Jesus is citing the prophet Isaiah, where Isaiah is speaking of a restoration of God’s people after the judgment happens. John the Baptist wasn’t wrong about the judgment he announced. God was coming to His people in Jesus. People would judge themselves, in a sense, by how they responded to Jesus. Those who believed in Jesus would be restored. John the Baptist needed to see the rest of this story to understand more fully what being the Messiah meant for Jesus. Judgment was part of the story. Restoration and healing were the ultimate purpose of Jesus’ coming as Messiah.
And there is more. Between Isaiah’s prophecies about the lame walking and others being healed, on one hand, and the Good News preached to the poor, on the other, John might recall other prophecies of a mysterious Servant of the Lord. Someone who appears to be rejected and to suffer greatly, but who nevertheless is bringing about God’s salvation. John then might see that his own imprisonment and possible execution in a new light. He might also see what Jesus’ own destiny in this life might be. In this way, John could move from disappointment – his former expectations unmet – to a new and greater hope, now that he sees more clearly what God is doing in Christ. The same is true for us, of course. We who share in Christ’s sufferings will share in His glory.
In the meantime, how do we live, we who find ourselves caught at times between disappointment and hope? St. James, in our second reading, urges patience. “Be patient”, he says, “until the coming of the Lord. Do not complain against one another. Keep your hearts firm in hope.” Christ has already planted the seeds of His Kingdom among us. he is even now at work among us, just as the seed that a farmer plants starts to grow in the spring before the farmer sees the growth happening. This is not a mere passive patience or hope. It also involves how we live. We are not to complain against one another, we are told. We are to witness to this hope by lives that are, even now, being renewed and transformed by the Spirit of Christ within us.
Disappointment is inevitable in human life. No merely human set of expectations will be adequate or complete. We are incomplete, and God is beyond us. And yet, God is also with us. He will help us reconnect our dots in new ways, and see more fully what God is up to and what we are called to be about as His children and disciples. Christ is the same, now and forever. His promises do not fail. May this be our true reason for hope, now and always.