Good News Proclaimed
“Be strong, fear not!
Here is your God, he comes with vindication;
with divine recompense he comes to save you.”Isaiah 35:4
Today we celebrate the Third Sunday of Advent or Gaudete Sunday. “Gaudete” comes from the Latin word gaudere meaning “to rejoice” or “to be glad.” Similar to the 4th Sunday in Lent, the 3rd Sunday of Advent invites us to rejoice in the midst of our preparations. We rejoice because Christ is near and we rejoice because Our God has come to save us.
In our world today there may be little cause for us to rejoice. The war in Ukraine, the violence in our own cities, the tens of millions of people suffering from addictions, the oppression of peoples, and many others. If we root our joy in the things of this world, the indeed there is no cause for joy. As Christians we know that our joy comes from something and Someone that is outside of this world, outside of creation. Our joy comes from God — Our God who has loved us from all eternity.
The Prophet Isaiah encourages the people, “Be strong, fear not!” for God has come to save them. At this point the people were about to be taken over by the Babylonians. Perhaps to the people Isaiah’s words were crazy and made no sense: “How can you say God has come to save us? We are about to be decimated!” The Israelites has forgotten about God and the wonders He has done for them and their ancestors — the covenant made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Crossing through the Red Sea, the Covenant at Mt. Sinai, the numerous miraculous victories God brought to them. If God did all that in the past, they could be sure that God will do it again for them now. And, we can be sure that God can do that for us today. This is the Good News that was proclaimed to the people then and it is the Good News that must be proclaimed today — that God has come close to us, so close that He became one of us, that He will deliver us from all evil, and that in Him we will have eternal life.
Let us rejoice today, brothers and sisters, and proclaim this Good News to all those we meet.
