Third Sunday of Advent 2024
Today we celebrated the third Sunday of Advent accompanied by Abigail.
Hilda’s funeral is on Thursday 19th December 12.15pm at Maryhill Crematorium
This week
Tuesday 10am – Prayer Group in Garden Room
2pm – Advent Course, All Saints in their hall
Thursday 10am – Said Holy Communion followed by coffee in Friendship House
Sunday 10am – Carol Service in church
Wednesday 25th December 10am – Sung Eucharist for Christmas Day
Readings for next Sunday – The Carol Service
Today’s readings – Zephaniah 3:14-20, Philippians 4:4-7, Luke 3: 6-18
In the vein of all things seasonal, on our walk this week Helen and I were awarded with beautiful views to the north of snowcapped hills and blue skies, picture post card for Christmas. This winter so far, the weather has been very changeable. One day its mild and wet and the next cold and bright, it is a season of contrasts with incredible dingy days followed by beautiful sunshine and clear skies.
Advent is a season of contrasts: beautiful and mysterious on the one hand but unsettling and foreboding on the other.
The Advent mood is hard to put into words and often captured better by its hymns and music which are generally dark and brooding, sung, indeed, in a minor key but interspersed with other hymns like O Come O Come Emmanuel and Lo He Comes with Clouds Descending. Deirdre in her wonderful Advent calendar has treated us to an array of different Advent and Christmas hymns. As we read the words of the verses we are reminded of the beauty, hope and mystery of the Christmas story, the coming of Christ into our world.
The scriptures also set the tone at Advent. At the start the lessons all contain prophetic calls for repentance, dire warnings to “wait and watch,” for what is coming. We hear in parables about those who are unprepared for God, tenants who are surprised by the sudden appearance of their long-absent landlord, sleepy bridesmaids waiting with their empty oil-lamps for the bridegroom to come and this morning we have threats from John the Baptist, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Luke 3:7
In short, it’s an expectant season, a season of being primed and warned, and there is a nervous edge to the waiting.
But today the Advent mood changes, on this Third Sunday of Advent the lessons become less dark and more encouraging. Traditionally this Third Sunday of Advent is called Gaudete Sunday, which comes from the Latin word for joy, and so it is a day for rejoicing.
For this reason, the third advent candle is pink, which is a mix between the purple of Advent and the white of the Christmas suggesting we stand at the junction of where the dark of the past and the hope for the future meet. On this Gaudete Sunday we are invited to rejoice as we say, “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”, oh come God, and be with us.
But with ongoing news from abroad and at home and various angsts both personally and otherwise perhaps our mood is more like the rest of Advent, darker, more anxious, somewhat unsettled, and perhaps that is why the darker mood of the Advent season speaks to us at times more poignantly than its more joyous mood.
Nevertheless, on this Third Sunday in Advent we are invited to rejoice. And the rejoicing starts in the OT lesson with the prophet Zephaniah:
“Be glad and rejoice with all your heart,
Daughter Jerusalem!
The Lord has taken away your punishment,
he has turned back your enemy.
The Lord, the King of Israel, is with you;
never again will you fear any harm…….
He will take great delight in you,
in his love he will no longer rebuke you,
but will rejoice over you with singing.” Zephaniah 3:14….ff
This is a change of tone from earlier in the chapter. In these few lines we go from judgement to mercy; from wrath to tender forgiveness and from fear to rejoicing. It is clear the God who comes to be our judge is the same God who comes to be our Saviour.
This is what holds the waiting and rejoicing moods of Advent together.
In the epistle Paul’s letter to the Philippians is all about rejoicing in God’s love and care.
“Rejoice in the Lord always…… The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:4-7
Scripture doesn’t promise us easy lives or lives without pain. But through the love forgiveness and resurrection of Christ it does promise us that those things do not have the last word.
So, no wonder St. Paul commands us to rejoice!
But the rejoicing is not just on our part. We are not the only ones rejoicing this Advent. God rejoices along with us because the Christian story is all about love and relationship. It is all about the love God has for us. God wants us for himself. This is the God who heals and saves, the God who gives meaning and hope to all people in all situations of life. God who is worth waiting for, and working for, and praying to and rejoicing with.
And so, this Advent as we sing, we do rejoice!