Advent III C The Lighter Hue of Hope (Pink Advent Candle)
Advent III (C) — The Lighter Hue of Hope (Pink Advent Candle)
As you have already noticed, this third Sunday in Advent we lit the purple candle with the lighter hue. The gift of God’s transforming grace is so close, so near that the Spirit of Joy can no longer be contained.
The expectation of finding a new, more perfect, more meaningful way of life just ahead bubbles up like the spontaneous effervescence of a carbonated drink.
It is like people who, on hearing that the war is over, start to dance in the streets… even before the official surrender papers are signed. It is the joy, following a harsh winter, of seeing the bright spring flowers smiling up through the melting snow.
It is like C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, when the White Witch notices that the snow is melting and knows that Aslan is on the land.
The theme of Advent III is JOY that can no longer be contained. It calls for a symbolic response, and so we burn the purple candle with the light hue (pink). Call it the light of joyous expectation!
Hear now how the theme expresses itself all through today’s propers.
In the Collect: Because we have surely been hindered by our sins… pray God let His bountiful grace and mercy speedily help and deliver us.
In the Old Testament: Sing aloud… rejoice and exult with all your heart… the Lord your God IS IN YOUR MIDST — He will RENEW you in His love.
From Philippians: Rejoice in the Lord always (and then, just in case anyone may not have been tuned in), Paul says, AGAIN I will say REJOICE. Why? The Lord is at hand! Have no anxiety about anything!
And from Luke’s Gospel we hear John the Baptist proclaim: There is coming someone mightier than I… so mighty that He will fill you with God’s Spirit and you will not simply be reformed… but TRANSFORMED!
And from the Psalm: Cry aloud, inhabitants of Zion (and Walla Walla), ring out your joy, for the Great One in the midst of you is the Holy One of Israel. For the Lord is my stronghold and my sure defense, and HE WILL BE my savior.
[Read as if reading a notice in a doctor’s waiting room.]
If something destructive has you in its grip, if something like worry, or resentment, or a bad habit, or an inclination to play God to your family and peers, is wreaking havoc on the hope for a loving, trusting community, then listen and rejoice! Transformation of all that destructive disease is at hand. A decision away. To own it merely [only] requires a single YES!
When we say YES to the gift of God’s forgiveness and grace and accept Jesus as the Lord of our lives, we are supernaturally transformed and our destructive tendencies tend now to loosen their grip. That “mere” decision brings a healing peace… a peace that passes human understanding.
Why is God’s peace beyond our understanding? Because it surpasses all human effort to attain it.
Jesus said to His disciples: My peace, which is the same as saying, my Father’s peace… I give to you.
Let me try to help us see and appreciate what it really means to be transformed into a new creature.
To do that I [would] like to take you back a few years to 1954. In that year, 38,000 new cases of the dread illness polio were reported. Some of the younger members here this morning may have never even heard of polio, but for those that are old enough to understand, in that year polio packed a lot of fear.
It was the disease of the young. It could cripple or kill the victim and sometimes required an iron lung to breathe for you for the rest of your life. There were all kinds of theories as to what caused it… which required strange restrictions.
Margaret, my wife, contracted the disease. She was separated… lonely… like living in a vacuum.
All who cared for her had to wear surgical masks, including her parents, who were allowed to visit two times a week for one half hour. Any toy or book you touched had to be burned. There was no TV. You could not sit up.
Can you imagine the longing desire to get out of that situation? The hope each day that when you picked up the newspaper it would report a breakthrough in the fight against polio?
Out of the waiting… grew a hope… out of the hope… an expectation. Something has to happen to break the grip of this crippling disease!
Then one day came this report. Dr. Jonas Salk had discovered a vaccine that would immunize ALL of us against polio! The doctor could say, you can go home, son… the victory is at hand.
Polio no longer has power over us. Dr. Salk’s vaccine has transformed all of us into new creatures that are no longer subject to polio! REJOICE! Take down the separating glass partitions… touch and hug and dance. We are new creatures.
Some of you may be wondering if you have been immunized against polio… the answer is yes: five times… at 2 months, 4 months, 6 months, 18 months and again at 4–6 years. We have been transformed… we no longer need to dread polio.
Now, let’s talk about a spiritual disease that also has power to cripple and destroy us. It is our human tendency to want to be like God… to have our own way… to be selfish and self-centered.
John the Baptist knew the problem and he knew how people had been waiting, hoping for some way of changing our destructive ways. People went to John the Baptist like people searched their newspapers for news of a breakthrough on polio. They all wondered if their human plight would ever go away. They knew from experience that it would not wish away.
Then John the Baptist announced the Good News to a waiting world… THE CHRIST is coming and He will rid us of our selfish ways!
When the people asked John what they could do, He said you can start cleaning up your act right now. We can reform (the Anointed One will transform us). We can choose to cheat our neighbor or not. When we have accepted Christ in our hearts we won’t WANT to cheat our neighbor.
As we receive Dr. Salk’s vaccine, we are no longer subject to polio; so too when we accept Christ’s sacrificial offering for our sins, we are free of the burden of trying to justify ourselves at others’ expense. In Christ’s love we are immune from the deadly separating power of sin. We are exposed to sin but not stricken and separated by it.
In Christ we are encouraged to meet, listen, dialogue, share, understand, hug and dance.
In Christ, all of the dark foreboding corners of our lives have a lighter hue. As Christmas approaches let that light so shine before men, that they may see our good works.
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