Gospel: Lk 3:10-18
The crowds asked John the Baptist, “What should we do?” He said to them in reply, “Whoever has two cloaks should share with the person who has none. And whoever has food should do likewise.” Even tax collectors came to be baptized and they said to him, “Teacher, what should we do?” He answered them, “Stop collecting more than what is prescribed.” Soldiers also asked him, “And what is it that we should do?” He told them, “Do not practice extortion, do not falsely accuse anyone, and be satisfied with your wages.”

Now the people were filled with expectation, and all were asking in their hearts whether John might be the Christ. John answered them all, saying, “I am baptizing you with water, but one mightier than I is coming. I am not worthy to loosen the thongs of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fan is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” Exhorting them in many other ways, he preached good news to the people.

Joy is colored pink (rose). At least that is the case liturgically on this 3rd Sunday of Advent which is also called Gaudete Sunday, i.e.., Joy Sunday. And our first three passages from Scripture for the Mass of the day proclaim that joy is our main theme and focus. Listen again to what St. Paul tells us in effusive terms from his letter to the Phillipians, also known as the epistle of joy: “Rejoice in the Lord always! I say it again. Rejoice! The Lord is near. Have no anxiety at all; but in everything, by pray and petition, with thanksgiving, let your requests be known to God. Then the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” The most profound verse in the passage is - “The Lord is near.” It makes all the difference in the world that God is near, that God is with us. That is the deepest reality of our being and is the basis for our eternal hope. Yes. It is the reality we all want to bring into our being. We see this in the gospel passage where in reaction to John the Baptist, “the people were filled with expectation (hope); and all were asking in their hearts whether John might be the Christ.” (The presence of God in the world).

Now as Henri Nouwen tells us, there is an intimate link between hope and joy. Hope in its relation to the presence of God is something that we can get our arms around and understand. Joy is the fruit of hope and as such is more ephemeral, more difficult to understand and possess. I will try to explain the link between the two in the rest of this homily.

Hope is something concrete, a theological virtue that we can cultivate and practice and is related intimately to the other virtues of faith and love. Joy is a pure gift. We cannot manufacture or bring joy into being in our life; it just comes. But we know that it is the fruit of hope; thus we know we have God’s hope when joy appears. (In the negative - no joy, no hope). The hope I am talking about here is not just our little hopes in our abilities to make a living, hope in our intellect, hope in a good economy, hope that I’ll have a good life, a good vocation, a good marriage, etc. The hope I am talking about then is not just wishful thinking. This hope is grounded in the reality of the presence of God in our life. As Pope Benedict says in Spe Salvi, Saved in Hope, this grounded hope is connected with our redemption - for each one of us it is connected to our knowledge and love of the Redeemer. This hope frees us from the regrets of yesterday with its sins and failures because yesterday is gone from us and is held in God’s hands. It is He who will bring forth good from our failures. This hope also frees us from the anxieties of tomorrow for tomorrow does not yet exist for us and is also held in God’s hands. Thus the gift that hope gives us is that we are free to live today, which is indeed present to us, and to live it in the fullest. Because God is present to us today, we can reach out and take his hand and have him as our guide. This path of hope is real and can be demonstrated. Starting with Jesus himself, continuing with his saints, Mary, Bl. M. Teresa, St. Francis, St. Martin de Porres, and those little saints we know in our community who live their lives for others, through their actions, we see this hope made concrete and visible. Or as our pope says: “As we contemplate these figures, we see that their way of acting and living is de facto ‘proof’ that the things to come, the promise of Christ, are not only a reality that we await, but a real presence. The real presence of Christ, who is truly the philosopher and the shepherd, shows us what life is and where it is to be found.”

Good! Now on to joy. I think in order to understand a little more of joy, I need to take you on an excursion into an experience of joy that I had as a child. All of us can readily associate joy with childhood where innocent hope expresses joy easily. As most of you know by now, I grew up in the Napa valley region of Northern California, about 80 miles north of San Francisco. Part of that growing up was spending my summers at my grandparents ranch which was about 40 acres of vineyard and orchard. Running through the middle of the valley is the Napa river and that river was at the bottom of the ranch. In my childhood days this river ran shallow with high deep sloping river banks, what they call here a bosque. The banks were full of California plants like wild blackberries, huge bamboo plants, oak and willow trees, and stinging nettles to keep the unwary on their toes along with the lurking poison oak for added effect. Even though the river ran shallow, there were spots in the riverbed where deep pools of water had formed. In my memory one such pool was just about perfect with a great oak tree nearly at its edge with branches that extended over to the middle of the pool. What better place to tie a rope on one of the sturdy limbs so a boy or a girl could swing out over the water and let go to be swallowed up by the cool water: SPLUSH! I can still, even in the snow encrusted cold day of our New Mexico winter, almost taste the experience of a hot, humid, languid day of heading to that spot in the river as a 11 or 13 year old boy along with my sister and cousins. We come out of the vineyard after a long walk through it and take the trail to the river bank. Descending the trail we are accosted by the heavy perfume of the mass of flora, the buzz of insects in our ears, and the sweat pouring down our bodies. Being the oldest I am the first to grab the rope at a run then to swing over the water and let go. It is pure joy that I feel as I hear my own splush and become immersed in the delicious coolness of the murky water.

C. S. Lewis says that the person who has experienced joy knows only one thing for sure - they want it again. Of course like he says I would love to go back to that experience again or to other experiences of joy that I have had. But as he points out, joy is not the thing to be pursued. The experience of joy is like the imprint of a wave on the seashore. The imprint is not the wave itself but it points to the passing of the wave there. Just so, joy is not the objective but it points to the person who is the giver of joy. Real joy is the result of being in the presence of God in our world.

As a child joy is readily available, and as we grow older we change. Part of this change might be to put our hope in other things, things like progress. Hope in technological progress has for many replaced hope placed in the real God. But that no longer works for me. I went back to my river when I was forty-something and I found it all but gone. The channel was there but in the interest of flood mitigation the banks were cleared of the foliage and the channel was straightened. The science was good and I am sure it helped with the prevention of floods. But for me the heart of the river was broken; the clean banks and the straight channel meant no pools would form; it looked like a big irrigation ditch.

This is not a lament but a reality check. Don’t put your hope in a thing or a process, put your hope in a person. I am sure when I meet the Person I will also find my river again. So make your hope the Hope, a person who loves you with a love that will never change. A redeemer who is God with us, Emmanuel, and who is our Joy.

This homily came about because of a remark by Pope Benedict in Spe Salvi: “Our redeemer brings us the promise of eternal life which is “a plunging into a vast ocean of infinite love - a moment in which time no longer exists. Such a moment is life in the full sense, a plunging ever anew into the vastness of being in which we are simply overwhelmed by Joy!” Jn 16:27 Jesus promises us in his farewell: “I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice and no one will take your joy from you.” In this hope I say - Rejoice in the Lord always!. I say it again. Rejoice! The Lord is near.