postID: 6933; title: The Third Sunday Of Advent (Gaudete)
groupKey: secondary
groupKey: other
The Third Sunday Of Advent (Gaudete)
Stir up thy power, O Lord, and with great might come among us; and, because we are sorely hindered by our sins, let thy bountiful grace and mercy speedily help and deliver us; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with thee and the Holy Ghost, be honor and glory, world without end. Amen.
Array
(
[date] => 2008-12-14 00:00:00
[scope] =>
[year] =>
[month] =>
[post_id] => 135983
[series_id] =>
[day_titles_only] =>
[exclusive] => 1
[return] => formatted
[formatted] =>
[show_date] =>
[show_meta] =>
[show_content] => 1
[admin] =>
[debug] => 1
[filter_types] => Array
(
[0] => primary
[1] => secondary
)
[type_labels] => Array
(
[primary] => Primary
[secondary] => Secondary
[other] => Other
)
[the_date] => 2008-12-14 00:00:00
)
2 post(s) found for dateStr : 2008-12-14postID: 333115 (John of the Cross)
--- getDisplayDates ---
litdate post_id: 333115; date_type: fixed; year: 2008
fixed_date_str: December 14
fixed_date_str (mod): December 14 2008
formattedFixedDateStr: 2008-12-14
=> check date_assignments.
=> NO date_assignments found for postID: 333115
displayDates for postID: 333115/year: 2008
Array
(
[0] => 2008-12-14
)
postPriority: 999postID: 6933 (The Third Sunday Of Advent (Gaudete))
--- getDisplayDates ---
litdate post_id: 6933; date_type: variable; year: 2008
Variable date => check date_calculations.
=> check date_assignments.
=> NO date_assignments found for postID: 6933
displayDates for postID: 6933/year: 2008
Array
(
[0] => 2008-12-14
)
postPriority: 3primaryPost found for date: 2008-12-14 with ID: 6933 (The Third Sunday Of Advent (Gaudete))
The Third Sunday Of Advent (Gaudete)
Array
(
[date] => 2008-12-14 00:00:00
[scope] =>
[year] =>
[month] =>
[post_id] => 135983
[series_id] =>
[day_titles_only] =>
[exclusive] => 1
[return] => simple
[formatted] =>
[show_date] =>
[show_meta] =>
[show_content] => 1
[admin] =>
[debug] => 1
[filter_types] => Array
(
[0] => primary
[1] => secondary
)
[type_labels] => Array
(
[primary] => Primary
[secondary] => Secondary
[other] => Other
)
[the_date] => 2008-12-14 00:00:00
)
2 post(s) found for dateStr : 2008-12-14postID: 333115 (John of the Cross)
--- getDisplayDates ---
litdate post_id: 333115; date_type: fixed; year: 2008
fixed_date_str: December 14
fixed_date_str (mod): December 14 2008
formattedFixedDateStr: 2008-12-14
=> check date_assignments.
=> NO date_assignments found for postID: 333115
displayDates for postID: 333115/year: 2008
Array
(
[0] => 2008-12-14
)
postPriority: 999postID: 6933 (The Third Sunday Of Advent (Gaudete))
--- getDisplayDates ---
litdate post_id: 6933; date_type: variable; year: 2008
Variable date => check date_calculations.
=> check date_assignments.
=> NO date_assignments found for postID: 6933
displayDates for postID: 6933/year: 2008
Array
(
[0] => 2008-12-14
)
postPriority: 3primaryPost found for date: 2008-12-14 with ID: 6933 (The Third Sunday Of Advent (Gaudete))
Scripture citation(s): Isaiah 65:17-25
A Sermon by
Fr. Mead
on
Isaiah 65:17-25
✛
The Vision Glorious
Array
(
[0] => 60725
)
book: [Array
(
[0] => 60725
)
] (reading_id: 73362)bbook_id: 60725
The bbook_id [60725] is already in the array.
No update needed for sermon_bbooks.
For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind. Isaiah 65:17-25
In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Today’s prophecy from the end of the Book of Isaiah permeates the Gospel of Christ. It deeply influenced Jesus’ view of his ministry, as well as the Gospel writers’ view of the Person and Work of Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God. But let us first take a look at the prophecy’s context.
The setting is the return of the Babylonian Exiles, the reconstruction of Jerusalem and the rebuilding of its Temple – half a millennium before Jesus. Miraculous as this restoration was historically, the prophet sees beyond it into an entirely new order. His oracle reaches past the kingdoms of this world, even Israel’s, into such a new situation that he calls it “new heavens and a new earth.” It is not utterly disconnected from this world, but it is this world redeemed from its pain and brokenness.
The New Jerusalem will be a place where there is not to be heard the sound of weeping and the cry of distress. Lives will not be terminated, cut short of their God-given purpose, whether by the violence of man, by evil chance, illness, or other circumstance. There will be no more infants not brought to birth or that live but a few days, and no children sacrificed or otherwise born for calamity. The young shall come to maturity, and the mature shall not fall short of their calling and destiny. For “the child shall die a hundred years old.”
[On the other hand, the sinner, that is the impenitent, will go on for a hundred years and still be accursed in his own willfulness.]
There will be no alienation of the worker from his work and produce, no theft through oppression, fraud, or exploitation. There will be no laboring in vain, no grinding of the poor, no indolence and sloth; but rather people will build homes and inhabit them, plant vineyards and eat their fruit. “They shall not build another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat…and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands.” Here is a vision that transcends the programs of this world’s kingdoms; for it foresees that God’s children “shall not labor in vain, nor bring forth for trouble; for they are the seed of the blessed of the Lord, and their offspring with them.”
Best of all, the human race and the Lord their God will in fact be in immediate, natural communion and fellowship: “Before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.”
This is nothing less than Paradise Regained. Not only the calamities of man, but fallen nature, “red in tooth and claw,” are overcome. The fall of the devils themselves, twisting nature’s evolution into the predation, division, cruelty, killing, disease, and death (the “survival of the fittest”) which surrounds and even inhabits us and our environment – this too is overcome. “The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.” [Dust will be the serpent’s food.] “They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain.”
With this glorious vision before us, let us hold onto three things.
First, the ministry of Jesus, as we read it in the Gospels, incarnated this vision. The Lord cast out the unclean spirits which possess and oppress people’s lives. He bestowed health and sanity. The blind received their sight, the lame walked, the deaf heard and the dumb spoke. Lepers were cleansed. Jesus received outcasts into his fold. He welcomed sinners, dined with them, and gave them new life. He read hearts and minds; he foresaw events and destinies. He revealed his power even over the elements and nature. He raised the dead to life. He changed water into wine. Even the wind and the sea obeyed him. Yet his power was manifest in giving, not conquest. He laid down his life and allowed the powers of evil to seize him; to judge, to condemn and to kill him. In so doing, he defeated those powers, rising to life on the third day.
Second, the ministry of the Church, the Body of Christ through time and space, extends Jesus’ ministry. It radiates outward from what we do each Lord’s Day, celebrating the Eucharist, consecrating and receiving the living Body of Christ. Christ’s Church civilizes barbarians. It transforms civilizations. It makes the sanctity of human life and the equality of each life the very ground of all law, because the Lord himself not only created but died for each one of us, and set down the price of his own blood – his almighty love – as the value of our souls. Christ’s Church makes the poor a priority and justice an urgent matter of eternal, not just immediate, importance. It reconciles mortal enemies. It teaches stewardship of the gifts with which we have been entrusted. It promotes and guides science and medicine, vast enterprises of care and healing of the sick, so that it fulfills the Lord’s prediction: “Greater works than these shall ye do, because I go to the Father.” Christ’s ministry of loving service is universal, but it is also local, here, now, in this particular congregation.
This brings us to the third point. We are all aware of the enduring power of evil, including the sins of Christendom and the Church herself, even of some of the greatest disciples; certainly we know our own sin, despite our best intentions and resolves. Jesus and his Church brought the first fruits of the prophet’s vision. Listen to Isaiah’s visionary descendant in the New Testament, St. John the Divine, in his Revelation: “I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away… And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.”¹ God and his people will live together, forever. On the other side of death, from which Jesus rose and will manifest himself triumphantly as the Savior and Judge of the world on the last day, there is Paradise beyond imagining – not only reunions and introductions, but discovery and joy beyond description. We will not run out of time, nor will we fear time’s passing. When we’ve been there ten thousand years, we will have just begun.
In the meantime, in this Advent season, we have Christ’s birth to prepare for. We have the Good News of Jesus to receive and to share with one another. We have sins to repent of and good works to do. In so doing, we step into the new heaven and earth. Time sometimes seems long. The prophet himself asked, “Lord, how long?” But the Day is just around the corner. We need only watch, keep faith with the Lord, and love one another as he loves us.
In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.
__________
¹Revelation 21: 1-2
