3rd Sunday of Advent
R. Lord, come and save us.
Written by Steven Joubert
“It’s Advent, NOT Christmas.” As Catholics, a lot of times the way in which we engage with Advent is by trying to omit engaging with Christmas. We, correctly, see the world around us rushing into Christmas early (sometimes before Halloween) and upon seeing that we do our best to resist. We resist and we defy, and we do so by omittance. We say, “That’s Christmas music, we should be listening to Advent music.” “Those are Christmas colors, these should be Advent colors!” “Baby Jesus shouldn’t be in the manger yet!” Sound familiar? It seems like oftentimes, rather than really engaging with Advent, we just omit Christmas.
For this reflection I would like to try to create some connective tissue between our experiences of Advent and Christmas and try to engage with them both. I would like to look at our Responsorial Psalm during this Third Sunday of Advent, and the Christmas carol O Holy Night. Today’s Psalm response is so simple, yet also captures the present moment in the liturgical year. “Lord, come and save us,” is such a beautiful prayer and is derived from the previous reading. We pray these words immediately after hearing the prophecy from Isaiah. “...Be strong, fear not! Here is your God, he comes with vindication; with divine recompense he comes to save you.”
As we pray with these words “Lord, come to save us,” we are steeped into the great mystery of the Advent liturgy; making us present to the past and future. We push to imagine ourselves in the context of the ancient world, being a people waiting for the great Messiah to come set right a world gone awry. In the same breath, we realize that we are truly in this context. For we are also waiting for Jesus to return, with the same kind of hopeful, yet aching, anticipation. And this is where the words of O Holy Night play a part in our reflection.
Long lay the world in sin and error pining
Till he appear'd and the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope the weary soul rejoices
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn!
In this verse we have a beautiful, poetic articulation of the world’s position in terms of its relation to God. The word pining is something I have paid particular attention to over the past few years. The definition of pining is defined by Dictionary.com as “suffering with or expressing longing or yearning for someone or something.” In context of the lyrics, we can see the world in sin and error not just as an observation of its current state, but as an expression of the pining - yearning - the kind of achy anticipation being presented to us in the liturgy.
In the Catholic lens, sin is not just something humanity does because we suck. We see sin as a symptom of the human condition in its search for something deeper, something to fulfill it. In a word, God. The darkness and sinfulness that we endure and inflict on ourselves and others is, in the end, the exact space we can encounter the Lord during this Advent season. While, in danger of sounding cliche, how about instead of seeing our sin as something that keeps us from God; we can use it as the space of invitation - knowing that our sin is our messed up way of indicating that we are incomplete, fallen, in need of saving. We can pray, “Lord, come save us.”
While we are in sin and error - pining, we have the words of Psalm 146 to guide us in a prayer of hope.
“The LORD God keeps faith forever, secures justice for the oppressed, gives food to the hungry. The LORD sets captives free. The LORD gives sight to the blind; the LORD raises up those who were bowed down. The LORD loves the just; the LORD protects strangers. The fatherless and the widow he sustains, but the way of the wicked he thwarts. The LORD shall reign forever; your God, O Zion, through all generations.
Our God is coming! Let us not grow despondent in the midst of our shortcomings. Let us not show a lack of hope when the world around us goes dark. We wait in joyful hope for the Light of the World.
Steven Joubert is a high school campus minister in Florida. He is a singer-songwriter and NOVUM RECORDS artist. You can find his music on Spotify, Apple Music, and/or wherever you stream your music. To keep up with Steven, follow him on Instagram.
Pray with today’s psalm.