In the Pink...

In the Pink

Gospel for the Third Sunday of Advent: 

Matthew 11.2-11

This can be a really wild week for parents and teachers. It is the last week before a vacation, and we are both wound up and wiped out at the same time. We tried slowing down and pausing ( see last week's blog ), but it's really quite impossible - the kids are really fired up, and there's a full moon, and there's chicken pox in the classroom... and...

 What should be a joyful time has become stressful, annoying, and tiresome. 

I guess for most of us, we're not in the pink.  

(Ever wonder where we get an expression like that? From all accounts, it comes from Elizabethan England. Shakespeare has Mercurio say " I am in the pink of courtesy" in Romeo and Juliet. It may be connected to the Dianthus flower, or "Pinks", one of Elizabeth I's favorites. She thought them excellent, so perhaps being amongst them meant you were in an excellent state.)

 

This Sunday the Church was "in the pink", as we lit the rose colored candle of the Advent wreath. This represents the beginning of a week of great joy, and  we call the third Sunday of Advent Gaudete Sunday. It takes its name from the Entrance Antiphon (which we seldom hear, because it is usually replaced by the opening hymn). In Latin the entrance antiphon of the Third Sunday of Advent begins "Gaudete in Domino semper" 

Rejoice in the Lord always.

 Always.

Like John the Baptist in his prison cell, asking if Jesus is the one.

Like Jesus who rejoices in John: "Truly I tell you, among those born of women, no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist."

But the Gospel today gives us an even greater reason to rejoice.

Our Lord is among us!

When John's disciples ask Jesus if he was the "One who is to come", Jesus tells them to tell " what they see and hear".

But isn't strange that Jesus has to tell them what they are seeing and hearing? 

"Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have the good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offence at me."

Could they not see that for themselves? Perhaps I'm reading too much into this. Perhaps this is merely a literary device used by Matthew to bring across the point that the Scriptures were being fulfilled.

But I think the point is this- its not that the miracles that proclaim the reign of God are not present to be seen and heard, it is that we have lost the capacity to see or hear them.

  Every day those who had been blind to the reality of God are having their eyes opened,

Every day those paralyzed by fear and hopelessness are being touched by God and moving forward.

 Every day someone is hearing the Good News for the first time.

Every day people who were dead inside are being brought back to life.

Every day our lives become richer when we receive the light of Christ. 

It is up to us as his disciples to see the world immersed in the grace of God, and to share that Good News with others.

And then our lives, and  our world, will truly be

in the pink.

For this week:

Share the joy of the Lord with one of these videos:

• "The Piano Guys" play Angels we Have Heard on High
• "The Skit Guys" present salvation history with Come Thou Long Expected Jesus