3rd Sunday of Advent
If your 2020 has been anything like mine, you’ve probably spent a good portion of it in front of a screen (or maybe several screens at once). Maybe for school, maybe for work, or even for a Zoom Thanksgiving. But at the end of the evening when your laptop is finally closed, you’ve likely sat on the couch and watched more than a few movies. Some movies are standalone and great in themselves, but with the extra time this year at different points, I’ve gotten to revisit some of my favorite movies with sequels, trilogies, and extended universes.
Maybe you’ve done this too, and you’ve had the experience of a family member sitting down with you to watch a Star Wars, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, or Avengers movie from somewhere in the middle of the series. Then about 20 minutes in, they ask something like: “Now who is this guy again?” or “What does this [insert critical object to the plot] have to do with anything again?” After rolling your eyes, you probably took a few minutes to explain the crucial backstory they missed, or maybe you even stopped the movie and went back to the beginning of the series to catch them up.
Sometimes when we get to our biggest feasts of the Church calendar like Christmas and Easter, we run into the same situation; only this time we are the ones missing the important backstory. We might know the basics of the story of Jesus’ birth and the same for his passion, death, and resurrection; but what about all these Old Testament stories and names we hear about during Advent and Lent leading up to those important feasts? Sure, Christmas and Easter are still enjoyable and powerful, but if you’ve seen the Old Testament “movies” leading up to them so to speak, it starts to become more clear WHY Christmas and Easter are so important.
So on this Third Sunday of Advent, let’s take a look at our First Reading from the prophet Isaiah and back up a bit. Isaiah was writing to the people of Israel who, to make a very long yet worthwhile story short, have had a lot of ups and downs in their relationship with God. They cry out to God in their slavery in Egypt, and through Moses and the events of the Passover story, he delivers them. They turn away, experience the consequences of their sin, and then God forgives them and welcomes them back. Then they turn away, experience the consequences of their sin, and then God forgives them and welcomes them back. Then again, they turn away, experience the consequences of their sin, and then God forgives them and welcomes them back. Over and over.
Much of the book of Isaiah deals with God making promises of hope to this people, a major promise of which is that the Messiah will come to set things right and usher in the realities of perfect peace, justice, mercy, and love. So in the First Reading this Sunday, Isaiah speaks of this anointed one who will say, “The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me; he has sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor, to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners, to announce a year of favor from the LORD and a day of vindication by our God.”
So what does that have to do with Christmas? Well, adult Jesus in Luke’s Gospel reads from that scroll in the synagogue and then tells everyone, “Today, this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” That certainly caught everyone’s attention! In the next couple of years, Jesus’ ministry, passion, death, and resurrection would back up that claim.
Which brings us back to Advent and Christmas. Compared to Isaiah’s original audience, we have a unique vantage point as Christians. Because we know how the story ends! In other words, we know that all of these prophecies are fulfilled in Jesus. So I don’t know about you, but when I hear that reading from Isaiah 61, it’s like watching a movie with someone who hasn’t seen it yet. I want to say to them, “Oh, I love this part – pay attention to it, that’s going to come into play later,” and then watch your sister’s mind be blown when the 7th movie ties everything perfectly together. So I challenge you when you hear readings at Mass, don’t tune out the Old Testament readings, they help us realize how great indeed is Emmanuel that has “come to thee, O Israel.”
