The Sánchez Archives THIRD SUNDAY OF ADVENT YEAR A

By
Patricia Datchuck Sánchez

HOPES AND EXPECTATIONS

ISAIAH 35:16,10
JAMES 5:7-10
MATTHEW 11:2-11

I magine that you’ve just received your copy of the Judean Chronicle, a weekly news scroll published by the Sanhedrin Press. According to the power that be, it is the year 764 A.C. (ab urbe condita, or from the founding of the city, Rome). Tiberius is emperor, Pontius Pilate is his procurator in Palestine and Herod Antipas is tetrarch. As you turn to the classified section, you find the following notice:

Career requisites:

• must be of David descent
• must have regal character and qualities
• must have proven military skills and experience
• must be avid patriot
• should be orthodox in legal and religious observances
• should be possessed of ruthless determination to restore our nation to its former glory.

All interested and qualified candidates should present themselves to the Sanhedrin at the Beautiful Gate of the temple. Bring appropriate gifts for evening sacrifice.

At the bottom of the same page, you spot another advertisement:

Itinerant teacher and healer, loving son, seeking to further the business interests of his father, e.g. fishing, shepherding; desires association with anyone who will listen; hardship: not a deterrent. To make contact, ask any forgiven sinner, healed leper or former outcast.

As these two advertisements indicate, today’s readings will cause us to visit once again the differences between the popular expectation of the messiah and the manner in which Jesus chose to exercise his messianic commitment. His contemporaries looked for a hero to lead them forth against Rome; he came with a message of liberation and a ministry of healing in order to lead them home to the Father.

The first reading from the prophet Isaiah celebrates the healing and homecoming of Israel, freshly liberated from exile and making its way back to the promised land. In the second reading, James advises his contemporaries to be patient as they await the return of their messianic healer and Lord. Matthew’s gospel pericope for today features John the Baptizer asking Jesus “Are you He who is to come?” Jesus’ answer sheds new light on his contemporaries messianic hopes.

It is in his capacity as healer and liberator that we must also patiently await him who is to come during this advent season. So much in the world, so much in each human life is in need of the wholeness which Jesus alone can give. Given the situation in your life and in the world today, how would you update the ad entitled, “Wanted: Messiah”? How would it read?

But Advent is also a season for taking stock of the character of our service as disciples. As followers of Jesus, who has come into the world and who will come again, it has become our responsibility to continue his healing and liberating ministry. Identified with him through conversion and baptism, we are also daily graced by him to further his interests in this world. If you were to compose an ad, seeking employment as a Christian disciple, how would it read?

ISAIAH 35:16,10

Although liberation theology and its proponents are regarded as products of the postVatican II twentieth century Latin American Church, a genuine theology of liberation can be found as early as several centuries B.C.E., in the writings of the Hebrew prophets and psalmists. Like their modern day successors, the ancient authors understood that God has a passion for freeing the oppressed from bondage, be it economic, political, racial or cultural in nature. The prophets also taught that God listens to the cries of the poor and expects his faithful to hear their cries as his own voice calling for a change of the existing order. As Gustavo Gutiérrez has explained, “History is the scene of the revelation God makes of the mystery of his person. His word reaches us in the measure of our involvement in the evolution of history.” (“Faith as Freedom”, Horizons, Spring, 1975).

In today’s first reading from Isaiah, the prophet gives voice to the joy of his people, whose cries have been heard by God. Although this chapter is grouped with the writings of the eighth century B.C.E. Isaiah of Jerusalem (Isaiah 139), its similarities in content and style with the work of DeuteroIsaiah (sixth century B.C.E.) have caused scholars to regard it as a later appendix to the earlier prophet’s work.

From exile in Babylon, Israel called to God to put an end to its oppression. Through the people and events of human history (e.g. Cyrus and the Persian troops), they were to see his hand at work, answering their prayers and making it possible for them to return home. Their journey home is described by the prophet in terms reminiscent of the exodus from Egypt, that first experience of liberation which established them as a people, related to and personally loved by God. As they traveled the five to six hundred miles from Babylon to Judah, their liberation is reflected in the world around them; it is transformed. The desert flowers into a verdant garden, rivaling the lushness and richness of Lebanon, Carmel and Sharon. On the way, the frightened become bold, the feeble gain strength and the blind, the lame, the deaf and the mute are freed of their limitations by God’s healing power. Through all these liberating actions, the glory of the Lord (vs. 2) is being revealed for all to see. The early Christians understood that this same glory was reflected in Jesus’ liberating actions (John 1:14, 2:1, 11:40). These actions are referenced in today’s gospel as Matthew seeks to identify and explain the saving and liberating purpose of Jesus’ messiahship (Matthew 11:45).

During this Advent season, we are called to be more deeply attentive to the voice of God, speaking through the cries of the suffering, the poor and the oppressed. In our responses to their needs, God’s liberating glory is revealed.

JAMES 5:710

Too often, patience is thought of as a passive posture toward life which is assumed by the person who thinks he/she has exhausted all his/her other options and has no choice but to be resigned to a given situation. On the contrary, patience or hupomene in Greek is a passion motivated by love and expressed in endurance. In their commentary on this text, Thierry Maertens and Jean Frisque have remarked that all of scripture if filled with examples of divine patience. Regardless of their many infidelities, the people of Israel were never rejected or abandoned by Yahweh. He loved them with an enduring and forgiving love in spite of themselves. “Through his entire life, Jesus is the incarnation of divine patience in his attitude to sinners; no sin is capable of wrenching man away from the merciful power of the Father. It is worthwhile to notice how patience became in Christ one of the most fundamental expressions of self.” (Guide For the Christian Assembly, Fides Publishers Inc., Notre Dame: 1971).

When James exhorted his readers to be patient, he challenged them to make their own, the patience of Christ, whose passionate love enabled him to endure every hardship for their sake. The particular hardship which troubled James’ readers, and which occasioned his letter, was the delay of Jesus’ second coming. Writing ca. 6585 C.E., for second and third generation Christians, the author was probably not the apostle James, or leader of the Jerusalem community, but a Greekspeaking Jewish Christian who honored the other James with his pseudonymous attribution. Sympathetic to his readers, who longed for the parousia, James offered them two examples of patience, e.g. the farmer and the prophets.

In his first example, the author praised the farmer’s enduring spirit. With great patience, the farmer had to clear the land of stones, roots and weeds. Then he had to soften the earth by tilling and plowing. After he planted the seed, and had done everything he could to assure a harvest, he had to wait for the seed to grow and the rains to nurture it. Early rains which fell in late October and early November helped the seed to germinate. The late rains of April and May caused the grain to mature. Like the farmer who was required to patiently wait and attend to his fields, so must Christians diligently work and patiently wait for Christ’s appearance.

Citing the prophets, as his other example of patience, James recalled the long line of men and women who kept their people mindful of God’s word and will. He also counseled against mutual infighting (“do not grumble against one another”, vs. 9) which makes Christian commitment so difficult.

James’ words continue to speak a wise and practical lesson for believers. Microwaves, computer chips, fax machines and supersonic transport systems yield almost instantaneous results. But in the spiritual and moral domain, conversion and growth must necessarily be more prodding and deliberate. Today we are reminded to be patient people, viz. passionately motivated by love and willing to endure until he comes.

MATTHEW 11:211

After hearing this gospel proclaimed, there may be an inclination to ask: Is this the same John the Baptizer who was featured in last Sunday’s gospel (Matthew 3:112) announcing the advent of Jesus? Is this the same John who declared himself unfit to carry the sandals of the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire? How is it then, that today, John appears to be confused as to Jesus’ identity and his purpose. . . “Are you he who is to come or do we look for another?” (vs. 3). Obviously, it is the same John and the seeming confusion on his part necessitates that we look more carefully at the exchange between John’s disciples and Jesus.

By means of this conversation, the Matthean author was able to clarify two issues which continued to trouble the church in the 80s C.E. First, the evangelist underscored the fact that some continued to be scandalized (vs. 6) by the tenor of Jesus messiahship. Exercised in radical contradiction to popular expectation, Jesus’ ministry also ended in a way which shocked his contemporaries, viz. on the cross. Jesus’ response to John’s disciples entailed a series of healings and liberations which echoed the prophetic visions of Isaiah (29, 35, 61); these healings were already narrated by the evangelist in chapters five through ten of his gospel. Although, he did not conduct himself as was expected, Jesus was nevertheless the messiah in whom the good news of healing and liberation was realized on earth.

A second issue which was set to rest in the dialog between John’s disciples and Jesus was the relationship of the herald to the messiah. In Matthew’s day, and for several years after that, a group of John’s disciples continued to insist that he was indeed the messiah; as these loyal followers of John awaited his return, they were frequently at odds with the early Christians. For this reason, each of the evangelists emphasized John’s important but secondary and subordinate role in salvation history. In the second portion of today’s gospel, John’s role is delineated (vss. 711). A strong person, unshaken by hardships (remember that John was in prison at the time, vs. 2), John eschewed the luxuries of this world in order to prepare the way of the one who is to come. He exercised a prophetic ministry and even more importantly, he was, the herald of the messiah. In support of his description of John, the evangelist drew upon a combination of scriptural texts (Malachi 3:1, Exodus 23:20).

John, in his capacity as precursor of Jesus, was greater than anyone who had even lived; yet he stood on the brink of a new era of salvation in which even the least member of the kingdom would be greater than he. That very fact should cause every Christian believer to wonder at the incredible gift God has bestowed in Jesus. From our vantage point of grace on this side of the cross and resurrection, we are someone greater than John! Does the quality of our commitment to the healing and liberating ministry of Christ reflect that greatness?

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