Lesson from Fr. Paulus | St. John the Baptist’s Message Inspires Lasting Joy

Once again today, as happens so frequently during Advent, St John the Baptist takes center stage. Often, in paintings and movies, for example, John the Baptist is depicted as an ill-tempered, fire-and-brimstone preacher who scared people into repentance.

There's something wrong with that picture. First, such a conception fails to explain how he was able to attract such huge crowds and win over so many hearts. And second, it misses the main point of his message: that salvation is at hand!

That message is just the opposite of dark, ominous, and foreboding. In fact, when we truly understand and accept it, it is the source of a deeper joy than any other we can experience in this life. And that's the whole point of today's celebration.

The Third Sunday of Advent is Gaudete [gow-DAY-tay] Sunday, the Sunday of rejoicing. That's why today's readings mention the word "joy" twelve times.

Jesus didn't come to intimidate and oppress us; he came to save us. Salvation, friendship with God, the fullness and security of living in communion with our Creator and Redeemer, of being "gathered into the barns" of his eternal and sublime Kingdom…

This is the message of Christmas, the message we have been thinking about during these weeks of Advent.

In today's Second Reading, St Paul actually commands us to "rejoice in the Lord ALWAYS." And just in case we thought he was exaggerating, in the very next sentence he says, "I say it again, rejoice!"

We can only rejoice "always" if our joy is based on something that goes deeper than the passing pleasures of this world. What is that deeper thing? Salvation; friendship with God; something that never ends, and something no one can take away from us.

That is the source of a Christian's joy, and that is the gift Jesus brings us.

The Difference of Christian Joy

The joy of Christ the Savior is different from the joys of the world in three ways.

First, it doesn't wear out. This is because it comes from something that is alive: our relationship with Christ. This is why the Christmas tree is an evergreen tree. In winter, the other trees are leafless and dormant. But the evergreen tree is still green and fragrant. The evergreen symbolizes hope amid winter's lifeless, cold, and dark days.

Second, Christ's joy gets more and more intense as we advance in our journey of faith. This is why the vestments for today's Mass are rose-colored. They remind us of the color of the sky at the very brink of morning, when the sun is just beginning to come up. The horizon takes on a pale rose color that gradually gets redder and brighter as the sun rises. For faithful Christians, life is like a long sunrise, and death is the entrance into the bright, everlasting day of eternal life.

Third, the more we give this joy to others, the more we will have for ourselves. And this, of course, is why we have the tradition of exchanging gifts on Christmas. Jesus himself told us that "It is more blessed to give than to receive" (Acts 20:35).

We have all experienced that when we do something for others, even if it is costly or uncomfortable for us, we experience true fulfillment and satisfaction. But when we give into our selfish, self-centered tendencies, we shrivel up, like Scrooge. Like the candle-light service on Christmas Eve, by lighting someone else's candle with ours, we lose nothing, and gain more light and warmth than we had before.

This is the joy Jesus wants to bring to us: a lasting, growing, self-multiplying joy that comes from accepting God's gift of our Savior.

Imitating Jesus Better

If friendship with Jesus Christ is the source of lasting joy, then the deeper and more mature this friendship is, the more fully we will experience lasting joy. The Church's best spiritual writers all agree that this friendship depends on three things: knowing, loving, and imitating Jesus Christ.

The fact that we are here today shows that all of us, at least to some extent, already know and love Jesus Christ. But what about imitating him? If someone were to follow us around with a video camera from the moment we left today's Mass to the moment we arrive for next Sunday's Mass, what kind of behavior would they record? Would our daily, weekday lives reflect a conscious, concerted effort to imitate our Lord's honesty, integrity, purity, and self-forgetful, self-sacrificial love?

Advent still has two weeks left. Let's make this our goal: to strive to be imitating Jesus better at the end of these two weeks than we do today. And I think we all know exactly how to make that happen:

First of all, we need to start out each day in prayer, because without God's help, we can do nothing. Then we simply need to make a decent effort to treat our neighbors as we would like them to treat us – family members first, then friends, colleagues, teammates, and strangers.

We wouldn't want them to criticize and gossip about us behind our backs. We wouldn't want them to ignore our needs and problems. We wouldn't want them to harbor anger and resentment against us, even if we deserved it.

If we strive to know, love, and imitate Christ just a little bit better each day, our friendship with him will never grow cold, and, little by little, our lives will become true fountains of Christian joy.