Gaudete 2023

Gaudete – The Third Sunday of Advent

December 17, 2023

Last Wednesday evening, our school children sang repeatedly, Gaude! Gaude! It’s the Latin refrain to O Come, O Come, Emmanuel. Gaude is “rejoice” – Gaude! Gaude! “Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to you, O Israel!” That same word shows up in the name for this Sunday: Gaudete: “Rejoice!”

These Latin names for the Sundays typically come from the Introit, the first Psalm in the Divine Service. Well, it’s usually a Psalm, but today it begins with Philippians 4:4, “Gaudete in Domino semper. Iterum dico: Gaudete!” (“Rejoice in the Lord always. I will reiterate: Rejoice!”).

Life goes through seasons. Some days, or years, it doesn’t feel there’s much to rejoice about. Some people are determined to fight. The Psalm says, “I am for peace, but they are for war.” In this life people often show themselves to be our enemies. We want peace. But there is something in the human spirit, a corruption. This corruption of the heart imitates the Satan. In Hebrew, the satan is the accuser. Enemies are quick to accuse us, sometimes unjustly. Jesus bears it in silence. Do we? No, too often, in turn, we are quick to assume the worst about others. Thus we become their satan, their accuser. Our only rejoicing, then, is at the downfall our enemy. This is not the proper Gaudete, the proper rejoicing.

In a sermon for Christmastide, St. Augustine addressed another kind of false rejoicing, evil rejoicing. In his day, many went to the arena to see men fighting to the death. He said they find “vain joy” in human destruction. Such men “enslave themselves to the triumph of a perverted desire.” That theme of desire—Disordered desire—runs throughout Augustine's writings. Disordered desire, perverted desire holds so much power over the fallen heart.

In the sermon I mentioned, Augustine portrays the heart as in a battle: Will I run toward the desire, or instead run to prayer? The man himself is in a conflict, and he’s the object of the conflict. Either he is conquered by his desire, or conquered by Christ. The one who resists the temptation and hastens to the church instead of the arena, he has “overcome, not some mere human person, but the devil himself, the most vicious hounder of souls in all the world.”

We’re still talking about Gaude, Gaudete - rejoicing. In all this talk about conflict, the struggle with disordered desire, Augustine quotes, or rather misquotes, a saying of Jesus. There’s this beautiful passage in the Upper Room Discourse: “Take heart”—or in some English translations, “Be of good cheer”—“I have overcome the world.” The Vulgate, the Latin translation, has sed confidete, “but have confidence,” but Augustine changes it to the name of this Sunday, Gaudete, “Rejoice”: “Rejoice, because I have overcome the world.”

What does this mean? It means that confidence—or faith—is not so much an intellectual proposition, but a joy that in Jesus the outcome of the trial is already certain. Rejoice, because Jesus has overcome the world; He has overcome the darkness of your heart, and the darkness of death. You are free from the despair.

That strikes me as a much richer way to think about our troubles. In the midst of temptations and trials, don't just hang on, hang in there. No, Augustine is telling us, Rejoice in the trial, for the Lord Jesus has already conquered.

And that’s what John the Baptist is doing when he sends his disciples to go talk to Jesus. John is in prison, soon to be beheaded. He had dared remind King Herod that the Sixth Commandment, “You shall not commit adultery,” was still God’s Law. Since the time he had baptized Jesus, John had been telling his disciples to go follow Jesus. “Look, that’s the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. Go follow Him.” But some of them stuck with John. They believed in him! His preaching had been wildly successful, but now it all seemed to be unraveling. Doubt fills their hearts. Despair. Darkness. “What was this all for? We’ve wasted our lives.”

From his prison cell, John sends them to Jesus. “Go ask Him your questions. See what He says.” And Jesus shows them the messianic signs from Isaiah. The lame walk; the lepers are cleansed; the blind see; and with it, the gospel is preached: the good news of the God who forgives sin.

This is the God whose Advent we await. If Christmas is just time off, food, family, it’s all fleeting. We are called to the radical rejoicing in the stuff the world cannot see. Forgiveness even when your enemies want a pound of flesh. “Let your reasonableness be known to everyone.” Reasonableness – it’s hard to translate; it means moderation, gentleness. Not seeking revenge, not trying to win. Just rejoicing in the Jesus who has already won, who cannot be conquered.

That’s how the martyrs went to their death. So don’t worry about those who tell lies about you, slander you, or hurt your reputation. Forgive. Rejoice. Be at peace. The Lord is at hand. Rejoice, Immanuel! For Emmanuel shall come to you. In Him shall you live, in Him shall you die, and His shall you be forever.