Are We There Yet?

3^rd Sunday of Advent

Cycle A

Are We There Yet?

Here we are, three quarters of the way through Advent, at Gaudete Sunday. Gaudete literally means “rejoice”, and today we light the rose colored candle on our advent wreath and hear readings all about joy. Amongst the cold and barrenness of winter a rose has bloomed. Have you ever wondered why we stop here, change directions a bit from our longing and waiting for Christmas, and rejoice? I think it’s sort of like when we were kids. We adults tend to forget what it was like when we were little waiting for Christmas. We get all caught up in the stress of the season and forget how much we used to look forward to the coming of Christmas. It is like what kids say on a long car trip, “Are we there yet?” Today we say, “Not quite yet, but soon. And won’t it be wonderful when we get there?”

To a child, the four weeks of advent seem like forever. Time flies by for us old folks, and it seems like suddenly Christmas is upon us and catches us unprepared. For kids, Christmas can’t come soon enough. For us, we see the days getting shorter, the nights getting longer, and we put up our decorations and send out our cards hoping that that will put us in the Christmas spirit. For a child, every tree and every light and every mall Santa is just another wonderful piece of the Christmas puzzle to put together into a joyful expectation. They press their noses up against the storefront glass to peer at the wonders within and count down the days and the hours.

I remember when I was five or six, sitting on the edge of my bed around 5 o’clock in the morning, Christmas Day. Just staring into the dark waiting for my parents to wake up. The rule was I could not go out into the living room to see what was under the tree until my parents came and got me, and I was forbidden to go wake them up. So I sat and waited and stared at the bedroom door, willing it to open. I stared so long at the dark that I remember actually seeing stars before my eyes. My expectation was so great my stomach hurt.

Are we there yet? Not yet, but soon.

Today we say gaudete, rejoice. Be joyful again. It’s been a long three weeks. Stop and take a minute to actually find the joy of Christ and of Christmas again. That’s why we light the rose candle. That’s why we hear joyful readings again. Next week we will return to thoughts of preparation and waiting. Today we rejoice that it’s soon and very soon.

A friend of mine once had a job that he really hated. When he finally got up the gumption to quit, I asked him what he felt when he did so. He replied, “I quit with mixed emotions: joy and happiness.” I think a lot of us have mixed emotions when it comes to joy and happiness. Actually, I think we often mix the two up.

There is a difference between joy and happiness. We all want to be happy. We all strive for happiness, heck, it’s even in the Declaration of Independence. We all have an inalienable right to pursue it. But how many of us have every felt truly joyous? Happiness is fleeting, joy is so much more. Happiness is an emotion, how we feel at the moment, and it is the result of our reaction to events in our lives. I can be happy this moment and sad the next. Some people bounce back and forth between the two constantly. But joy is not a feeling, not an emotional response.

Joy is a state of being. Joy is an attitude. Joy is the wonder of knowing.

Joy does not depend upon happiness. Joy does not depend upon the things you have. Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia said yesterday, “One of the biggest sadnesses of modern life is this: We’ve mistaken comfort for happiness, and as a result, the pursuit of satisfaction has taken away our joy. We live in a culture increasingly based on the strange idea that whatever we want, we deserve — and we should have it, right now; a culture that constantly teases our appetites, fabricates new “needs” and then urges us to want more. This is a recipe for discontent.”

Your possessions can give you fleeting happiness, but it is always on the surface. The pursuit of happiness most often leads to much unhappiness. Joy is so much deeper, and paradoxically, joy can most often be found in the midst of great suffering. You don’t pursue joy. You become joy.

Dominique Lapierre, a medical doctor, wrote a book in 1992 called City of Joy, that chronicled his experience living and working in the slums of Calcutta, notorious for being a hell hole of human misery. What shocked him the most during his time there was that, in spite of living in such abject poverty, most people lived in a space no larger than a pup tent and resorted to scrounging in trash heaps for scraps of food, and horrific physical suffering, there was such a strong sense of peace and joy among them. Where you thought there would be selfishness and hoarding and violence there was instead giving and sharing and love. No one ever stole from someone else’s tent, even when they themselves were starving. Everyone looked out for everyone else. They didn’t share in their suffering, they shared their joy. Because that’s all they had of value.

You see, joy is contagious. I think we all know someone who radiates joy. It’s hard to pin down, and often you recognize it only when you see it, but there’s just something about them that you know is joyful. It’s no accident that Mother Teresa served in Calcutta and always radiated such joy. She received joy from her service to the needs of others, and others received joy from her service. Joy comes from the pursuit not of personal happiness but the happiness of others.

That is the mission of the Church. The Church truly is not about rules and regulations, do’s and don’ts. The Church is not about fear, the Church is not about us versus them. The Church is about joy. Pope Francis tweeted Friday morning, "We cannot think of a Church without joy. This is the joy of the Church: announcing to all the name of Jesus."

Announcing to all the name of Jesus. Just like John the Baptist did. The pope just published his apostolic exhortation, Evangelli Gaudium, “The Joy of the Gospel” The joy of the good news of Jesus Christ. Strip away all the other stuff and that is the core of Christianity. God became man so that man could become god, and that is the greatest news humanity has ever heard. No matter how much we suffer, no matter how much we fight, no matter how much we screw things up, God still came among us. God still loved us so much that he gave his only begotten son to us. God has given us hope, and that hope can and does overcome anything the world can throw at us.

We are preparing to celebrate that hope next week. Are we there yet? Nope, not yet, but soon. So press your nose up against the glass and peer at what’s inside. Let the expectation be so great within you it actually hurts. I hope that you have sometime in your life felt deep joy and recognized it for what it was. I hope you have been in the presence of someone who is joyful. I hope your joy will fill you up until you feel you will explode. Let it fill you. Let it explode from you so it gets all over those around you.

Let there be joy to the world. Let earth receive her king. Let every heart prepare him room and let heaven and nature sing.

Gaudete!