Fr. Roger J. Landry

Conversations with Consequences Podcast

Homily for the Third Sunday of Advent (A), Vigil

December 14, 2019

 

To listen to an audio recording of this short Sunday homily, please click below: 

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/12.13.19_Landry_ConCon_1.mp3

 

The following text guided today’s homily: 

* This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a joy to have a chance to ponder with you the consequential conversation God wants to have with us this Sunday.

* The followers of John the Baptist came to Jesus to ask him, “Are you the one who is to come or should we look for another?” John was imprisoned and his friends were likely wondering if Jesus were the long-awaited Messiah why he was waiting so long to do something. So John sent them to ask the question of Jesus directly. Jesus’ response was to show how he was fulfilling everything the Prophet Isaiah said the Messiah would do when at last he arrived: he has made the blind see, the lame walk, the deaf hear, the lepers have the skin of newborns, the dead live again and the poor have the good news proclaimed to them. He was doing everything Isaiah foretold. In fact, he was fulfilling everything all the prophets had foretold. But he was not meeting the expectations of those who thought that the Messiah would have a political mission, kicking out the Romans and their stooges like Herod, setting John free, and instituting an earthly kingdom. That’s why Jesus finished by saying, “Blessed is the one who takes no offense at me.” Some of them clearly were taking offense that Jesus was not behaving according to their political expectations. There are some people in every age, however, who don’t like the way the God-man chooses to reign. Not only does evil remain, but those who do evil often seem to get rich, hold political office, even commit atrocities against children, the defensely, or even those who are faithful to Jesus, like John the Baptist. It’s important for us to ponder Jesus’ words, “Blessed is the one who takes no offense at me.” Jesus would ultimately be crucified himself — the greatest scandal of all to worldly ideas of a Messiah — but he rose from the dead on the third day, and he can and does similarly draw good out of evil, and, rather than take scandal, we need to grow in trust.

* Jesus went on in this conversation to say some extraordinary things about John the Baptist. He praises him, calling him the greatest man born of woman. He says he is more than a prophet, but the one about whom it was written, “I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare the way before you.” He not only foretold the Messiah’s coming but pointed him out when at last he came and helped people prepare the way to follow him. John continues that work of preparation every second and third Sundays of Advent. He sends us to Jesus so that we might find out personally how Jesus is and follow him.

* But then Jesus says something about us in the Gospel. As great as John the Baptist was, Jesus says “the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” John could announce the Lord’s coming. He could point him out. But the least in the kingdom of heaven, into which we enter by Jesus’ baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire, is able to literally to receive the Lamb of God within — receive his very life, his words, his being — and live and reign in communion with him.

* So if John is more than a prophet, and the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he, we must really ponder our vocation and mission, who are called to be even greater than John. We’re called to do more than to point out Christ when he comes, but, together with Christ dwelling within, take him to others,