3rd Sunday of Advent, Dec.

15, 2013 (Isaiah 35:1-6a, 10; James 5:7-10; Matthew 11:2-11) For the third week in a row an Isaiah passage speaks of Mt. Zion as a place of restoration and hope for exiles. This time the desert will undergo a creative restoration and redemption by the hand of the Lord. The redemption will include the forgotten and the infirm. The blind, the deaf, the lame, and the mute all together represent the forsaken in Israel whom the Lord will redeem (ransom). Their joy and gladness will cause all sorrow and mourning to flee. The theme of joy is the focus of the Third Sunday of Advent (Gaudete which means rejoice). The Church rejoices that the Lord is present with us to do all these good things which the prophet Isaiah envisioned. Appropriately we have a Gospel account which reflects John the Baptists concern about whether Jesus is the one who is to come or should we look for another? Jesus points to the works he has done thus far in the Gospel and tells them to report what they see and hear to John. So far in Matthew, Jesus has cleansed a leper, cured the centurions paralyzed servant, cured many sick people, exorcised many demon possessed people, restored life to an officials daughter, healed two blind men of their affliction, and healed a mute person by restoring his speech. Additionally, he preached the Gospel throughout the towns and villages of Galilee. This enables Jesus to answer the Baptists disciples as he does. It also indicates how the evangelists saw in Jesus the fulfillment of prophetic visions like that of Isaiah in the first reading. This means that they saw in Jesus (the one who is to come) in a dramatic new way. He is not only the one about whom the prophets spoke, but as one who acted as only God could act. Moreover, the healings Jesus performed were always looked at as an affirmation of his teaching.

If he could teach in this way, then his healings and exorcisms supported and validated his teachings. On the other hand, if he could heal people as he did, then it supported and validated the authority of his teaching as coming from God. The disciples of John and the Baptist himself would have to consider these things. This then leads Jesus (and Matthew) to reflect on the importance of the Baptist himself. We note Jesus addresses the crowds, not the disciples of John. Jesus (or Matthew) combines Exodus 23:20 and Malachi 3:1 in describing who John is. This is the one about whom it is written: Behold I am sending my messenger ahead of you; he will prepare your way before you. The wording is slightly different in Hebrew in Exodus and in Malachi about the sending of the servant but the sense is the same. In both passages the Lord is sending a messenger. In Malachi my messenger is sent to prepare a way before me. Matthew has made the verse work so that John has been sent to prepare the way for Jesus. Here Matthew uses a literary device called fulfillment citations. That means Matthew finds Old Testament passages to underscore what he writes about Jesus. Here he interprets Johns relationship with Jesus as a forerunner, who had been prophesied in the Old Testament. This relationship between John and Jesus was hotly debated in the first century. John himself was also likely confused about Jesus. Thus we have a real first century question about Jesus, which Matthew answers by using Old Testament citations to underscore that Jesus really is doing the works of the Messiah.

Fr. Lawrence Hummer