Picture this. I’m the oldest. My siblings are coming into the house from outside. I say to them: Wipe your feet. What they hear is “wipe your feet because if you don’t you’re an ignorant slob and you deserve a beating.” Next scene. My sibling are coming into the house from outside. My sister is there instead of me and she says to them: Wipe your feet. What they hear from her is “wipe your feet because mother has worked hard to keep things clean we all need to cooperate to keep it that way.” The identical message but experienced in very different ways. Something similar is going on in the preaching of John the Baptist and Jesus. The gospels report that both of them began their ministry saying, “Reform your lives. The kingdom of God is at hand.” When John the Baptist says it you hear: you sinners had better shape up because the day of the Lord is coming and there will be, quite literally, hell to pay. When Jesus says it you hear: when the day of the Lord comes you want to put on your finest clothes and be well scrubbed so that you can enter into the divine celebration. The same message – “reform your lives, the kingdom of God is at hand” — but different ways of understanding what it means. That helps explain the difficulty that John the Baptist had in recognizing Jesus. The Baptist confessed “I am not the one.” He knew that he was preparing the way. He knew that another was coming after him. When he saw Jesus echoing his message you can imagine the Baptist thinking “he must be the one.” However, instead of fire and brimstone, instead of wrath and fear as he had preached, Jesus speaks of the love of God, of the mercy of God. Hence, his confusion: “are you the one who is to come?” Jesus answers not by listing his credentials but by pointing out the signs of the coming kingdom of God that both of them preached: the blind see, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor hear good news preached. He basically is saying, these are the actions that demonstrate that God has visited his people. They prove who I am better than any resume.
Ultimately these two approaches – that of John the Baptist and that of Jesus – reflect different ideas about God. Since we are in the Advent season, the time when we reflect on what it means that God-is-with-us, Emmanuel, we should take the opportunity to examine our own ideas about God. Do we believe more in the God that John the Baptist preached? One who is making a list and checking it twice and going to find out who is naughty and nice. If you are nice you get presents and if you are naughty you get a lump of coal, a God who metes out reward or punishment behind an impenetrable veil. Or do we believe in the God that Jesus preached? God as our heavenly Father who loves us unconditionally from the first moment of our existence not because of anything we have done but simply because of who we are – the children of God. Do we pray like a shopper placing an order on-line or do we pray like a child curling up in the lap of one’s parent?
Notice that Jesus does not pooh-pooh John the Baptist. In fact, he nominates him as the MVP – the most valuable person. “Among those born of women there has been none greater than John the Baptist.” He’s a ten for looks, he’s a ten for the smarts, he’s a ten for the drive, he’s a ten for personality — that makes him the greatest. So we shouldn’t toss away the approach of the Baptist like an old shoe. It has its place. It is valuable to understand that judgment is coming. However, following the way of Jesus, meeting the God whom Jesus preached, even if we are the “least in the kingdom of heaven” makes us greater than the MVP. How can that be? Because in the kingdom of heaven it’s not what we make of ourselves but what God makes of us that counts. Kingdom people are greater than the greatest because we filled not with the “tens” of our own achievements but with the infinite graces of God. So what if we’re not the best looking, the smartest, the richest. We are precious gems in the kingdom of God because grace has made us so.
All of which leads to this moment, to this Sunday. We wear pink today (they call it “rose” but it looks pink to me – somewhere between “blush” and “bashful.”) We do so to recognize that this is Gaudete Sunday – the Sunday of Joy, celebrated on the third Sunday of Advent. Certainly we are joyful because of the coming of Christ at Christmas. But our joy is not limited to a nostalgic recalling of the stable and the manger and the ox and lamb keeping time pa-rum-pum-pum-pum. We are full of joy not just because of what happened two thousand and nineteen years ago (give or take a few years) in Bethlehem but what God is doing today in Chicago. On this Sunday we rejoice that God came to us in the past in the person of Jesus. But we also rejoice because of the presence of God in our lives through prayer, through this community, through the Blessed Sacrament. On this Sunday we rejoice that Jesus proclaimed good news to the poor. But on this Sunday we also rejoice that we see the face of Jesus in the least of our brothers and sisters. On this Sunday we rejoice that Mary said yes to becoming the mother of God. But on this Sunday we also rejoice that we too can bring Christ to birth through our lives, through our example, through our witness. We experience the joy of Christmas by living each day and at every place in the presence of the God who is with us.