Advent 3B​(Isaiah 61.1-4, 8-11; Psalm 126; 1 Thessalonians 5.16-24; John 1.6-8, 19-28)

I once heard on the radio, Fr. James Martin, the Jesuit priest sharing a Christian joke: “The good news is there is a Messiah. The better news is it's not you.” In a way, this joke debunks the Messiah complex in which one believes one is destined to become a savior. It is liberating to hear that everything is not really about us. It really is not about us. We are not called to be saviors. We tend to think, feel, and behave as if we matter too much and that things will not work without us. In the Christian tradition, however, we believe that we have the Messiah, Christ, and it is not us. It is God Himself who came to the womb of the vulnerable single teenage girl named Mary and was born to live and die as one of us in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, embodying the divine love. Knowing the good news that there’s a Messiah and the better news that it is not us implies that we know who the Messiah is and who we are not.

In today’s gospel reading, the Levites and priests ask St. John the Baptizer who he is. They want to know his true identity. They ask him the same question four times total. “John, who are you? Are you Elijah? Are you the prophet? What do you say about yourself?” St. John would’ve been quite annoyed as well as the ones who ask the same question over and over again. Maybe St. John didn’t know how to respond to their question. He might not have thought of his identity in relation to the Messiah. Yet, it is clear that he knows who he is not.

The gospel reading defines who he is in the beginning. St. John the Baptizer is the man sent from God. He comes as a witness to testify to the light so that all might believe through him. He himself is not the light but comes to testify to the light. This is actually the description of the gospel. What about St. John the Baptizer himself? How does he define his identity in relation to the light, the Messiah? He responded to the Levites and priests, “I am not the Messiah. I am not Elijah. I am not the prophet.” He finally comes to know who he truly is. “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord.’ as the Prophet Isaiah said.”

St. John seems to find his identity in the words of the Prophet Isaiah who says, “A voice cries out: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” (Isaiah 40:3) (We read this passage last Sunday.) As he reflects on these words of Isaiah, he not only keeps them close to his heart but he himself becomes the voice in the wilderness. The prophet voice in the wilderness, this is his true identity. It is quite ironic to say that he discovers his true “voice” as he becomes the “voice” itself in the wilderness that prepares the way of the Messiah, Jesus.

St. John is not the only person who finds who he is in the words of Isaiah. Jesus himself does the same thing. In the gospel according to St. Luke, there’s a scene in which Jesus goes to the synagogue on the sabbath day. He stands up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah is given to him. St. Luke depicts this whole thing rather dramatically. Jesus unrolls the scroll and finds the place where it is written: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:18-19; Isaiah 61:1-2a) Doesn’t this sound somewhat familiar to you? This is the first lesson from the Book of Isaiah that we heard through the voice of Nancy before.

Just like St. John the Baptizer, Jesus seems to find his true identity that responds to the will of God in the words of the prophet Isaiah. The spirit of the Lord God is upon Jesus. God has anointed him. He becomes the “anointed one” which is the definition of a Christ or a messiah. As the Messiah, as the anointed one, he is to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and to release the prisoners. In short, he as Christ is to set people free.

To this Jesus, the anointed one who comes to liberate people, St. John finds his identity, his true vocation as the prophetic voice in the wilderness that prepares the coming of the Messiah. I believe our identity and vocation is not too different from that of St. John. We know we are not the Messiah. We know we are not Elijah. We know we are not prophets. Yet just like St. John, we can be the “prophetic voice” in the wilderness like him. This vocation to be the voice that prepares the way of Jesus in our personal circumstances calls all of us here to find our own voice, the voice that God has given us to raise its voice to tell a story or sing a song to show how God has loved and healed us in Christ.

We might have a hard time finding our own voice that God has given us. Think about how your broken heart is bound up by God’s grace, that God mends the broken pieces of your heart and creates something beautiful and precious out of them. Remember the moments when you felt so released, liberated, and set free of all the chains that were pressing down and suffocating you. If you haven’t yet experienced these moments, then yearn, anticipate, and hope for God’s mercy in which you feel the forgiving and unconditional love of Christ. With our personal and thus communal experience of God’s compassion, we can find our own voice that praises God’s wonderful deeds in our lives.

We are celebrating today the third Sunday of Advent as what’s called “Gaudate Sunday.” Gaudate means rejoice. What do we rejoice about? We rejoice the coming of God in Jesus Christ who heals us, loves us, and never abandons us, no one in the world. In this sense, the prophetic voice of St. John the Baptizer is essentially the voice of joy. When he was in his mother Elizabeth’s womb and heard the greeting of Mary who had Jesus in her womb, he leaped out of joy! (Luke 1:41)

Let’s join the echo of St. John’s prophetic voice of joy. Let us respond to the call to be the voice of joy. We are the prophetic voice of joy that lives out God’s radical love revealed in Jesus of Nazareth. We bring our voices to the wilderness where there seems to be no hope or future or joy. We seek to hear the voices of those who are voiceless in the wilderness. The voice of freedom is to be shouted in the wilderness of oppression and suffering in our society. The voice of justice is to be proclaimed for the reign of God in the wilderness of idols and evil powers. Let us be courageous to be the voice that sings, “Those who sowed with tears will reap with songs of joy. Those who go out weeping, carrying the seed, will come again with joy, shouldering their sheaves.” (Psalm 126:6-7) We never cease to make a joyful noise because Jesus our true joy is coming. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.