There is a single rose coloured candle in the Advent wreath, a pale pink spire amid the faintly scented evergreen boughs and the stately purple columns that mark each Sunday of the season of preparation. The delicate pink candle is lit on the penultimate Sunday of Advent. Not on the last Sunday of the season, or on Christmas Eve itself, but somewhere near the end. Not quite at the end, but nearby. Some Christian traditions are more formalized than others and in the protestant way, we might talk about Hope, Love, Joy and Peace during the yuletide season as abstract or spiritual realities of our faith but we probably have to look up which idea belongs to which Sunday anew each year. It is easy to forget why one candle somewhere near the end of the season is different than all the others.
The third Sunday of Advent is Gaudete Sunday to our liturgical brethren. Joy Sunday. An idea that encompasses so much more than those three letters can convey. It is the unrestrained response of joy and elation as we come to the place where our waiting ends and our anticipating begins in earnest.
Rejoice! The Lord is nigh!
He’s almost here.
It is the moment when the engine revs before power hits the wheels. It is when the orchestra all comes into tune as one sound for the opening bar of a performance. It is when the beginning is about to begin. Rejoicing Sunday is the Sunday when those who have been waiting spontaneously break into cheers at the entrance of the star. Every nerve taut, every thought focused; as anticipation culminates in what is about to be fulfilled.
Advent, as a season of preparation is characterized by both repentance and wild celebration. David danced with wild abandonment before the Lord as the Ark of the Covenant which carried the very presence of God between the wings of the cherubim on the Mercy Seat was brought into Jerusalem. The king’s worship of the Most High’s presence returning to dwell amongst His people Israel was total and utterly forgetful of himself, so great was his joy at God being with His people.
That is the promise of advent and of Gaudete Sunday. God will soon be among us. The Ark of the Lord is coming into the city of our God. Abandon yourself to worship as the divine Logos is clothed in flesh and reveals to us His name: Emmanuel.
God with us.
