Posted by Third Sunday in Advent
Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say, rejoice. Let your moderation be known to all men. The Lord is at hand. Be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication let your requests be made known to God.
Today is the Third Sunday of Advent, commonly called Gaudete Sunday. Gaudete means to rejoice and it is a day in which the penitential sobriety of this Advent season is relaxed and the theme is one of rejoicing. We hear the rousing words from St. Paul’s epistle to the Philippians to rejoice in the Lord always. Whereas St. Paul’s epistles are usually addressed to specific problems in the Church the main theme of his letter to the Philippians is one of thanksgiving. He gives thanks for the Philippians support for his ministry and states how he has learnt in all things to be content, despite all the trials and tribulations of this life. He commends a similar attitude of thanksgiving and rejoicing to the Philippians, assuring them that the peace of God which passes all understanding will keep their hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
But, we might say, that was then and now the problems that our society faces are so great that it is impossible for us to rejoice. It is certainly true that western societies are finding themselves to be in a seemingly endless series of crises. The Enlightenment philosophy of solving the world’s problems through the application of reason and science seems to have run out of steam, and we have lost faith not only in Christianity, but in reason and science as well. Whereas traditionally the Christian faith had seen the world in terms of supernatural purpose in contrast to the cyclical worldview of paganism which saw the world in terms of natural process like the changing patterns of the seasons, the Enlightenment believed it could escape from this contrast by seeing the world in terms of purposive process. There was no need to rely on any God for the human race could rely on its own efforts. Through the application of reason and science the world was gradually getting better and better. There was now no need to rely on the consolations that earlier ages had found in religion, whether Christian or pagan, since it was now possible to finally create a civilised, but non- religious humanity that would finally transcend the wars and conflicts of the past.
Today that confidence has disappeared. We now live in an age that calls itself post- modern and are no longer taught to believe in reason and science in the old sense. We no longer put our faith in objective knowledge but believe that every human being needs to create his or her own truth. In one sense this is is a positive development in that it finally recognises that post- Enlightenment western societies were naive in thinking that the application of reason and science would solve all our problems. But in denying that there is any truth other than what we create for ourselves it is ultimately leading to a sense of despairing resignation in which people no longer believe in Christianity nor in reason and science but simply in themselves. But without any fixed ideals we are left without any hope of improving our situation. Hence, our society drifts aimlessly from one crisis to another and, lacking any clear beliefs, people increasingly accept the view that they can no longer take responsibility for their own actions, but have to rely on an increasingly totalitarian state to reach all the decisions for them. It is a strange paradox that this is an age of conservativism precisely because it is a time when people have given up believing in any transcendent reality or objective truth, but only now seem to believe in themselves.
But it is precisely this sense of despairing resignation in our society today that may help us recover the true reason for our rejoicing as Christians. It was hard for post- Enlightenment western people to believe in Christianity because it seemed a relic of a former age. Whereas Christians believe that the climax of history had occurred in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, the enlightenment saw the world as reaching the highest point of development through the application of reason and science. Hence, orthodox Christianity seemed incredible. But now that we no longer share the naive optimism of the enlightenment in reason and science it may become easier to embrace the Christian faith. For orthodox Christianity had always taught us that we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves and that the problem of the human condition is too great for it to be possible to escape it through our own efforts. In this sense post-modernism has helped us to reacquaint ourselves with the reality of fallen human nature. This clearly shows that one series of problems only leads to another and it is naive to suppose that things are getting better all the time. Quite clearly they are not, and it often seems that they are getting worse. But unlike the post-modernist philosophy of despairing resignation about any hope of improvement we as Christians know that we have to look outside of ourselves to find our true ground of rejoicing. We can learn to find contentment in all things, despite all the trials and tribulations of this life, because we have faith not in ourselves, but in God, who created us and has redeemed us in Christ.
Let us make our own St. Paul’s words to rejoice in the Lord always, to let our moderation be known to all men, for the Lord is at hand. Be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication let our requests be made known to God. May the peace of God that passes all understanding keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus and may we find in him that true peace which the world cannot give.