We have a beautiful lyrical movement from the Second Sunday of Advent to this Third Sunday: Gaudete Sunday, the Sunday to rejoice and give praise. Like a musical composition, the composer’s main theme is building towards its climax, always with its immediate goal present in mind and heart: ‘the God who is coming’.
The Second Sunday of Advent opens with the cry of John the Baptist out of the wilderness: ‘Prepare the Way’. This cry is intended to pierce our hearts so that we may be ready for the new unfolding life of ‘the God who is to come’.
In our relation to the ‘God who is to come’ how do we wait? What is the interior demeanor that is asked of each of us if we are to receive this new manifestation of God’s life within us and in our midst? With our liturgy we have taken the first step into Advent; we are blessed to have these days to quiet down inside, to listen, to let go, to wait with our deepest longing.
The gospel reading of this Sunday from the gospel of Mark (10:46-52) is the story of the encounter between Bartimaeus and Jesus: it is an encounter of faith. Let’s look at the elements of this utterly simple and amazing encounter. Bartimaeus is along the roadside begging. On hearing that Jesus was passing by “he began to cry out and say, ‘Jesus, son of David, have pity on me.’” What happens next? The people tell him to keep silent and even ‘rebuke
‘Can you drink the cup that I drink? Can you be baptized with the baptism which I am baptized?’ (Mk 10:38). These are Jesus’ words to his disciples and to each of us, his ‘would-be’ disciples’. These two questions of Jesus are in response to the favor James and John are asking, the desire for personal glory. In one sense or at one level there is nothing ‘wrong’ per se with this desire. It comes down to the motivation of the heart, does it not?&
