Isaiah 35:1-10 Canticle 15 James 5:7-10  Matthew 11:2-11

A highlight of our recent trip to Africa was a safely distant encounter with 5 lions at the Chobe National Park in Botswana.  These quite docile kitties were snuggled together for their 20-hour daily nap, snoozing in the shade, sheltered from the brutal heat of mid-afternoon African sun.  There was an occasional bored acknowledgment of our paparazzi presence.  I’m confident, however, that any one of the five could have devoured this entire pulpit with one swat and gulp.

I don’t even like to wake our dogs from a nap; I assure you I was not eager to disturb these enormous and ferocious beasts.  We had been cautioned not to wave our hands outside the jeep, and of course not to exit the jeep – though I don’t recall it being necessary, actually, for the guides to give us such instruction.

The concept is that as one large composite unit we did not represent a threat to the lions; separated from the group however, one would become a suspicious nuisance attracting investigation and, perhaps, consumption.

Later, as our group travelled up the path a bit, we came upon a young man whose Subaru was stuck in the deep sand; our guides offered an unsuccessful tow, but in the end, after calling alternative help, we had to leave him behind.  He was eventually rescued, I’m sure, but driving away from him, I felt a sense of aloneness for him, abandonment by us even for one so seemingly foolish as to set out alone and ill-equipped in such treacherous terrain.

In our Old Testament lesson this morning, the prophet Isiah is speaking to the people of God who have felt the abandonment of exile in Babylon.  Judah had fallen in the 6^th century BC; the Great Temple of Jerusalem destroyed and her people scattered and held captive by the empires to the east of Israel.  Today’s words of prophecy from Isaiah bring hope to God’s people – whether feeling separated and abandoned in ancient Babylon or in 21^st century America.

These words appear at an odd place in the book of Isaiah.  Nearly 2/3 of the earlier chapters of Isaiah are filled with words of warning and woe about the judgment that was to come for the people of God, still residing at home in Judah, complacent in their faith.

But, here amidst the doom and gloomy prophecy are the beautiful words of hope and joy that we read this morning.  Condemned to exile, in this state of abandonment and hopelessness, fraught with fear, the people of God sense this inbreaking of God expressed through Isaiah.  Unexpectedly, inexplicably amongst the woe, God’s words voiced by Isaiah inspire patience in suffering.

James, too, is writing to the people of God who are experiencing spiritual exile.  The first century Jewish Christians to whom James writes were scattered by decades of political and religious persecution that had driven God’s people from their homeland to various areas of the known world.  James exhorts them and any one of us feeling abandoned to be patient as we wait for the coming of the Lord.

Ah, we are not abandoned; God has always and is forever gathering us into his Kingdom.  We are never separate from God; we are one composite unit in God’s presence.  Remaining one composite unit, we are insulated, resistant to evil.  The message of James and Isaiah would have been interpreted with great joy by the exiled people of God willing to listen – exiles in foreign lands, persecuted for their faith in the one God.  Sensing this inbreaking of the Spirit, they were assured that God was present, hope restored.

In this morning’s Gospel lesson, even in the gloom and doom of a 1^st century Roman prison, John the Baptist is assured of the inbreaking of God in the person of Jesus Christ.  In the eleventh chapter, Matthew reports that John the Baptist had been imprisoned by Herod Antipas.  It was this John to whom Jesus himself had come for baptism.  From what we have read of John, we know that he would have been the type to wave his arms outside the Jeep, fearlessly awakening the ire of the sleeping lions – the Pharisees and Sadducees and Herod Antipas specifically.

Yet, held in a dark and dank Roman prison, John is assured that he is not abandoned; Jesus, whom he knew, is the Messiah.  As the result of Jesus’ life and ministry, the blind see, the lame walk, the leper is cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor receive good news.  In the dark dank Roman prison, John leapt for joy, just as he had leapt for joy in his mother’s womb upon encountering the expectant Mary, just as he experienced the joyful ecstasy of the presence of the Father and the Holy Spirit at the baptism of the Son in the Jordan River.  The awakened lions could not take away John’s joy even as they threatened earthly death.

The joy of the people of Judah in exile, the joy of the early Christians under persecution, the joy of John the Baptist in the brutal Roman prison is inexplicable, except by God – all this joy is the inbreaking of God – the clear sense that God had not abandoned them, even in their dire earthly situations.

God continues to break into our earthly lives, bringing us that same sense of joy, even on difficult days when we might tend to think God has deserted us.  God, suddenly, unexpectedly breaks through the gloom of our grief and sorry and chaos like the sun suddenly, unexpectedly breaks through the clouds on a rainy day.

This joy is the specific focus for today – the third Sunday of Advent.  Today is Gaudete (gou-day-tay) Sunday.  The name is the Latin word for “Rejoice.”  In today’s lessons, as on every 3^rd Sunday of Advent, we hear prophecy of hope and promise – from Isaiah: we are assured of the days to come when the desert shall blossom abundantly and rejoice with joy and singing.

Gaudete Sunday is the day we take a break from our penitential focus of the season of Advent to celebrate our joy – symbolized in the rose colored candle we light today.  Whatever our gloom, God breaks through to assure us we are not abandoned.

“O come, O come, Emmanuel; ransom captive Israel that mourns in lonely exile here until the Son of God appear.”  Come, Emmanuel, break into our hearts with the joy of the Incarnation – the life, death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ that assures us we are never abandoned – alone and stuck in the deep deep sand, within nose-range of sleeping lions, we are not abandoned.  God is present, the joy of Christ breaks into our earthly lives.  Gaudete!