Welcome to Finding God in Our Hearts. The following production, Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher is a weekly program of deep spiritual insight on Scripture, revealing the indwelling presence of God. We appreciate your listenership and if you find this program valuable, please subscribe and share with your friends. Share this program is funded with kind donations by listeners just like you. Make your donation@pastoralreflectionsinstitute.com Today we’re celebrating the third Sunday of Advent. The opening Prayer Grant your faithful we pray Almighty God the resolve to run forth to meet Christ with righteous deeds at his coming, so that gathered at his right hand they may be worthy to possess the heavenly kingdom through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever.
Amen. A Reading from the Old Testament the book of Isaiah 60 first chapter, first and second verse in the 10th and 11th verse the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me. He has sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor, to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives and release to the prisoners, to announce a year of favor from the Lord and a day of vindication by our God. I rejoice heartily in the Lord in my God is the joy of my soul, for he has clothed me with a robe of salvation, wrapped me in a mantle of justice, like a bridegroom adorned with a diadem, like a bride bedecked with her jewels. As the earth brings forth its plants and a garden makes its growth spring up, so will the Lord God make justice and peace spring up before all the nations. The Word of the LORD My soul rejoices in my God My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord.
My spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked upon his lowly servant. From this day all generations will call me blessed. My soul rejoices in my God. The Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name. He has mercy on those who fear him in every generation. My soul rejoices in my God he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent empty away.
He has come to the help of his servant Israel, for he has remembered his promise of mercy. My soul rejoices in my God. A reading from the New Testament St. Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians 5:16 24 Rejoice always, pray without ceasing in all circumstances. Give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus, do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophetic utterances.
Test everything, retain what is good, refrain from every kind of evil. May the God of peace make you perfectly holy, and may you entirely spirit, soul and body be preserved blameless for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will also accomplish it. The word of the Lord. Hallelujah. Verse.
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. Hallelujah. The gospel for this Sunday is taken from St. John 1st chapter 6 through the 8th verse and 19 28th verse. A man named John was sent from God. He came for testimony, to testify to the light so that all might believe through him.
He was not the light, but came to testify to the light. And this is the testimony of John. When the Jews from Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to him to ask him, who are you? He admitted and did not deny it, but admitted, I am not the Christ. So they asked him, what are you then? Are you Elijah?
And he said, I am not. Are you the prophet? He said, no. So they said to him, who are you? So we can give an answer to those who sent us. What do you have to say for yourself?
He said, I am the voice of one crying out in the desert, make straight the way of the Lord. And as Isaiah the prophet said, some Pharisees were also sent. They asked him, why then do you baptize if you are not the Christ or Elijah or the prophet? John answered them, I baptize with water. But there is one among you whom you do not recognize. The one who is coming after me, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to untie.
Now, this happened in Bethany, across the Jordan, where John was baptizing the Gospel of the Lord. Take a few moments as we listen to the music to ponder the wisdom and the truth found in these readings. Last week I went to a doctor to have my eye operated on. And the issue really was not my eye, but the muscle that held my eye was not functioning very well. And so I was having a real problem with double vision. And without glasses, I saw very distinctly two of everything.
And then it was amazing that this operation, which was not that difficult on me, but it took just one day. And without glasses, I saw absolutely one vision where always I saw two. And somehow it just really impacted me. I don’t know why. I don’t know whether my brain had to make an adjustment or whatever, but all of a sudden I felt different. I just thought, there’s something in me that’s changed.
And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that one of the things I continually do, especially as one who’s been ordained since Vatican ii, every Sunday I work with an Old Testament and a New Testament, and there’s always this sort of separation that I have in my head about them. One was like, well, one was for when we were living then. The new one is for us now. The Old Testament is wrong, and the New Testament’s right. Always there was some division. And I think what’s happened.
I can just use this operation as a kind of metaphor. I feel like something has come together, and it’s going to sound maybe strange because I’ll try my best to tell you how I feel about the Old and New Testament. And it goes like this. They’re both correct. They’re both timed perfectly for the people who listen to them. And even though we might say, well, all the people have already listened to the Old Testament, they’ve worked with it, and they’ve got that down.
Now they move over to the New Testament. No, because people keep entering into this world over and over again. And we always begin with the kind of Old Testament understanding of right and wrong. That’s how we learn as children. We all go through this process. And what’s beautiful about the process is it begins with a lot of logic.
And the Old Testament is very logical and pretty much understandable for the brain. And we see that if we do the right thing, we get rewarded. If we do the wrong thing, we get punished. It’s pretty simple. And many people need that very simple thing to hold them steady in the work that God has given them. Choose always to do what is right, choose never to do what is wrong.
But we know that that keeps us in a pretty much of a childlike state. And if you listen attentively to the readings of this beautiful Sunday of Advent, it’s so clear that one of the big changes that happened from the Old Testament to the New Testament is who’s in charge, who is doing the work. In the Old Testament, it seems clear it’s up to us to always choose to do the right thing. Otherwise we lose our connection with God. In the New Testament, it’s all about God changing us, doing something within us, clothing us in an image of a bridegroom or a bride, connecting with this beautiful creature called God. And he’s there to say, I’ve come to give you something that you’ve longed for forever.
And this thing that I Long to give you is my presence. I want to enter into you. I want to marry you. I want to be a part of you. And when I’m in you, it’s like a force of growth and transformation. And you have this power in you.
It’s clear in the New Testament we are anointed like Jesus was anointed. And that anointing is the ability that we have to do something that the Old Testament does not talk about at all. And that is an intention of transformation. An intention of transformation. The Old Testament is about doing what is right and being punished if you don’t. And there’s some value in that for a lot of people.
But then we move into something that seems so radically different, but maybe it isn’t so different. And that is that we now believe that there is a power given to us by God who will then live within our hearts. And in that presence that he has given us, there is power. And instead of simply condemning those who do wrong and honoring those who do right, we’re invited into a very different relationship with sin. That sin becomes an opportunity, an opportunity for those of us who understand the fullness of God’s message that our response to sin can change the world. And the change is from the Old Testament to the New Testament, even though in many ways the Old Testament still works.
But rather than demand justice and demand retribution and making everything fair when something goes wrong, we’re invited to have a very different response to sin, a very different response to our own faults and weaknesses. They are the opportunities that God has given us in the New Testament to respond to these things with a healing force. The indwelling presence of Jesus is like the presence of Jesus in the world. And when Jesus was in the world, he had this wonderful power of knowing that there was things in people that kept them from living the life that they longed to. They couldn’t see the truth. They couldn’t hear the wisdom that was there.
They. They couldn’t get to where they should be or do the work they were called to do. Every. So many miracles were therapeutic. And we can see this incredible gift given to this human being called Jesus. And then he looks at us and saying, listen, the reason I came into the world is so I can give you this gift that I have.
I want you to feel it entirely. Spirit, soul, body. I’m preserving you blamelessly in this world so that you can be a healer, a transformer, a source of life for those in darkness. Not telling them that they now will be punished, but they can be transformed. The intention of transformation. It seems not to be at odds with everything in the Old Testament to me now, but it seems to be just the fullness of what we need as a people who are drawn into this promise of creating the kingdom of heaven here on this planet, here on this earth.
And so it has something to do with the idea of baptism, because that’s the gospel theme. And I want to go back to the baptism of Jesus because it is the moment when I think we could say Jesus became fully aware of what his ministry was going to be. Jesus was always the Son of God. There’s no doubt that that was always there. But the interesting thing about his baptism was something happened to him. And maybe it was just for the crowd, maybe it was also for Jesus when the voice of his Father from heaven was audibly heard to say, this is my beloved Son.
My Spirit is now in him. I have anointed him to be me on this planet, to be my healing power on this earth. Incredible promise. And we know that we too are baptized like that. And John’s baptism was really basically reminding people that they needed to change and it was up to them to make the change. That the baptism of Jesus was something radically different.
It was the pouring of a power into us that makes such a difference in terms of how we live our life. Can I be free of any kind of justice and retaliation and demanding somebody give me back what they took? Maybe. But there seems like there’s some part in the world that. That still operates. But then at the same time, and it’s like it’s different, but it’s the same.
You look at the person that you might have asked to return what they have taken. But at the same time, you long for the whole experience, for that person to be something that you anointed as God’s presence in this world. Also look at that person and want them nothing other than want them to change, to see, to understand what they’ve done, to turn away from it, to be that kind of anointment, to have that anointment, to have that ability in this world is a beautiful, beautiful complement to a world of justice. It’s not justice or mercy. It’s justice in mercy, both together. That’s the key.
How often I have tried to somehow figure out how they work together. And I just feel like now it just makes total sense to me. We need both. We need justice, we need mercy. We need to correct one another when we do something wrong. At the same time, we need to love one another in our brokenness and believe through that love that that we have for each other.
People change. People are made new. People enter into a new beginning. That’s the theme of this whole wonderful season of Advent. A change has come. It doesn’t take away the old.
It enhances, enriches, enlivens it so that it becomes filled with hope, growth and change. I pray that blessing for me and for all of us. Amen, sat the closing prayer. Father, you have made all things one. You brought unity into a world that seems so separated and divided. Bless us with the wisdom of our hearts to see this oneness.
Our mind is mostly comfortable with either or right or wrong, but there’s so much more than that. Bless us with wisdom and we ask this in Jesus name. Amen. The music in our program was composed and produced by Ryan Harner for this show. Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher is funded with kind donations by listeners just like you. You can make a one time or recurring tax deductible donation on our website pastoralreflectionsinstitute.com we thank you for your listenership and your continued support.
Without it, this program would not be possible. Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher is a production of the Pastoral Reflections Institute, a NonProfit in Dallas, Texas dedicated to enriching your spiritual journey. Executive Producer Monsignor Don Fisher produced by Kyle Cross and recorded in Pastoral Reflections Institute Studios. Copyright 2020.