Deacon Michael’s Homily for the Third Sunday of Ordinary Time - January 21-22, 2023

The Third Sunday of Ordinary Time - January 20-21, 2023

This Sunday’s readings can be found HERE

“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light, on those dwelling in a land of gloom a light has shone.”

These words of today’s reading from the prophet Isaiah are the opening words from the first reading for our Midnight mass at Christmas.

These people sitting in the darkness covering the land of Zebulun and Naphtali, on the coastal plain, and from the River Jordan to the Sea and in Galilee itself

…had been subject to the Syrian conquest of the Northern Kingdom of Israel in Isaiah’s time.

Theirs was the darkness of the receiving end of military conquest with all its death, pillage, violence and suffering

…all the full worldly power of evil and sin

…in its most concentrated form.

In the Christmas reading Isaiah goes on to imagine a new saving ruler coming to these people

…at a time when the bloodied clothes of war and its weapons will be thrown upon the fire and burned.

This new king will be a child born to them, a son given them, known as Wonder-Counselor, God-Hero, Father-Forever, Prince of Peace.

Christians, of course, have for millennia seen these words as foreshadowing the arrival of Christ as Immanuelle, God with us.

But we have come to know that this new king is a different kind of king, as is his kingdom.

He tells Pontius Pilate that it is not “of this world”

…as the people, Pilate and even his disciples may have expected.

He has come to conquer sin and death, to push back their resulting darkness

…darkness that weighs us down and gives rise to the suffering we inflict on each other.

John’s Gospel reminds us that in Jesus Christ, the light of the presence of divine love has come into the world

…and the darkness has not overcome it.

These days it seems that for many the darkness has in fact gotten the upper hand.

Look at the mood of the nation, cranky & disagreeable, divided & combative

…with many willing to launch on each other at the least provocation, anathematizing each other

…with many assuming the worst about each other and acting accordingly

…which can become a vicious spiral

…producing a kind of paralysis.

We even see it in the Church.

And then there’s the matter of the nation’s mental health.

We are told that record numbers of people and even children are anxious, depressed, down

…in low spirits, dejected.

The traditional spiritual term for this is despondency. 

There may be psychological or even physical causes of despondency.

It could be illness, or major loss…a loved one, a livelihood

…or another major life disappointment

…or a sense of the emptiness and nihilism of so much of modern life

…or a dread about an imagined future

…that can give rise to a sense of hopelessness.

Many have observed a rise in the “deaths of despair”

…due to suicide, drug abuse and alcohol.

But sometimes this darkness can be just a lion we feed.

For some it may be just having too much idle time enabling our minds to wander into self absorbed whirlpools of feeling sorry for ourselves

…beyond any good reason rooted in reality. 

Or maybe we’ve just developed a pessimistic frame of mind that looks at the dark side of everything

…a kind of security blanket that keeps us from never being disappointed.

These too can easily harden into despondency.

Many great saints saw despondency as a grave danger that could be deadly, physically and spiritually. 

Our Christian faith, our tradition, well aware of these realities, seeks to draw us to a very different place. 

Our faith is not one that is prone toward darkness, depression, anxiety or despondency

…but rather their opposite- a cheerfulness, energy and strength

…that manifests love and joy, peace and patience, kindness and gentleness, generosity and self-control

..all arising from God’s Holy Spirit of divine love dwelling within us

..that is meant to be expressed in our lives and relationships

..with the hope and confidence born of Christ’s Resurrection

…his triumph over sin and death that we are called to share in. 

This is what the “light of Christ” looks like, shining through us to others

…how the Risen Lord is made present in our world through us

…as it has been since Peter and the rest responded to Jesus call to follow him on the sea shore at Capernaum.

Each Easter Vigil we bring a newly blessed and lit Paschal Candle into our darkened church

…announcing “Lumen Christi, light of Christ”

…to which the people respond “Deo Gratias, Thanks be to God”.

Today it seems to be as important as it ever has been

…to meditate on this light

…to contemplate its meaning and implications for us

…to turn our lives to follow this light, like a sunflower follows the sun, always trying to live in it

...striving to make real the hope expressed at our own baptism

…that we always live as children of the light

…and help others to find it and walk in it as well in their lives in this world and

…and so to be in its presence always in the world to come.