Third Sunday of Advent
Bishop of Lake Charles
Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception
December 16, 2012
Third Sunday of Advent
“His winnowing fan is in his hand to clear his threshing floor.” Luke 3:17
Advent has always had for me a sense of urgency. Lighting the third Advent Wreath candle, the rose colored one, I knew I was growing closer to Christmas. In this gesture there is urgency, like counting the miles of a long trip until we arrive at our destination. The excitement of Christmas fills us with expectation, and Advent plunges us forward into time and the fulfillment of our anticipation. I remember the tight feeling in my stomach as a child when Christmas drew near, the questions that arose in my mind. Had I purchased all the gifts needed? Were the correct decorations set up? When would I go to confession? What relatives would I have a chance to see? All of these things filled my thoughts. Advent was the season of the “not-yet,” and when something is “not-yet,” we feel the urgency of “now.” Urgency makes us ask questions.
This same urgency we encounter in the Gospel today. Many came to John the Baptist to be baptized and they asked urgent questions. The crowds asked, “What should we do?” (Luke 3:10). Tax collectors asked, “Teacher, what should we do?” (Luke 3:12). Soldiers like helpless children asked, “And what is it that we should do?” (Luke 3:14). To each and every one John answers that a change of life is necessary. They must be more generous, cease being dishonest, and stop false accusations and extortion. This caused the people to be “filled with expectation” (Luke 3:15). Perhaps no one had ever spoken to them in this way or challenged them to change their lives. So they thought John could be the Messiah. Was he?
John answers “no” and says, “[O]ne mightier than I is coming” (Luke 3:16). In my chapel, I have an icon of St. John the Baptist. He is my patron saint. The painting—an old Russian one—depicts St. John with a long beard dressed in his camels hair, holding a paten, like the one I use to hold the sacred host at Mass. And on this dish lies a baby, the infant Jesus. “[O]ne mightier than I” is an infant. “Behold the Lamb of God,” he seems to say. Was St. John the Messiah? No. Instead St. John points to the real Messiah. “I am not worthy to loosen the thongs of his sandals” (Luke 3:16). And there St. John holds the infant of Bethlehem, the child of the “house of bread”—which is what some etymologists think Bethlehem means. The child of the “house of bread,” the one who is to become the bread of life, on a paten, presented to us by St. John, as He was to the people in the Gospel—this is the urgent “good news” preached to the people. Jesus is the “good news.”
And what are we to do? What Christians have always done as they urgently await Jesus—repent. Like the soldiers and the tax collectors, we need to pay attention to what St. John says. We need to change our lives.
“His winnowing fan is in his hand to clear his threshing floor…” (Luke 3:17). Have you ever wondered what that means—Jesus holding a winnowing fan? It is another symbol of urgency. A winnowing fan is used at harvest. When wheat is harvested, the workers pile the wheat up on the floor. The problem is that the wheat must be separated from the chaff and dirt that has collected in it. So the workers place the wheat on winnows—large, usually circular pans—and toss the wheat into the air. Winnow comes from a Middle English word that means wind. While tossing the wheat, the wind drives away the lighter chaff and dirt, and the purified wheat, now free of impurities, falls back into the winnow. This is the image St. John uses to describe the coming of Jesus. There is urgency in separating the chaff from the wheat. It is harvest time.
The paten of the infant Lamb of God has become the winnowing fan for us. Thrown into the air, our wheat is purified. The chaff and dirt are blown away. We have been harvested and our purification is near. We will receive the bread of life, made from the wheat. In this there is urgency.