This Sunday is Gaudete Sunday.  ‘Gaudete’ means Rejoice!   As Church together through Advent we grieve at our failings and falling short of God’s desires for us, and this Sunday is an invitation to joyful celebration of the Good News of God about to appear and be among us in the person of Christ, offering us transformation as individuals and as community.  Sunday’s readings urge us to rejoice and exult with all our hearts; to sing in praise and thanksgiving to God for his rescue of us from the disasters that beset us and the disaster of our own loss of direction towards him. Rejoice because the Lord is near, he is in our midst! And when we are focused on him, the Lord will rejoice over us with gladness, and he will renew us in his love. (Zephaniah 3:17)

To mark this Sunday we light the third Advent candle for joy.  In the Anglo-Catholic tradition this is a pink candle and the liturgical colour (the church’s seasonal colour used in worship) is pink. Therefore sometimes the third Sunday of Advent is also known as Rose Sunday.

But let’s not be fooled into approaching this Sunday through rose-tinted spectacles, as of a warm, cuddly celebration of joyfulness. For many, the present experience of life is not joyful; circumstances and social context hurt and disadvantage. On Sunday we will hear how John the Baptist opened his invitation to God’s good news by calling those who came to hear him a ‘brood of vipers’, and dishing out hard-hitting advice on how they needed to change their attitudes and habits to become valuers of the lives around them and a compassionate and caring society. 

John the Baptist challenges us just as much  today to consider what we are doing that damages others, and how – as people and together as society – we can change and make a difference. The focus is away from benefit for self and onto being the people, the world, that God longs for, of working together to serve each other in need.

This Rose Sunday, as we look forward to Christmas, let’s pause to consider how we are letting Emmanuel, Christ-with-us come into our very fabric of being to change us as people and society, and to enable the world to flourish and bloom through the tears of life.

May the Lord give you a joyful week and may you bring him delight.
Lucy G

Image by Wyxina Tresse,  Unsplash.com