Gaudete Sunday Reflections

This past Sunday was Gaudete Sunday, which is the meaning behind the pink candle on the Advent wreath. For the past two weeks, we have been focused on waiting for our long-expectant Messiah. We don't know what he looks like, we don't know where he will be, and we don't know what it all means, but we know he's coming.


On Gaudete Sunday, things lighten up a little bit (hence the pink candle rather than purple or blue), and things are getting a little more exciting.

Our collect said, "Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us.."

Stir up your power, O Lord.

I like the sound of that. God is stirring stuff up in our lives. Things are getting a little more lively. We will soon see God in the world as one of us. But our passage from Matthew sheds additional light on the subject.

John the Baptist questions if Jesus is actually the Messiah. Don't we all? But this is a little different than belief–John the Baptist begins to doubt if all of this is actually what he thought was supposed to happen. His expectations were not met.

On Gaudete Sunday, God enlightens something for us: we need to keep our expectations low. In fact, we need to keep them as low as they possibly can be. We need to expect the homeless man, the prostitute, the prisoner, the teenager, the disabled, the marginalized to be Jesus.

My relationship with God has been about opportunities as gifts. God gives me an opportunity to grow rather than giving me growth itself. On Gaudete Sunday, God gives us the opportunity to enlighten our perspective on this whole expectation process: to keep our expectations as low as possible, and to look our for how Jesus might come among us.