I heard that a young child asked her mommy, why aren’t people happy when they come to Mass?  It is a good question, how would you answer that little girl?  As I thought about how I might answer that question, I thought well perhaps for some the respect and reverence they have for God causes them to be more focused.  For others, perhaps being on their best behavior before God means they are more serious, and so they avoid being too be joyful at the risk of offending God with their joy.

Well, today we light the pink candle on the advent wreath, and as you can see I am wearing a pink vestment (real men can wear pink).  This Sunday is known as Gaudate Sunday, Gaudate means joy.  The readings today encourages us to have joy, to have happiness.  Our 1st reading tells us to, “Shout for joy, sing joyfully, be glad and exult with all your heart”.  Likewise our 2nd reading says, “Rejoice in the Lord always, I say it again: rejoice”.

For some people to really be happy and joyful during this season takes real effort and can be difficult in the midst of all the Christmas decorating and shopping; for many, the stress and busyness of this season can diminish the joy.  Likewise for some people, joy is an act they put on, something they make themselves do or be, they make themselves seem happy on the outside.  Deep down though, happiness is something that every person wants, we are made, we are created to want to be happy; but the question is: where do we find happiness?  Can we make ourselves happy?  And I am not talking the fleeting pleasures that we enjoy, like when we enjoy our favorite dessert.  I mean the deep-rooted joy that can be experienced in the midst of life’s struggles.  How do we get that kind of happiness?

Every religion has happiness as its goal- the purpose is to become happy.  Buddhists, for example, the goal is Nirvana- and Nirvana is nothing more than perfect happiness.  Likewise every philosophy, or social movement of man has a sense of moral rectitude in it, the idea that we are called to be better people, that we should do good.  So that, justice, or doing the right thing for another, would be the calling card to human philosophy and religion.  If we only had a moral reform in society, if we all did the right thing then humanity would flourish.   In fact, the teachings of Plato, Aristotle, and all the philosophies would have some element of justice or being a better person as the goal or ideal.  Likewise the prophecies of the Old Testament have this same message.  You can hear Hosea, Jeremiah, Isaiah, saying, ‘repent, stop doing what you’re doing and turn back’.  Likewise John the Baptist, the final and great prophet, says the same kind of thing.  In our Gospel today, the crowds come to John the Baptist and ask, “What must we do, what must we do in order to be pleasing to God?”  What John the Baptist says is all very good advice: “whoever has 2 cloaks should share with the one who has none.  To the tax collectors, he said to stop collecting more than is prescribed, something that was common back then.  To the soldiers, he said, do not practice extortion, do not falsely accuse anyone, basically do not bully anyone.  All good advice, Plato, Aristotle and all the philosophers, indeed all the Prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah would have all agreed that what the Baptist said is right- do good, do works of justice, be a better moral person.  That is how you please God and become happy.  And my brothers and sisters, for many people, that is their faith, that is their religious belief system.  I am not saying that that is wrong, it’s not.  We are all called to live moral lives and should strive to be a better person.  Indeed, if we treated each other better, then people would be happier. 

However, in the rest of our Gospel, something very different happens.  What John the Baptist says changes, and this fundamental difference is what sets Christianity apart from every other philosophy or religion. This change needs to happen needs to happen in our faith and heart also.  When the people started to wonder if John was the Christ, John quickly and emphatically renounces that idea.  He proclaims, “One mightier than I is coming.  I am not even worthy to loosen the thongs of his sandals”.  To take off one’s sandals is something a slave would do, so what John is saying is that he is not even worthy to be the slave of the One who is coming.  What John, who is the last great prophet, is saying is that more than a prophet is coming, and more than just social moral reform is coming.  Jesus is more than a prophet or social reformer.  No longer is the teaching  all about be nicer and doing better, no longer is social moral reform the best way to find happiness.  It isn’t about what we do, it isn’t about us being a better person and then God will treat us better.  Christianity isn’t about what we do for God, but it is fundamentally what we allow God to do in us.  Let me say that most important point again, Christianity isn’t about what we do for God, but it is fundamentally what we allow God to do in us.  To teach this point, John uses what for us is a strange imagery but what would be understood by the people right away.  Talking about the One who is to come, John says, “His winnowing fan is in His hand to clear his threshing floor and the gather the wheat into his barn”  In this time, the way they would separate the good wheat from the chaff which was to be burned was they would spread the wheat out on the threshing floor, and then take what’s like a pitch fork and toss the wheat up into the air, and the wind, or a winnowing fan, would separate the wheat and the chaff would blow away.  Do you see the change, before John was saying, do this, repent and reform your life, but now John is saying that the One who is to come, He will take action, He will do something to us, He will do something in us.  He will come inside us and separate the wheat from the chaff, he will separate the good from the bad that is within us.  He will come inside us and do the work of sorting, purifying, and cleansing.  I hear it said all the time in confession, “I need to be better at this, I need to do better in this area”.  Now I am not saying that is wrong, we do need to do something, but this Adventus Christus, this coming of Christ, isn’t about what we do.  God wants to do something in us that no philosopher or religious figure would even dare to imagine or think was possible.  The Baptist goes on to say, “The One who is coming will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.  He will baptize, he will immerse us into the purifying water, He will wash and cleans us.  The Holy Spirit will separate the good from the bad and blow the bad away, and the fire will burn up the chaff, he will burn up the sin.  What God wants to do in us is more than just help us do what is right and to be moral people, but God wants to transform us, He wants to come into us and transform us from the inside out.  This Advent season is more than just about doing something to be better people, or being more generous,but it is about something we cannot do ourselves, it is about our transformation and our supernatural elevation into sons and daughters of God.  This Advent season, as we near the coming of the One, will you welcome the Christ into your hearts?  You don’t have to clean anything or prepare anything, all you need to do is welcome Him in, he’ll do what needs to be done.  Our Savior is coming.  Will you let Him come into you this season, will you humbly receive Him, will you let Him take hold of you, then and only then will the joy and happiness be truly lasting.