ADVENT WEEK THREE

December 16, 2020

Accessibility of Joy

Mark 9:9-13

As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead. Mark 9:9

If there were ever a moment to invoke joy from the Gospel, it would be during Advent. It is not that we as persons of faith are not to pursue joy at every turn. But, rather, it does not take much meandering into the gospels to glean the prospects of discipleship that Jesus promises his followers: contempt, persecution, and a material fate similar to his own.

Jesus is so attuned to this difficult future for his followers that, in today’s passage from Mark 9, he swears them to what is known as the Messianic Secret: don’t let anyone know who I truly am quite yet, or you’ll get us all killed before my mission is complete.

Perhaps the reason why joy feels more accessible during Advent is because we have not yet arrived at the horizon of Jesus’s birth and potential. It can be easy to lose sight of why it is that Jesus must swear his followers to secrecy: he has brought a form of justice so radical that its shockwaves are too much for many of us to bear.

The difficult joy of Advent thus is understanding that while Jesus’s life brings profound conflict, this is only because it brings profound healing first. The invitation is to create space for ourselves to dwell on the euphoria of Jesus’s care for others, even while knowing the eventual costs of discipleship.

Dr. Peter Capretto

Assistant Professor of Pastoral Care in Religion and Culture

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