Third Sunday of Advent

Readings: Third Sunday of Advent | USCCB

Jesus accompanies us in our pain – Third Sunday of Advent

Have you ever felt sad or anxious and a friend says to you, “cheer up and look on the bright side,” or “what you need to do to feel better is…”? Despite good intentions to take your pain away, you simply want to be heard and for someone to be with you in your pain.

Today’s readings feel like a friend who tries to “make” you feel better. The prophet Zephaniah exhorts, “Be glad and exult with all your heart…fear not, be not discouraged!” In his letter to the Philippians, St. Paul tells us to “rejoice!” and “have no anxiety at all.” As much as I would like to “rejoice!” and “have no anxiety at all,” I’m struggling to do so. I am feeling a lot of sadness recently, and I don’t particularly feel like rejoicing. I just want to be accompanied in my pain.

I offer this personal sharing to simply say we all hurt. And sometimes our hurt—due to devastating loss, relationship struggles, injustice, feeling overwhelmed, or whatever it may be—feels immune to being “glad.”

Or is it?

A closer look at today’s readings shows that persistent calls to “rejoice” and “have no anxiety at all” are not mere platitudes; they are always coupled with a radical and reassuring truth—“the LORD, your God, is in your midst.” This is deep cause to “be glad.”

Jesus never came to take away our pain; Jesus came to be with us in it. When Emmanuel (“God with us”) comes to be with us in our pain, then our pain no longer overwhelms us. Through Jesus’ own dying and rising, he shows us that our pain, which he shares in, is never the end of the story, but the place where healing begins. Through accompanying us in our hurts, Christ will “renew you in his love.”