Prairie Musings

Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us...(Collect for Advent III ) One of the sermon resources I used this week had this cartoon: The first panel shows someone looking up and shouting to the heavens, ‘God! If you’re up there, tell us what we should do!’ The second panel has a voice coming from the clouds, “Feed the hungry, house the homeless, establish justice.” In the third pane the person has an alarmed expression, “Just testing!” they say. Then the voice answers back, “Me too.” This Third Sunday of Advent is called Gaudete Sunday—“Rejoice” Sunday. Instead of purple candles and purple vestments—reminders that Advent is sometimes called the “Little Lent”—we light the pink candle and we wear pink rose vestments. The prophet Zephaniah—usually a pretty somber, doom-and-gloom guy—today says, “Sing aloud, O daughter Zion; shout, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter Jerusalem!” Instead of a Psalm we read the First Song of Isaiah, “Therefore you