Rejoice!? Really? And just how is that we are supposed to be reasonable when God
is allowing such senseless and unreasonable stuff to go on all around us. It
seems every week, sometimes every day brings something senseless and
unreasonable into our worlds. Sometimes it's in a little more distant place like
Connecticut, or Afghanistan, Liberia—or even with something like Pastor Chambers
year long battle with a horrible bacteria. Other times it's closer to home in
our own communities and neighborhoods: law breakers shooting our police officers
(maybe we even know some of them or their families), police officers shooting
law breakers (again maybe we know some of these lawbreakers or their families),
murder suicides involving young children. Things like cancer touching people in
our own families, and other health problems that result in losing a friend or
loved one far too soon at too young an age to even remotely consider such a
thing reasonable.
How is all this reasonable? How is God being reasonable? And yet He is
telling us to rejoice and be reasonable?
To hear and/or read the entire sermon preached for Gaudete, the Third Sunday in Advent,
click on this link.
http://lcmssermons.com/index.php?sn=3042
That tiny little fetus (which simply means, "little one") conceived by the Holy Spirit in the Virgin Mary is in charge...! We see in today's Gospel that Jesus--just a couple of tiny little cells at the time--led His own mother, Mary, to where she needed to be and where He wanted her to be that day, while he was still but a tiny little mass of cells like those that are all too often deemed unviable tissue today by the wisdom of the world and thrown away. 
