Like the second week, the first reading for the third week of Advent is also from the Book of Isaiah. Who is Isaiah? According to the Orthodox Church in America, "[t]he Holy Prophet Isaiah lived 700 years before the birth of Christ, and was of royal lineage. Isaiah’s father Amos raised his son in the fear of God and in the law of the Lord. Having attained the age of maturity, the Prophet Isaiah entered into marriage with a pious prophetess (Is 8:3) and had a son Jashub (Is 8:18)." [1]
After being sent by God to do God's work, "Isaiah left behind him a book of prophecy in which he denounces the Jews for their unfaithfulness to the God of their Fathers. He predicted the captivity of the Jews and their return from captivity during the time of the emperor Cyrus, the destruction and renewal of Jerusalem and of the Temple. Together with this he predicts the historical fate also of the other nations bordering the Jews. But what is most important of all for us, the Prophet Isaiah with particular clarity and detail prophesies about the coming of the Messiah, Christ the Savior. The prophet names the Messiah as God and Man, teacher of all the nations, founder of the Kingdom of peace and love." [2]
It was after God picked Isaiah to be a prophet that these words (the first reading's first two sentences) came into existence: "The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me." [3]
Not too many people can claim that they had been anointed by the Lord God. The second reading is a letter from Paul to the Thessalonians, saying the following, quoted in part from the his letter [4]:
May the God of peace make you perfectly holy
and may you entirely, spirit, soul, and body,
be preserved blameless for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
USCCB explains the above as follows [5]:
Another possible translation is, “May the God of peace himself make you perfectly holy and sanctify your spirit fully, and may both soul and body be preserved blameless for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” In either case, Paul is not offering an anthropological or philosophical analysis of human nature. Rather, he looks to the wholeness of what may be called the supernatural and natural aspects of a person’s service of God.
This blogger doubts if any of the Thessalonians who happened to read Paul's letter was actually made holy or "anointed" by God in the same manner that Isaiah was anointed, otherwise there could be many books in the bible named after the God-anointed Thessalonians.
How these two readings relate to the Gospel of John on John the Baptist this blogger has no clue, unless John the Baptist was a Thessalonian made holy by the words of Paul and anointed by God, but this could not have been possible since Paul's letter to the Thessalonians were written circa 50 A.D. [6]. By then John the Baptist had already been beheaded. "None of the sources gives an exact date [as to when John the Baptist was killed], which was probably in the years 28-29 AD (Matthew 14:1-12; Mark 6:14-27; Luke 9:9) after imprisoning John the Baptist in 27 AD (Matthew 4:12; Mark 1:14)." [7]
It seems like the main message in the Gospel of John for the third week of Advent is simply: "'I am the voice of one crying out in the desert, "make straight the way of the Lord[.]" '" [8] If correct, then to match the contemporary Mass being celebrated nowadays, there is a song from a 70's Off-Broadway musical called Godspell [9] that may be appropriate to conclude this entry with, that can be heard on You Tube: Prepare Ye The Way Of The Lord [10].
As a postscript, perhaps instead of having readings from Isaiah and Paul's letter to the Thessalonians, the readings ought to follow the readings of the traditional Latin Mass, from Philippians 4, at 4-6 and 4-7 that emphasize "modesty" and "prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving." [11] And perhaps instead of having to sit through an informal Mass listening to the homilist talk about himself and things that have little to do with holiness, one may be able to attend a traditional Latin Mass and follow the readings translated from Latin and listen to the chants that lift one's spirit up toward Heaven, assuming that this would not be spoiled by a priest who enjoys talking about himself and telling jokes more than focusing only on "modesty" and "prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving," [12] all of which are essential throughout the Advent season to "make straight the way of the Lord." [13]
[1] https://oca.org/saints/lives/2017/05/09/101331-prophet-isaiah
[2] Ibid.
[3] http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/121717.cfm
[4] Ibid.
[5] http://www.usccb.org/bible/1thes/5:23#60005023, at footnote [5:10].
[6] http://www.usccb.org/bible/1thessalonians/0
[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beheading_of_St_John_the_Baptist, under the section "Traditional accounts."
[8] http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/121717.cfm, the Gospel of John.
[9] http://www.guidetomusicaltheatre.com/shows_g/godspell.htm
[10] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSIs1MHdFQY
[11] http://www.extraordinaryform.org/propers/Advent3rd.pdf, page 1 of 2;
http://www.extraordinaryform.org/properssundays.html
[12] http://www.extraordinaryform.org/propers/Advent3rd.pdf, page 1 of 2
[13] http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/121717.cfm, the Gospel of John.
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