Some of you
know I just came back from vacation; a week in Germany, where, secular or
religious, they really do celebrate Advent pretty publicly. Sure, there are Christmas markets and
decorations, Santas and St Nickolas’s everywhere (we even received an overnight
visit from St Nicholas), but in churches and restaurants and hotels and in town
squares there are also Advent wreaths and candles.
I was
reflecting on this on Thursday afternoon, when I thought it was about time I
started preparing for today’s sermon…..thinking about the Advent theme of joy,
when ding, my computer told me I had an email.
I opened the inbox and the subject was
Oh Joy!
Wow, I
thought, God you’re good!
So I open it
and in flashing coloured letters:
Joyful, Joyful!......40% off your entire purchase!
Well, there
you go, another way we’ve cheapened and lightened what is really a deep and
significant state of mind. It might
make me happy to get 40% off, but I don’t think that’s the kind of Joy Advent
offers us. Happiness, like sales offers,
comes and goes; joy goes deep, and simmers softly in us like a well we can tap
even when we’re not happy, when life isn’t all sweetness and light.
For joy is
knowing, without logic or proof or cultural affirmation, that Advent means what
it says, God comes. Period.
Many of us
of course also cheapen and lighten advent and Christmas—thinking its about the
coming of baby Jesus, either remembering it as history, or a little deeper
about his being born again in our hearts…..a simple story of long ago, that
makes no demands on the soul. and for
children that is so…
Yet it’s
really about the coming of the reign of God, the kin-dom of God….in ways Isaiah
describes, where the captive are freed, the poor fed, the brokenhearted held,
the discouraged lifted up.
But it
hasn’t come, not fully yet anyway…..the headlines and our culture of fear tell
us that…..
We sing, Joy
to the world, the Lord is come, but really?
so we give up and settle for a Hallmark Christmas instead. we settle for happy. And miss the joy.
So here’s
our opportunity to reverse the trend….look at all our texts for today and we
find that God does come, and that’s what brings joy.
In the
psalm, God HAS come, and has done great things! Many who have shed tears now find joy….and
we know that’s been true in our own lives.
A moment to consider where you’ve
known or seen that Coming…
In Isaiah,
God anoints and sends (present tense) people to proclaim God’s word to reclaim God’s people, to bring
about the kin-dom, to release those who’re imprisoned by unjust systems,
poverty, or their own inner demons, to offer comfort to the hurting….and many
know the blessing of joy once freed…..and we know that is still true in our own
life and community. A
moment to consider where you’ve known or seen that Coming…
And in
Thessalonians, God WILL continue to support those who are sent…..and that is
cause to rejoice always, pray continually in thanksgiving. And this might be where we fail to see the
coming….for who can rejoice always?
It’s so easy to be overwhelmed by the bad news and wonder about God’s
support and care let alone God’s coming…… a
moment to consider how we’ve found it hard to know joy, or even to pray, in the
face of our world’s cruelty and greed…..
So what do
we DO with that?
The joy of
Advent is knowing that God comes. That promise
is one side of the joy coin. And we can
know it with our heads, but it takes work to get it down into our very being.
The other
side of the coin is our participation.
Because Joy can’t be complete without Justice, and justice can’t come
without our standing up and speaking out, like Isaiah, like John, like Jesus.
And so, we
try. Every time we say no to despair
and yes to hope, God comes and releases some of our joy
Every time
we say yes to building the world God wants for us, and no to cynicism about the
systems…. God comes and releases some of our joy
Every time
we participate in an act or a word for justice….. God comes and releases some
of our joy
Every day we
sit quietly enough to go deeper than the shallow season all around us….. God
comes and releases some of our joy
Every time
we notice God at work in unexpected places….. God comes and releases some of
our joy
Every time
we refuse to bury our heads in the sand and escape the world and say yes
instead to plumbing the depths of life, good and bad…… God comes and releases
some of our joy
Advent comes
to break us open to the divine in the human….to see what is beyond the obvious,
to see God in all the laces we hae so far ignored, in the world or in
ourselves.
Our senior
high youth put out a radio show on the internet where all the animals were
called to share the good news in their own particular voices…it’s awesome and I
invite you to listen to it
But not just
listen to it, do it. For God has
anointed us, sends us, to share the joy of knowing what God has done, what God
is doing, and the vision of what God will do.
So like our
youth, Use your particular voice to speak justice, like Isaiah
use
your particular voice to remember and live in joy, like the psalmist,
use your voice to proclaim how Christ comes to bring joy instead of pain
Use your
voice, as Paul says, rejoice always, pray continually and don’t quash the
Spirit!
May the joy
of this season move from the shallowness of our head, and the cynicism of the
season, fill our soul, squeeze into every nook and cranny of our being, so we
may watch expectantly for signs of God’s advent and speak out the joy.
Amen
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