Flirting with Joy

Zechariah 3:14-20 & Advent 3

Rejoice! Shout! Exult with all your heart!

            These are the words that set the stage for us on this third Sunday of Advent, as the count-down to Christmas races on. It’s no wonder that these are the words we hear on this Sunday, a day known as “Gaudete Sunday”, Gaudete being the Latin word for “rejoice.” And our biblical texts this day all reflect this theme*. Rejoice! Shout! Exult!

            This exhortation represents a shift in our Advent journey from the messages of judgement and the warnings that we have heard delivered by the prophets through scripture the past couple of weeks.

            In our worship, the shift in tone reflects the excitement that is building as Christmas approaches and the time draws ever nearer for the coming of the Christ child, the embodiment of God’s love and mercy for all this broken world.

            And yet, even as these words ring out, Rejoice! Shout! Exult! I know that some of us struggle to feel cause for rejoicing.

            This has been a tough year. There have been major challenges in our individual lives and in our world. We are faced with the knowledge of our imperfection, our culpability in the pain and suffering of the world, in the prejudice and bigotry that resides deep within, in our failure to value every human life as Jesus does.

            A number of you, like me, have lost loved ones. Some have suffered serious illness, or undergone grueling medical treatments; others have undergone surgical procedures and rehabilitation. Physical, emotional and spiritual challenges have been faced and are perhaps still linger.

            There may have been broken or changed relationships and families.

            Even if things in your own life have been spared difficulties like these this year, it is likely that you have walked and are still walking beside a friend or loved one who was going through a difficult time.

            For these reasons and more, some of us may feel may feel ill-equipped to rejoice, exult, and shout for joy, or to even face the festive season or the future.

            Yet still we hear the words from Zephaniah, Rejoice! Sing aloud! Shout! Exult! And then assurance of Isaiah: Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid.

            An article published in the New York Times this week reported that fear is at its highest level since the months immediately following 9/11/2001.

            A continuing onslaught of terror attacks around the world have set people on edge. Public confidence in our leaders to protect us is shaken.

            Even the most mundane of our plans has suddenly taken on a new dimension of doubt, planning, second-guessing and challenge. Should we travel? Should we fly in an airplane? Are trains safe? Is it wise to gather in any large venue? Who do we let in and who do we keep out? What are the limits of what we will do remain safe?

            How do we face this Christmas season with the buoyancy required to do as the prophets tell us to do, rejoice, shout and exult, when the reality of our lives is that we are stressed, struggling, and surrounded by fear?

            And then we hear it: another Word of God comes to us in each of our scripture readings:

“You shall fear no more;”

            “I will trust, and will not be afraid;”

                        “Do not worry about anything,….”

                                    And finally, even as he has pointed out the hypocrisy of those who claim to be followers, John the Baptist “…. proclaimed the good news to the people.”

            Placed side by side, these exhortations and proclamation invite us to hear and trust in God’s promise that God, who sees us just as we are – broken, sad, struggling, fearful, reactive, and full of sin – loves us still. God promises that through Jesus, he will remove the chaff from us – the outer, imperfect sheath of the perfect people God created us to be.

            This Sunday, three-quarters of the way through Advent, there is a burst of pink – the candle on our Advent wreath which was lit today – which signals the welcome hope and attendant joy that our sorrows, worries and the fear that plague us will not define us – because God will fulfill our hope that it does not.

            Rather, through the coming of the anointed one, God, defines us and will define us as God’s beloved children, worthy of redemption and washed from sin in the waters of Baptism.

            This Sunday of rejoicing alerts us that something better is coming – that as the fulfillment of God’s promise of redemption is at hand – this Word begins to prepare us for the rejoicing to come with the arrival of God-with-us.

Rejoice! Shout! Exult with all your heart! Have no fear!  

            Because –

God will lift up the lowly,

            the suffering ones,

                        the outcast

                                     and the oppressed,

                                                and will enfold them

                                                            in unending, ultimate joy and protection. 

            Our worship today reflects the hope that abides within us, inspired by God’s Word, and plants the seeds for true joy that persists deplete all that assails us. Advent is traditionally a season of somber reflection and penitence, a counterpart to Lent. That’s why until this week our worship space has been devoid of festive markings and decorations.

            Fasting, repentance and spiritual preparation place our focus on this anticipation of the coming of the Lord.

            Right about this time in the season, we often hear the lament – and perhaps share in it that, for whatever reason – whether in our planning and busywork or by the placement of our hearts and emotions, we are just not ready for Christmas.

            Our lament, it seems, has a lot to do with the stuff we need to do, and little to do with what God has done and is doing in our midst.

            Such is the way of sin. Such is the way of the world. Such is the way of a humanity which calls out to be saved from all that frightens us – even from ourselves, but which steadfastly turns away from the mercy and love of God, is never quite prepared for God to come among us, is never quite ready to welcome God’s desire for us.

            But look around us today. There are signs of life springing forth all around us. As Zephaniah assured the people that their penance was over and God’s salvation was near, there are signs that God is at work here, today, not only in the greening of the church, but in the people who surround us, in the prayers that unite us, in the meal that feeds us, in the light of the candle of joy that shines before us.

            God will have the last word. On this day God’s Word to us reminds us that God is already in our midst as we prepare for the incarnation of God to come, bringing needed transformation to our hearts.

            Because of God’s love and even because of God’s judgement, even as we sit with the reality of a world gone wrong, even while we still sit with illness, pain, brokenness as our companions on earth, we CAN rejoice, we CAN shout AND exult, because God’s abiding presence with us gives voice to the hope and the acknowledgement that the joy God brings is not the claim that, for now, there is no suffering. God’s promise today and the prophets’ invitation to rejoice, shout and exult in the Lord does not mean that God is blind to the ways in which we continue to hurt, continue to sin, continue to oppress others, continue to fail to acknowledge with our lives the reality of the dawn of God which breaks upon us. Rather, the light that shines in the darkness, the light that breaks the bonds of our sorrow and hopelessness, is the light of Christ that assures us that new life is coming to live among us in the form of a savior who will show us the way to live.

            The same God who intimately knows us and who knows our fears and failures sends us abundant hope and promise:

            “Do not fear…The Lord, your God, is in your midst.” ….”

                        Do not fear” is not a plea, but a declaration.

                                    “Do not be afraid, Zechariah,”

                                                “Do not be afraid, Mary.”

            Later, on a night not long from now, in the story that the evangelist Luke tells of a night of fear and pain and dis-ease, we will hear the words, “do not be afraid…I am bringing you good news of great joy.”

            And then, another Gospel proclaims at its end, “Do not be afraid…he is not here, for he has been raised.” (Matt 28:5-6)

            Zephaniah and Luke join all of the voices speaking throughout the scriptures in a persistent, insistent biblical refrain. “Do not fear” is repeated over and over again because human beings are afraid of many things. But by God’s Spirit, they invite us to have faith; to believe that God is with us and for us, and God is preparing us for a new reality of living as God’s faithful people.  God declares that we shall fear no longer, because God will not only bring victory over the enemies all around us, but also those deep within. God will join us in rejoicing and song. God will join together a wide variety of people in singing hymns of praise and thanksgiving.

            We can rejoice this day because we can trust that God will restore the broken, destroy the fear, and bring to rights the cosmos and all that inhabit it, all the creatures God so dearly loves.

            And so, by the power and promise of God, we are confident as we listen again with the words of the apostle Paul:           

            “Rejoice in the Lord always; again, I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Thanks be to God! Amen.

*Additional texts this Sunday are Isaiah 12:2-6, Philippians 4:4-7, & Luke 3:7-18.

Trickles to Gushes to Joy

Isaiah 35:1-10 ~ Advent III, December 15, 2013

I pray that your Advent journey this year has been blessed thus far, and that despite the busy-ness of the season you have found some time to sit a while and catch your breath, appreciating an oasis of calm amidst the frenetic activity of your days. I hope that you’ve found time away from all that shopping, decorating, cooking, or planning of menus and cleaning, interspersed among the normal everyday activities, work, schedules and appointments of our lives, which can make us all just a little bit crazy come mid-December. Throw in a snow day here or a nasty virus there, and this season of joy can quickly turn into one we just wish were over already.

I hope as you prepared to come to church this morning, that you felt a stirring of anticipation at what God’s Word would have to say to you today.

This Advent season, we have been looking at the Isaiah texts that this year’s lectionary cycle of readings has brought us. In the past couple of weeks, Isaiah has led us to imagine what transformed lives and a transformed world might look like, if peace and hope were to reign. We were invited into these texts to see what Isaiah saw in the visions God gave him of the creation that will one day be restored through divine love. And we were invited to imagine with him, what our transformed lives and world might look like, when God’s promises are fulfilled and God’s creation is brought to its fullness as the glory of the Lord breaks upon us. And we were surprised to see that there are signs of God’s in-breaking transformation all around us already – signs of God-like love spun as a silky web in the most unlikely of places.

Today our turn to Isaiah’s texts continues, in this truly beautiful passage that we heard just a short while ago, when (our lector) read these words, “The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing.” Words like these just make me want to dance. The sense of joy that leaps off the page is just that vibrant. Isaiah is describing bursting-at-the-seams joy in this passage. He is describing not just a reversal, but a transformation that will come when God comes to reign, and with God’s coming the health and wholeness of the creation will be restored. It’s hard to imagine, isn’t it?

This passage seems to flow naturally, following the texts that we have contemplated the past two weeks which lifted up peace and hope. But if you pick up your bible and read through Isaiah you’ll find that quite a lot has transpired between chapter 11, where we left off last week, and chapter 35, where we find ourselves this morning. And if you were to have read through those chapters, you will have found that in these words before us this morning, Isaiah speaks what Barbara Lundblad refers to as “a word out of place,” because they follow an indictment against the nations that have brought devastation to Israel and have taken her people off into exile and destroyed the temple and caused the people of God such despair and heartache and desolation. Now, in these verses, the text moves, without any real transition, from describing the judgment against Edom and the ecological disaster that follows, to these verses, where the wilderness and dry land are filled with gladness and rejoicing and rejuvenation.

Lundblad writes, “Isaiah speaks a word out of place. Amid chaos and destruction, against despair and apathy, Isaiah speaks a word of restoration. Against a deep, dark, soul-grating thirst, Isaiah describes water – not a trickle appearing in the midst of a lush forest, either, but water appearing as if a dam had burst, sending water gushing into a parched, dry, cracked, desolate landscape of our souls. Perhaps it was, at first, a trickle. Then a stream. Then a full-on gushing flood of life-changing water.”

I wonder if you can think of a time when you were really, truly thirsty. For most of us I imagine that we can conjure up a time when we really wanted a drink – maybe we had been sick, running a fever; maybe you found yourself on an outing and no one and thought to pack enough beverages to take along; maybe you went for an unexpected hike and realized too late that you hadn’t thought of that little necessity.  A few of us might have experienced serious thirst or been caught in situations a little more dangerous, without sufficient water.

I know that in times when I have been really truly thirsty, finding water became an obsession. Our physical need for water is so great and constant. Imagine that you were in the middle of the desert or in the wilderness and you had no access to clean water-it wouldn’t take long for thirst to overwhelm.

I read a book, Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand earlier this year. It’s is the true story of Louis Zamperini, a WWII bombardier whose plane crashed into the Pacific Ocean in 1943. The three survivors of the crash spent weeks on a raft in the middle of the ocean. Thirst was indescribable and brutal and even the slightest, briefest relief of it brought unimaginable joy. Parched, at times delirious, the men longed for, ached for and even dreamed of refreshing life-giving water to replace the death-dealing water that surrounded them day after day.

Imagine being in that raft in the middle of the ocean or on your hike or in your sickbed in a state of real, dire thirst and suddenly, receiving that first trickle of relief – that first trickle of water. And then the water flows more freely and you go from sipping to slurping to gulping it down, great torrents of cool refreshment and relief from the agony of thirst. What does it feel like to go from suffering real thirst to sudden refreshment and relief of cool, fresh, flowing water?

When our kids were little, they loved getting a quarter from us to use in vending machines – like old fashioned bubblegum machines, but when you cranked the handle on these machines, a prize would fall out below. I don’t even know if they make them anymore, but I remember that one of the prizes that might be delivered would be a tiny compressed piece of material, so small that it fit into a vitamin-sized capsule.

You would put this capsule in water and instantly the plastic covering would melt away, and the piece of material inside would begin to swell. It would absorb more and more water until it would double and then triple and quadruple in size until it became I don’t know how many times the size of the original piece. It was often the shape of a dinosaur or some other animal. This little blob of – whatever – was totally transformed by the water into something the kids could then enjoy.

I think of God’s promised restoration and transformation in this way.

God’s coming transforms that which is dried and shriveled and shrunken in on itself in utter lifelessness, and suddenly it comes to life, it will swells and grows and takes on shape and form.

Isaiah provides assurance that God’s coming will result not in the people’s destruction but in their salvation and renewal, health and wholeness – in their swelling and taking on the shape and form of the creator. What’s more, like the parched and dry land, like the burning sand, the weakest and most vulnerable will be not only restored but utterly transformed; “eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy”. They will go from being nearly invisible, shapeless, worthless scraps of material to being completely refreshed, rejuvenated, and transformed into the beautiful, ransomed people of God’s redeeming love.

God’s work among humanity is nothing short of radical, transformative, and restorative. When the LORD appears, strange and marvelous things happen, and like a word out of place, it instantly changes the world into which it h as come. The wilderness becomes a flourishing path with streams of water flowing abundantly. Dangerous highways become holy paths upon which the redeemed can walk with assurance. The blind see, the deaf hear, and the lame not only walk but leap for joy. The exiles return home. And there is unbridled rejoicing from the ransomed people of God.

This word is good news today for all those who languish in exile in this in-between time of waiting and watching. It is good news for those who wait in cancer wards and prisons; good news for the homeless and the voiceless. God’s bubbling, streaming, flowing word is good news for those who truly thirst in our world, for those who hunger in ways that we cannot even fathom, for those who find themselves with feeble knees and weak hands and fearful hearts. God’s refreshing word is good news for the depressed, for those who long for love and acceptance, those who hear voices that set them apart, those who, in their isolation hear no voices at all; for those who suffer addictions that control and destroy their lives, and for anyone who feels disillusioned and disenfranchised.

When the fullness of God comes among us, all of us, all of creation, and all of humanity will be transformed. In the meantime, God is already at work, and God’s word out of place is a balm for those who hear this word and seek to follow God’s mission, faithful to God’s command to love, and to build faith along the Way of peace and joy and hope.

God’s word out of place comes in the form of the outpouring of generosity from individuals, churches and organizations who come together to provide Christmas joy for families who would otherwise “have no” Christmas. God’s word out of place comes when we give to organizations that help provide clean sustainable water supply for a village in Columbia or Central America. God’s word out of place comes from food drives and blood drives and strangers helping strangers in their hour of need.

As we continue our Advent journey, may we be blessed by the images that God sends all around us to guide our way, to speak a word out of place and to prepare our hearts to receive the Lord Jesus Christ on Christmas. May we find trickles of God’s life-giving water turning to streams, washing and refreshing the people of God, reminding us of the great cleansing and new birth of our baptism. And may we be reminded of the words of the prophet, “And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.” May such joy accompany you on your journey to Bethlehem.

Amen.