Reflections for my sermon on the Third Sunday of Advent, 2024.
“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near.”
When I was growing up, this time of year was the best time of the year. We were Presbyterians and my father’s background was in the Baptist church, so these notions of Advent as looking towards the second coming of Jesus were not a concern. The Christmas tree was up soon after Thanksgiving and my father, who loved this season most of all, would go into overdrive, cleaning and decorating our otherwise usually hopelessly cluttered house. There would be real evergreens everywhere. Wrapped around the banister, hanging from the dining room chandelier, on the mantel, and a wreath or swag on the door. One year my father used special paints to decorate the glass storm door, you know, the door that goes outside your front door; he painted it so it looked like a stained-glass window of the nativity scene, and he even rigged up a light between the two doors to shine at night. Of course, this all meant that the door stayed painted that way for the next 4 or 5 years, but it was beautiful. Even the lamp post on the corner got the stained-glass treatment. His decoration of the tree was meticulous. It was an exciting and wonderful time as we got ready to celebrate the birth of Jesus.
Today, now, I have mixed feelings. It is not just that my liturgical knowledge has deepened, I know what Advent is really about, but my life experience has shaped me such that this season can so easily become a time of melancholy. I am hardly alone and that is why we will have our Blue Christmas service this coming Thursday evening. Those of us who mourn and grieve loved ones who are no longer present, can find it even more poignant at this time of year, as families gather from near and far. Most of you know that twelve years ago our son Mack died on New Year’s Eve of a blood infection. This spring will mark six years since my father died and in September my aunt died, then this past week her husband Erich followed her in death. The cost of loving others is that we miss them when they are no longer with us. And…and this is a time to rejoice, and we must continue to celebrate with those who are with us, even as we face the challenges of today.
I find this tension so present in the season of Advent and it is in our readings today. The readings from the Old Testament, Zephaniah and Isaiah, and even Paul command us to rejoice! This is why I am wearing rose (not pink!) today because it is “Gaudete Sunday,” from the Latin for “rejoice!” But what reason do we have to rejoice?
“Sing aloud, O daughter Zion; Shout O Israel! Rejoice and Exult with all your heart, O daughter Jerusalem!” But why, why should Jerusalem rejoice? Zephaniah, a contemporary of Jeremiah, was preaching at a time when first the Assyrians and then the Babylonians were bringing great pressure upon Judah and Jerusalem. It was a time of uncertainty, horrible conflict, privation, and fear. After Zephaniah’s lifetime, it would all culminate in the absolute destruction of Jerusalem and the exile of their leaders.
In other words, when Zephaniah said, “Rejoice!” The people around him likely said, “What for? Life is hard, full of hurt, full of grief, political turmoil, war in the Middle East (which for them would be, you know, Home), why should we rejoice?”
Paul echoes the prophets’ refrain and says, “Rejoice in the Lord always, again I will say, Rejoice!” While Paul is writing some six hundred years after Zephaniah (let that sink in for a minute, over twice as long as the US has been a country), the situation wasn’t that much better. Now, it was the Romans in control, and they weren’t making things any easier on the Jews. Now, as part of a new religious movement, the Christians were persecuted, even to death. Now, what was there to rejoice about?
Since the beginning of recorded history, the world hasn’t changed all that much. Sure, today, here in Versailles, we have many more comforts like indoor plumbing, heating in the winter, air con in the summer, and a Kroger down the street full of food. Yet there are people, here today, in Versailles, who do not have a warm place to sleep or enough food. But none of us are untouched by grief, none of us haven’t known loneliness, sadness, or anxiety. So why should we rejoice today? For the same reason Israel should rejoice, the same reason Paul tells the Christians at Philippi that they “not be anxious about anything.” Because Advent and Christmas remind us that God remembers us and his promises to us. This is what sent John out into the wilderness.
“He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” John, like Zephaniah centuries before him, was calling his people to remember God’s promise, that if they repent – that is confess their sin and live their lives following God – God will forgive them of their sins and deliver them from all their enemies. No, not the Assyrians, Babylonians, or the Romans. Murderers and thieves, cheats and heartbreakers will still exist. When we repent of our sins, follow Christ, and “bear fruits worthy of repentance,” ensuring that those who need food or clothes or shelter are cared for, we will be freed from sin and the enemies within.
As John said, he baptized with water, but Jesus baptizes with the Holy Spirit and fire. “‘His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.’ So with many other exhortations he proclaimed the good news to the people.” (This is a reference to wheat that has a kernel within the papery exterior, the chaff. When you winnow, you keep the kernel of wheat and get rid of the chaff.) This image is not just that those who do not repent, the wicked of this world, will receive their judgment, but that the chaff within ourselves will be burned up and we will be cleansed. And this is the good news that John proclaimed. This is why Israel rejoices and why Paul can exhort us not only to rejoice, Always. Our sins are forgiven, we are saved from the ultimate death. So, Paul tells us to rejoice and…not to be anxious.
Anxiety is real and I suffer greatly from it. I have for all my life. It used to be paralyzing. It is still present, I would not pretend otherwise. Just like grief, it is a constant companion. Even as for others feeling precarious about their health or finding enough food is a real and present need. Even still, these things do not, should not, define us; instead, we need to remember the God’s promise to deliver us from all evil and death. When that is firmly fixed in our hearts, the burden becomes lighter, the way becomes easier. When we bring everything to God in prayer with thanksgiving, the anxiety lifts and we can breathe more freely. When we affirm that Jesus rose on the third day and ascended into heaven, we remember that we too will be raised from the dead and so will those who have died before us and our gray grief becomes a lighter shade. When we rest in God, we rejoice.
The work remains, the road to be travelled, yet our destination is now certain. We have work today here and now. John said to those who came out, if you say you repent, then show it with your lives. Paul tells us to rejoice and “let your gentleness be known to everyone.” For the Lord is near. We rejoice, we celebrate, not because we no longer hurt or struggle, but because we know that salvation is at hand, it is here, now, and in the future. Injustice, hunger, poverty, even death itself has been conquered through Jesus the Messiah who will come again.
And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Amen.
