Every year, without fail, someone will ask me why we light a pink candle on the third Sunday of Advent. I wonder if any of us know? Pop quiz, but don’t answer if you are retired clergy or were raised Roman Catholic – yes, we have a few of each. They are among us. [I wait for a response to repeat or clarify.]
Yes! It is the candle for joy! Our Roman Catholic siblings call it “Gaudete Sunday” because they begin with the words Gaudete in Domino Semper – Rejoice in the Lord always. Sound familiar? It’s from Philippians 4:4. The reason today is the day to be reminded to rejoice in the Lord every day is that Advent, from the beginning of its celebration in the church, has been to Christmas what Lent is to Easter.
It’s not just a time to decorate and get ready for the celebration of the birth of Christ, it’s a time to reorient your lives around the fact that God revealed God’s true nature in Jesus. Advent is a time to repent of the ways that we have neglected the revealed nature of God, and it’s an invitation to receive and reflect the image of God in which we were created as well.
Ok, but what does that have to do with joy? Well, it’s because our forbearers decided that – since we have been spending so much energy on being nice when what we want to do is just go ahead and be naughty – the third Sunday of Advent is here to remind us that God is the source of all joy. It’s also a day of encouragement because the day of the Lord and the return of Jesus is near. Think of it as a spiritual version of the seventh-inning stretch in a ball game.
With that in mind, there are two things that this day reminds us of and assures us of: joy is not dependent on happiness but instead flows from the mercy of God; because of God’s mercy we are not focused on what we have or have not done. We are focused on what God has done and is doing and how we can be a part of it.
Henri Nouwen was a spiritual leader, teacher, and author who exemplified the first principle that joy is not dependant on happiness but flows from the mercy of God. During part of his life, he lived in a community with people who had special needs, often acting as a companion for members of the L'Arche Daybreak community in Richmond Hill, Ontario. Nouwen was once quoted as saying that “happiness is dependent on external conditions, while joy is the experience of knowing that you are unconditionally loved and that nothing – sickness, failure, emotional distress, oppression, war, or even death - can take that love away.”
As I read the headlines of storms in the midwest, it seems to me that the Spirit of God had a pretty good idea in encouraging the church to think of this day as a day of joy. As I talk with people who lament over the way these holy days seem to rub salt in the wounds of our losses, it seems to me that the Spirit of God had a pretty good idea in encouraging the church to think of this day as a day of joy!
When I turn to our scriptures, and I read “The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life,” and “every one who thirsts, come to the waters;
and you that have no money, come, buy and eat!”
I read these words and my head swims and my knees buckle at the thought of it all. On the one hand, I wonder how seriously and literally to take these words. What would the world look like if we shared our resources? What would happen if our priorities were the same as God’s? What would happen if we cared more about the wasting of resources when people are hungry than we did about our expectation for those who hunger to prove their deservedness for food – even richly flavored food reserved for those who can afford it.
On the other, I am astounded by the grace and mercy of God. None of the provisions of God – which starts with food and water and moves toward forgiveness and inclusion – are offered as a transaction. It’s all providence.
Now, to add a little context – just like last week’s text – Isaiah wrote to assure the Israelites who were returning from captivity that they were going from the embrace of God into the embrace of God. He was writing to assure them that even though they were returning to barren land, God was still God and would still be with them just as God had been with them in captivity.
I don’t know that many of us can really get our heads around the offer of bread and water and rich food that God is promising here, but I feel like we know people who do. Some of us have met asylum seekers who have been received with joy. Some of us have known refugees from disaster who have been sheltered and in turn, offered shelter to others. One of those is our friend, Chief Sherill. There’s a great image of her on Facebook. She stands with a slight smile and a stoic, resolute face while homes are being raised to the ground behind her.
I wanted to use it for our art piece for the day, but it was done by a photographer and I did not have permission to use it. Still, in my way of thinking, it was a picture of joy. The picture that we are using is of a volunteer nurse who is teaching her neighbors to teach their neighbors about the Living Waters installation at our sister congregation in Sabanilla, Cuba. In a place with no infrastructure for clean water where the wells are tainted from agricultural runoff and general disrepair, God speaks through a nurse and from neighbor to neighbor and there is a joy!
As good as that is to hear, that’s only a reflection of the greater message of joy that we receive today. Of course, the most immediate connection that I hope you’ll hear from this is that if there can be joy in those places there can be joy in this place. If there can be joy in this place, there can be joy, dare I say it, in the congregation of First Presbyterian Church in Mayfield KY, even though their building was leveled just yesterday.
If our joy is in the Lord; if our trust is in the expectation that God is always moving us toward hope and restoration and inclusion in the project of God to invite everyone into a life of right living and into the eternal embrace of God’s love then we will never be without some little flicker of joy.
The really good news is that the joy that we have in God’s love is not dependent on us. In Isaiah 55:6 it says “Seek the Lord while he is near,” so yes we need to do that. There is some urgency to the invitation, but not because God or God’s grace is limited. It’s because we are. V.7 says, “let the wicked forsake their way, and the unrighteous their thoughts; let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.”
Again, this is not a quid pro quo or a transaction. God is essentially begging us to let God show the mercy that God wants to show. How do we do that? We do it by letting go of the things that divide us from God and one another. We stop spending our money and laboring for things that do not satisfy, instead, we set the table for a banquet where people receive the providence of God. Sometimes that looks like food, maybe at the Wesley or Meals on Wheels. Sometimes that looks like the relationships we form here and online. Sometimes it looks like a bicycle for a kid who has never had one, or for an adult with no other transportation.
Whatever form it takes, joy is nothing less than the promises of God made real. Isaiah 55:11 says, “so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”
It is no wonder that Jesus is referred to in the same way, as the word of God, by the author of John’s Gospel. In the same way that God spoke creation into being, Jesus was the embodiment of the word of God spoken through Isaiah. In Isaiah 55:3-5 we’re told that the covenant God made with David will now be made with all those from any nation who listen to the word of God, and in John 4 Jesus assures us that the word of God will sustain us – always.
In the end, what truly matters is that we hear God – through God’s word – saying to us “as bad as it may get, or as good as it may be, my love is for you, and it is for them, and there is space at the table for all y’all. The more you realize that, the better it will be for everyone. Until then, take joy in my love for you, and trust that my word will not return empty-handed. It might even come back with so much grace that you need to find others to help you share it.” At least that’s what I hear God’s word saying to me, and I hope that is true for you, too. All to God’s glory. Amen.
Yes! It is the candle for joy! Our Roman Catholic siblings call it “Gaudete Sunday” because they begin with the words Gaudete in Domino Semper – Rejoice in the Lord always. Sound familiar? It’s from Philippians 4:4. The reason today is the day to be reminded to rejoice in the Lord every day is that Advent, from the beginning of its celebration in the church, has been to Christmas what Lent is to Easter.
It’s not just a time to decorate and get ready for the celebration of the birth of Christ, it’s a time to reorient your lives around the fact that God revealed God’s true nature in Jesus. Advent is a time to repent of the ways that we have neglected the revealed nature of God, and it’s an invitation to receive and reflect the image of God in which we were created as well.
Ok, but what does that have to do with joy? Well, it’s because our forbearers decided that – since we have been spending so much energy on being nice when what we want to do is just go ahead and be naughty – the third Sunday of Advent is here to remind us that God is the source of all joy. It’s also a day of encouragement because the day of the Lord and the return of Jesus is near. Think of it as a spiritual version of the seventh-inning stretch in a ball game.
With that in mind, there are two things that this day reminds us of and assures us of: joy is not dependent on happiness but instead flows from the mercy of God; because of God’s mercy we are not focused on what we have or have not done. We are focused on what God has done and is doing and how we can be a part of it.
Henri Nouwen was a spiritual leader, teacher, and author who exemplified the first principle that joy is not dependant on happiness but flows from the mercy of God. During part of his life, he lived in a community with people who had special needs, often acting as a companion for members of the L'Arche Daybreak community in Richmond Hill, Ontario. Nouwen was once quoted as saying that “happiness is dependent on external conditions, while joy is the experience of knowing that you are unconditionally loved and that nothing – sickness, failure, emotional distress, oppression, war, or even death - can take that love away.”
As I read the headlines of storms in the midwest, it seems to me that the Spirit of God had a pretty good idea in encouraging the church to think of this day as a day of joy. As I talk with people who lament over the way these holy days seem to rub salt in the wounds of our losses, it seems to me that the Spirit of God had a pretty good idea in encouraging the church to think of this day as a day of joy!
When I turn to our scriptures, and I read “The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life,” and “every one who thirsts, come to the waters;
and you that have no money, come, buy and eat!”
I read these words and my head swims and my knees buckle at the thought of it all. On the one hand, I wonder how seriously and literally to take these words. What would the world look like if we shared our resources? What would happen if our priorities were the same as God’s? What would happen if we cared more about the wasting of resources when people are hungry than we did about our expectation for those who hunger to prove their deservedness for food – even richly flavored food reserved for those who can afford it.
On the other, I am astounded by the grace and mercy of God. None of the provisions of God – which starts with food and water and moves toward forgiveness and inclusion – are offered as a transaction. It’s all providence.
Now, to add a little context – just like last week’s text – Isaiah wrote to assure the Israelites who were returning from captivity that they were going from the embrace of God into the embrace of God. He was writing to assure them that even though they were returning to barren land, God was still God and would still be with them just as God had been with them in captivity.
I don’t know that many of us can really get our heads around the offer of bread and water and rich food that God is promising here, but I feel like we know people who do. Some of us have met asylum seekers who have been received with joy. Some of us have known refugees from disaster who have been sheltered and in turn, offered shelter to others. One of those is our friend, Chief Sherill. There’s a great image of her on Facebook. She stands with a slight smile and a stoic, resolute face while homes are being raised to the ground behind her.
I wanted to use it for our art piece for the day, but it was done by a photographer and I did not have permission to use it. Still, in my way of thinking, it was a picture of joy. The picture that we are using is of a volunteer nurse who is teaching her neighbors to teach their neighbors about the Living Waters installation at our sister congregation in Sabanilla, Cuba. In a place with no infrastructure for clean water where the wells are tainted from agricultural runoff and general disrepair, God speaks through a nurse and from neighbor to neighbor and there is a joy!
As good as that is to hear, that’s only a reflection of the greater message of joy that we receive today. Of course, the most immediate connection that I hope you’ll hear from this is that if there can be joy in those places there can be joy in this place. If there can be joy in this place, there can be joy, dare I say it, in the congregation of First Presbyterian Church in Mayfield KY, even though their building was leveled just yesterday.
If our joy is in the Lord; if our trust is in the expectation that God is always moving us toward hope and restoration and inclusion in the project of God to invite everyone into a life of right living and into the eternal embrace of God’s love then we will never be without some little flicker of joy.
The really good news is that the joy that we have in God’s love is not dependent on us. In Isaiah 55:6 it says “Seek the Lord while he is near,” so yes we need to do that. There is some urgency to the invitation, but not because God or God’s grace is limited. It’s because we are. V.7 says, “let the wicked forsake their way, and the unrighteous their thoughts; let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.”
Again, this is not a quid pro quo or a transaction. God is essentially begging us to let God show the mercy that God wants to show. How do we do that? We do it by letting go of the things that divide us from God and one another. We stop spending our money and laboring for things that do not satisfy, instead, we set the table for a banquet where people receive the providence of God. Sometimes that looks like food, maybe at the Wesley or Meals on Wheels. Sometimes that looks like the relationships we form here and online. Sometimes it looks like a bicycle for a kid who has never had one, or for an adult with no other transportation.
Whatever form it takes, joy is nothing less than the promises of God made real. Isaiah 55:11 says, “so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”
It is no wonder that Jesus is referred to in the same way, as the word of God, by the author of John’s Gospel. In the same way that God spoke creation into being, Jesus was the embodiment of the word of God spoken through Isaiah. In Isaiah 55:3-5 we’re told that the covenant God made with David will now be made with all those from any nation who listen to the word of God, and in John 4 Jesus assures us that the word of God will sustain us – always.
In the end, what truly matters is that we hear God – through God’s word – saying to us “as bad as it may get, or as good as it may be, my love is for you, and it is for them, and there is space at the table for all y’all. The more you realize that, the better it will be for everyone. Until then, take joy in my love for you, and trust that my word will not return empty-handed. It might even come back with so much grace that you need to find others to help you share it.” At least that’s what I hear God’s word saying to me, and I hope that is true for you, too. All to God’s glory. Amen.
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