Today is the third Sunday of Advent, which means we are taking another step towards Christmas. And today is the day when we lit the pink candle on the Advent wreath to mark Gaudete or Joy Sunday. Joy is the theme of the day. From Zephaniah, we hear that it’s time to sing, rejoice, and exult! Paul tells us to “rejoice in the Lord always.”
But for some, it is also a season filled with much sadness and hopelessness. From one who felt the need to drink themselves to sleep in the rain this past week shared with me, that the holiday is not the joy I knew as a child. “I hate Christmas and want it can’t be over soon enough,” he said. Suicide attempts and admissions to mental health facilities increase during the holiday season. With so much being focused on children and the birth of a child this season, for those who experience pregnancy loss or feel rather childless the time can be harsh. For those living in grief, isolation, pain, or loneliness, joy can be the farthest thought on the mind. Whether your own experience is named here or not, I bet we can all relate our own stories of isolation, fear, despair, illness, and doubt; and not only during the season of Advent. For we like John, wait. We are waiting for the promised one to come. For peace on earth and goodwill toward all.
Be reminded that Paul writes to “rejoice always” while in prison. And the prophet Zephaniah is writes “rejoice and exult with all your heart” to a nation in political and social turmoil. Joy does not sweep tensions under the rug. Joy tolerates doubt and sadness; fear and loss.Joy is a celebration of God’s presence with us, even—especially—in the darkest of days. Dostoevsky described joy when writing, “It is not like a child that I believe in Christ and confess him. My hosanna has come forth through the crucible of doubt.”
Hear me out to consider our emotions amidst our anxiety and fears this third Sunday. At the risk of telling someone to feel something they really can’t feel, I do believe John’s call to repentance today is a call to change perspectives — to change our mindset by the act of praise, and acts of giving and thanksgiving. The good news that John proclaims is that business as usual is on the way out and something new is on its way in. The status quo of greed, selfishness, scarcity, and complacency no longer has power. A new day of mutual sharing and justice is almost here. In to repentance, John invites a turning away from the old life and turn toward God’s new life.
Alfred Delp was a Jesuit priest who came to be a vocal leader of a Nazi resistance movement and was then imprisoned by the Nazis. He wrote Advent devotions from his prison cell titled Advent of the Heart. He writes: “Advent is a time for rousing. Human beings are shaken to the very depths, so that they may wake up to the truth of themselves. The primary condition for a fruitful and rewarding Advent hope is renunciation, surrender… A shattering awakening; is the necessary preliminary. Life only begins with the whole framework is shaken.”
Yesterday’s rain took down the last of the leaves on the oak tree in my backyard. So, last night looking up from the base of the tree into the night sky, the bright moon and stars came into a much clearer view with a renewed perspectives.
Left to ourselves, we curse the darkness. It’s just not right, we cry out. We would despair this world and our neighbors. We would not get out of bed most days. To rejoice is to see beyond the surface: the tasks before us, the worries, the heavyheartedness. God grants us a peace rooted in gratitude. In thanksgiving for the gift of life. For light shining in the darkness. For the hope, that even in sorrow, a new day will dawn. That looking beyond ourselves in giving and sharing and looking to the needs of others, we experience joy and knowledge of God. And we, too, bear fruit worthy of such repentance.
Neurologists are now able to track religious emotions in certain parts of the brain. Joy and awe are linked to the middle temporal lobe which regulates our sense of orientation in space. So, spiritual disciplines of awe and religious praise are an integral part of our experience of joy. For us to be joyful in the world, we must regularly access these parts of our brain.
Sure, some days we are angry and sad. But I’ve learned the power of seeing and putting on a smile. The power of a small compliment or kind gesture. There is power in being a friend even when you don’t feel you have friends. There is power in giving and sharing.
Paul’s exhortation in his letter to the Philippians is also about the practice of faith. “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious 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.”
Paul gives a great outline here in the reading of how to practice or live out the hope of faith.
First, rejoice always. We often start worship with a hymn of praise, and I have seen or felt it happen, of hearts being moved from the act of singing out praise to God regardless of what the day or week has brought.
Second, the Lord is near and humble, but bringing needs to God, to offer thanksgiving. I’ve known someone living in chronic pain at death’s doorstep and living in utter poverty to talk about their hope in the day to be the spiritual practice of writing out a daily gratitude list of what it was that day she could find to give thanks: from a cup of water to a night of sleep.
The ritual words I speak weekly at the altar include the phrase: “it is our duty and delight that we should at all times and in all places give thanks and praise to you Almighty God.”
In Alice Walker’s novel Possessing the Secret of Joy, Tashi Johnson goes to the firing squad, and, her sisters unfurl a banner before the soldiers can stop them. “Resistance is the secret of joy,” it says in huge block letters.
“Joy to the world” comes to an unwed mother in a foreign land, to a prophet in jail, to a redeemer on a cross.
Father Richard Rohr writes: “We must not be afraid to announce joy to refugees, slum dwellers, saddened prisoners, and to angry prophets. Now and then we must even announce some joy to ourselves. In this prison of now, in this cynical and sophisticated age, someone must still believe in joy.”
At one white elephant exchange I attended this week someone was gifted and exchanged twice a pogo stick. When was the last time you jumped on a pogo stick? A few took their try. Many movements of our bodies we may not have enacted for years. We have a lot of killjoys in our daily life. Let joy not be one we forget this Christmas. Maybe John the Baptist can be one to help us alter the status quo from expectations and systems that don’t allow joy but instead anoint each other with the oil of gladness and announce with the angels who proclaimed the “good tidings of great joy”.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
shall come to you, O Israel.
I especially like this weeks and last weeks sermons. They both reminded me to always have kindness, understanding and empathy for others who do not think or feel as i do or as fortunate as i. We are all equally loved by the ones above. Equally importantly is the importance of feeling joy as I go minute by minute through life despite all that makes me distressed and uncertain.