Sermon for December 13, 2020 – Advent 3: Joy

Advent is a season of joy, a season for “those who dream” as today’s Psalm puts it. Trusting God is at work, we can rejoice always, no matter what the circumstances. Welcome to worship for the 3rd Sunday of Advent, December 13, 2020. In addition to hymns from Sandra, Scripture, prayers, and a sermon, we’re also blessing prayer shawls this week.

This week’s sermon texts are 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24, Psalm 126, and John 1:6-8, 19-28. A version of this sermon was also preached via video for St. James Lutheran Church in Allison, Iowa. Helpful this week was James Howell’s preaching reflection here at Ministry Matters.  

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen

Today is the third of the four Sundays in Advent. That means we’re more than half-way through this season. Christmas is less than two weeks away, so I wonder: How Christmasy do you feel right now?

As I said a couple weeks ago, it still feels a little like we are still in Lent from back in the spring. At least to me, it feels—and forgive me for the very non-Lutheran word—it feels a bit like we’ve been in a sort of purgatory since mid-March, when the pandemic started.

About the only Christmas spirit I’ve felt so far was on Monday evening, when I was in the sanctuary with Sandra recording carols for our online Christmas Eve service. Listening to her play, I had this moment of realization that Christmas is almost here. 2020 is finally almost over.

There’s a great line in C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, where, as the children are learning about the spell the white witch has put over the land of Narnia, Mr. Tumnus describes it to them as “It is winter in Narnia, and has been for ever so long…always winter, but never Christmas.” In the story, the first sign of hope is that the snow starts melting and Father Christmas appears to begin the holiday celebration.

I don’t want to say nothing good has happened in 2020, but it’s certainly not too much to say this has been a challenging year.

And of course, December 25 is not going to suddenly make everything better. A vaccine rollout is going to take months, and the weeks right after Christmas might be some of the worst for the pandemic.

But the season of Advent is about looking forward to the good news of Christmas, good news that doesn’t solve everything immediately, but that promises us there is hope.

God does not leave us alone in perpetual winter. God chooses to be born into our cold, broken, sinful world. Christ is coming.

Often, as we light the candles of the advent wreath and mark the time counting down to Christmas, we associate each week, each candle with a word: Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love.

Sometimes there are other ways of labeling the candles, like the shepherd’s candle and the prophecy candle. None of that’s in the Bible of course, but it can be a helpful way to frame this season.

We’ve been using the theme words Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love, but honestly, I haven’t done much this year with those words—I don’t think I even mentioned the word “peace” in the sermon last week.

This week, though, the Advent word is “Joy” and there’s a strong tradition around this particular week. It’s an old tradition called Gaudate Sunday. Gaudate is the Latin word for “Rejoice”, and in traditions where Advent as a season for fasting and repentance, this third Sunday provides a break from the fasting, which I imagine makes for a pretty concrete example of joy!

If you have an Advent wreath at home, the order you light the blue or purple candles in doesn’t matter, but the tradition is if an Advent wreath has a pink candle, this is the week you light it.

All of our Scripture lessons today share this theme of joy, and I think especially this year, especially in this season of long nights and the feeling of a long winter coming, we need to pay attention to joy whenever it comes up!

If you remember from last week, we heard a passage from the prophet Isaiah that began, “Comfort, O comfort my people.” That was a message addressed to the people of Israel during their time in exile in Babylon. The message was that their time of exile was coming to an end, the price of their sin had been paid, and it was time for them to return home.

This week, the first lesson from Isaiah and the Psalm are both related to the exile’s end, and the joy the people felt as they returned. In the Psalm, it says, “When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream.”

God’s rescue plan was so great, so miraculous it seemed unreal. It seemed too good to be true, like an impossible dream.

Verse 2: “Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy; then it was said among the nations, ‘The Lord has done great things for them.’ The Lord has done great things for us, and we rejoiced.”

What a gift to be able to look and see what God is doing, to recognize the good and great actions of the Lord. No matter how hard the present is, God’s people can look back to see God’s faithfulness in the past, and trust God will continue to be faithful in the future. Even those who sowed tears will finally reap with shouts of joy, because God is at work.

Isaiah explains what sort of work God is doing, what God’s mission is. This is the verse, by the way, that Jesus preaches on in his first sermon at Nazareth, taking this as his own mission statement.

The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me—to do what? —to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners.

Sounds to me like reason for joy!

To proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to provide for those who mourn in Zion—to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit.

You can summarize the promise of Advent—maybe even the whole promise of faith—with those two little words, “Instead of.”

Instead of mourning, God offers comfort. Instead of death and decay, God is in the business of life and restoration. Instead of loneliness and separation, Jesus came to bring reconciliation.

Instead of only bleak winter, the joy of Christmas. Instead of fear, hope. God is repairing the ruined cities, building up what was lost and destroyed, establishing a new reign, a new kingdom.

No wonder Paul can instruct us in 1 Thessalonians to rejoice always, pray without ceasing, and give thanks in all circumstances, because we know what God is up to. We know this is the dawn before the light breaks. We know and we trust and we believe God is at work, even when it’s hard to see.

When we remember the last verse there, “The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do this,” then we can rejoice always and give thanks in all circumstances.

Let me be clear: That’s not giving thanks for all circumstances! I’m not thankful there is a pandemic. I’m not thankful for people losing their jobs, or for sickness, or disasters. In fact, there’s a lot I’m not thankful for! Mosquitoes.

But no matter what the circumstances, the one who calls is faithful, and so we can give thanks. The pandemic has stopped us from doing many things, but it cannot stop us from rejoicing, giving thanks, or experiencing joy.

Finally, in the Gospel reading, we hear the proclamation of John the Baptist: The time is almost here. The light is breaking through. The Messiah is coming.

John wants to be very clear, he is not the messiah. He is a messenger, whose job it is to point to the messiah, the savior, the redeemer — which of course is our job as well, to witness to the light coming into the world.

The one who will save the world is here, standing among you, even if you don’t know him yet. God is on the move.

In the words of the hymn, “Hark, the glad sound! The savior comes, the savior promised long.”

Get ready, the One we’ve been waiting for is on the way, is almost here.

And when that One gets here, well, he’s coming to release the prisoners, to burst open the gates, to bind up the broken hearts, cure bleeding soles, enrich the humble poor. Joy to the world!

Rejoice, for Christ is coming. Happy Advent.
Amen