It’s the third week of Advent, and today’s theme is joy. Our Scripture readings are Philippians 4:4-7, Isaiah 12:2-6, Zephaniah 3:14-20, and Luke 3:7-18, all of which celebrate the promise of God’s salvation entering into the world. Because God is our salvation, we can rejoice no matter what our circumstances.
Thanks to Tim Brown for his reflection on the Isaiah reading in this week’s ELCA World Hunger Sermon Starters email, to David Lose for his 2009 Gospel commentary on Working Preacher, and to Kathryn Schifferdecker for her Luther Seminary chapel sermon on December 8, 2021.
In Sunday’s worship service, the sermon followed all four of the readings, but for the online version, I’ve incorporated all but the Gospel into the sermon itself and I’m posting that version of the sermon here. Also, since the Sunday School Christmas program was the majority of our Saturday night service, this sermon was only preached for Sunday morning and this recording.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our coming savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen
I don’t know who decided the four Sundays of Advent need to have themes, but each year, we label these four weeks as hope, peace, joy, and love. I’m not sure if those themes were picked to go with the readings, or if the lectionary committees picked readings to fit the themes, but either way, welcome to week three of Advent. Today, we’re talking about joy.
Did you get joy from that reading from John? We’ll come back to that one.
For three of today’s readings, the theme of joy fits pretty well. Our first reading is from Zephaniah, and it’s celebrating God rescuing God’s people from exile. I talked about the exile last week, but it’s a really big deal for the people of Israel, and lots of the prophets including Zephaniah talk about it.
Here’s the reading.
Sing aloud, O daughter Zion; shout, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter Jerusalem! The Lord has taken away the judgments against you, he has turned away your enemies. The king of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst; you shall fear disaster no more. On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem: Do not fear, O Zion; do not let your hands grow weak.
The Lord, your God, is in your midst, a warrior who gives victory; he will rejoice over you with gladness, he will renew you in his love; he will exult over you with loud singing as on a day of festival. I will remove disaster from you, so that you will not bear reproach for it. I will deal with all your oppressors at that time. And I will save the lame and gather the outcast, and I will change their shame into praise and renown in all the earth. At that time I will bring you home, at the time when I gather you; for I will make you renowned and praised among all the peoples of the earth, when I restore your fortunes before your eyes, says the Lord.
So the promise here is that God is in your midst, God is with you, rejoicing over you with gladness, renewing you in love, exulting over you with loud singing. Sounds pretty joyful, right? God’s going to save the lame and gather the outcast, bring everyone back home. It’s worth celebrating!
And it fits with the season of Advent as well, because this is a prophecy. Zephaniah is proclaiming what God is going to do. Some of it’s been fulfilled in history, with God’s people returning from exile, but this is also a glimpse of the future, a glimpse of God’s kingdom – we’re not there yet.
There are still people oppressed in this world. There are still people in the world who are outcast, even people in our own community. Maybe you feel like an outcast. This is a promise for the future, that God hasn’t given up on you. We have an eternal home we’re looking forward to.
Some of the joy in this reading is joy not because of what’s already happened, but because of the promise of what is to come, and so we’re joyful as we wait, holding on to God’s promises.
Then there’s the reading from Philippians, which covers both joy and peace, so we get two Advent themes for the price of one. Here’s the reading. Paul writes:
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.
“Rejoice in the Lord, always;” and in case you miss the point or don’t feel joyful yet, “again I will say, Rejoice.”
The key here is that Paul’s version of rejoicing is more than just being happy. Joy and happiness aren’t the same thing. Happiness is a reaction to what’s going on around you. Joy is based on something deeper. Joy is an attitude, a way of approaching the world.
Joy doesn’t depend on your circumstances.
Paul is writing Philippians from prison, from circumstances that are anything but happy. Yet he says to rejoice. Why? Because the Lord is near. God is not finished yet with this broken world. God is coming. Whatever circumstance you might be in is not the end of the story. Do not worry about anything. Trust your circumstances—your needs and requests—to God.
And, Paul prays, may God’s peace be with you. May God guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus and give you the eternal peace beyond anything this world can offer, the peace that comes only from God. There’s definitely joy there.
One more reading, this time from Isaiah.
Surely God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid, for the Lord God is my strength and my might; he has become my salvation. With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.
And you will say in that day: Give thanks to the Lord, call on his name; make known his deeds among the nations; proclaim that his name is exalted. Sing praises to the Lord, for he has done gloriously; let this be known in all the earth. Shout aloud and sing for joy, O royal Zion, for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.
I actually think this Isaiah reading might give the strongest example of joy, right in the first line. Did you catch it? Isaiah 12 verse 2. “Surely God is my salvation.” Right there. That’s our reason for joy. Think about how radical it is to say God is my salvation.
It goes directly against the claims of the rest of the world, right? The world says our salvation, our security, our hope comes from all sorts of places and things that are not God. Listen to how Pastor Tim Brown puts it:
“The world claims that our bank accounts will save us, and that the more wealth we amass the safer we are.
The world claims that our jobs will save us, and so we’re constantly pushed to go up the ladder, running the rat race that exhausted our parents and grandparents and didn’t deliver on the promise of happiness or security in the end.
The world claims that our good reputations will save us, and so we hide our mistakes and shortcomings behind carefully tailored social media posts and highly curated images that produce superficial relationships.
The world claims that political ideologies will save us, and so we set ourselves up in camps and sacrifice our hearts and our heads on the altars of group-think and ‘us-verse-them’ mentalities.
In the face of all of these claims the prophet Isaiah says, patiently but indignantly, ‘Surely,’ they say, ‘surely it is God who saves.’”
What would it change, what does it change to believe “Surely God is my salvation”? What does it mean to trust and not be afraid? What kind of peace comes from relying on the Lord God to be your strength and your might?
The season of Advent is about re-orienting our lives, turning towards the God who comes to us. It’s about following John’s call to repentance, his call to change our lives and turn towards God.
And there is great joy in that call. In fact, we as Christians dare to claim that true joy is found only in God, not in the false hopes and false demands of this world.
There is freedom and liberation and joy in letting go of the world’s standards, letting go of measuring success and value by the size of bank accounts or the number of likes and shares or the fullness of a calendar. There is joy, eternal joy in recognizing the truth that God and God alone is our salvation.
Joy might not be as obvious in John’s fire-and-brimstone sermon about the imminent danger of the ax lying at the root of the trees, ready to cut down and burn up the ones that don’t bear good fruit. But even in a sermon addressed to a brood of vipers, there is a message of joy and hope.
Because John’s point is that the short-term things of this world are not all that there is. God is at work, purifying us, working on our lives, showing us how to live, giving meaning to our lives.
Following God is not just about doing good works, as if the more extra food you give away or the more spare coats you take to Goodwill the more God will love you. God already loves you, and the evidence is that God’s not done with you or me. There is one coming after John, coming from God, coming to redeem us.
In the meantime, as we wait, our response is to do God’s work in the here and now, to go against the world’s patterns of selfishness and hoarding and instead to give away the extra we have, to use our power and privilege for good, to love and serve our neighbors, knowing and trusting that our salvation is in God alone.
And in that, there is joy. Christ is coming. Amen