Advent: Week 3

Revised Common Lectionary
Zephaniah 3:14–20
Isaiah 12:2–6
Philippians 4:4–7
Luke 3:7–18

This is the third post in a four-part series. See the introduction here.

Rejoice. Give thanks. Raise your hands in praise. Be joyful. These exhortations are hard for many of us fulfill. It’s hard not to feel like we are barely limping toward the finish line of another year. Strength is in short supply and sometimes joy seems like a treasure only found at the end of a map we cannot decipher. The pressures of a holiday demanding we be merry and full of good cheer can leave joy little room to grow.

There are many strategies friends, pastors, and books written by pastors offer to help us find and cultivate joy in our lives. Some are helpful while others only produce guilt. There is merit in struggling for joy, but ultimately joy comes from a place where our merit is a worthless currency. Joy is not happiness or good feelings we muster up during hard times. Its an orientation of our soul that is given to us by its owner.

It seems to me, after 15 years of journeying in this faith, joy is something outside of us that must be placed within us by it’s owner. Like most good things worth having, joy is a gift. It is a gift that can only be given if the giver actually has the power to overcome all that fails and decays in this life. Life has a way of taking away good things through suffering, sorrow, and death. But joy is something that cannot be taken away once given.

All of this can only be true if the giver of joy is more powerful than death itself. Death is our ultimate and final enemy it seems. Death takes away the life we have been given. Science and medicine have not found a way to permanently dodge death, so it looms large even if we try not to look it in the face. So, for joy to be an orientation of our soul that can withstand the pain and sorrow of this life, it has given to be given to us by someone who has overcome death itself.

Israel waited for joy during hundreds of years in exile. Will God bring joy to us as He did when we toiled in Egypt? Mary waited for joy to come into the world on the other side of her painful birthing of a promised child. The disciples waited for joy as they hid in the darkness of a room after Jesus died. Will God come back to us? And like so many generations before us, we wait for the giver of joy to come back and end the pain we experience. God came to Israel again when He first came at the end of Mary’s cries during childbirth. God came back to the disciples after He died on a cross. And God will again come back to us and make good on the promise of His power.

Joy can withstand our sorrow and loss because it is given to us by a God who death cannot swallow. The Jesus we hope in and wait for is the Son of God who died as a man but rose again as the King of all creation. Even in our exhaustion and confusion, we can have joy because it is rooted in a God who has the power to wipe away all the pain. So again, with joy, our Advent prayer remains: “Come Lord Jesus.”

 

Image credit:http://virtualmethodist.blogspot.com/2012/12/advent-candle-liturgy-3-joy.html