I hope you’ve had a chance to look at the “Rejoice” banner on the front of our church. Trudy Cox made that last year and we hung it over the social hall entranceway. It took quite a beating with the wind and the rain last year so some of the women worked with Trudy in restoring it and Don Armstrong and friends hung it out there. It is a sign to the community that this is the season whose mood is joy. That lies at the heart of the Christmas story. My favorite time of all the year is Christmas Eve when we sing “Joy to the World, the Lord is Come.”
The third Sunday in Advent experiences a shift from the somber mood of approaching judgement signaled by John the Baptist. You notice we lit a rose colored candle this morning. In some churches this is called Gaudette Sunday which comes from the Latin word “gaudette ” which means rejoice. In some denominations the clergy wear rose colored vestments as a sign that in this season joy is coming.
Joy is reflected in the scripture which we read this morning, beginning with the responsive scripture at the beginning of the service. From the prophet Zephaniah, writing to the people in exile: “Shout aloud O daughter Zion, shout O Israel. Rejoice and exult with all your heart.” In the reading from Philippians by Paul, “Rejoice in the Lord, always, again I say to you, rejoice.”
Even in John the Baptist’s preaching with his many other exhortations we read, he proclaimed the “Good News” to the people.
This is a time when we echo the song that came to the angels, announcing to them the birth of the Savior. “Fear not, for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all the people.” And so we sing.
We know Christ’s coming does not take away the pain, the difficulty of life, the need to decide. But Christ’s coming brings the joy.
For example, WE LIVE THE JOY OF SURPRISE.
All of the birth stories begin with a surprise; the announcement to Joseph…surprise Joseph, your fianceé is going to have a baby. The announcement to Mary… surprise Mary, you’re going to bear a child. The heavenly angels to the shepherds (which we just quoted)… surprise you beggarly shepherds, something new is coming into the world. Surprise lies in the heart of the birth stories because God, when God comes, comes as a surprise.
Someone, a few years back, gave me a poem,
“I know not always how God comes,
But that God comes, this I know.
In an obscure stable, in splashing waters, in the breaking of bread
And often my friend, incamate in you,
For God, I believe, still comes in the flesh in people.”
We live with the joy of the surprise of God coming in unexpected ways.
Some years ago I married a couple who seemed to me were heading in different directions. She had been a member of our church and had felt God’s call to go into ordained ministry. He was a student at the University of Arizona in philosophy. His approach to faith and the church was caught up in an image I have of him of one day sitting in the back of the congregation at worship. His hair was uncombed, his tennis shoes were unlaced, a toothbrush stuck out of his pocket and he looked at me as if he were saying, “Ok, prove it.”
Immediately after their wedding they headed off to a United Methodist seminary in the south where Heather was enrolled to study for ministry. He went to graduate school there and began to teach philosophy. After Heather’s graduation from seminary she went to the West Virginia annual conference and was appointed to two small churches in the conference. During one phone call a year or so later Heather related what was emerging in their lives.
She said they received a telephone call one night from the District Superintendent who asked to speak to her husband. He said, “Bill I have a church and I need to find a preacher for it,” Bill’s response was “’I don’t know if I believe in God.” The superintendent said, “well I have two choices, I have a preacher who is a Pentecostal and has burned up two churches already or you, an honest agnostic.” Bill thought about it and for some reason he said ok. So each Sunday he took the scripture readings assigned for the day and his Bible and began to read through the stories of the Bible to find out what they were all about. He said later the Bible “grabbed him by the seat of his pants.”
One day, at the end of worship service, he was about to pronounce the benediction when the organist whispered to him, “the baptism, the baptism.” He had forgotten that he had promised to baptize the infant of one ofthe couples of the church. They scurried around, found some water and Bill found the place in the Hymnal where the baptismal service was printed, and he launched into the baptism.
As he held the child and named the child suddenly he realized that he, Bill, the pastor, was held in the arms of the Church, and he was named by God. He began to cry right there in the middle of the baptism, holding the baby, in front of everybody. He cried and he cried. His wife gracefully observed that while he was baptizing that baby he was baptized, and when he named that baby he was called by God.
Bill went to seminary and today is an ordained United Methodist pastor.
Who would have thought it? Not I. The surprises of God that descend upon our hearts and turn us toward God are amazing.
AS GOD’S PEOPLE WE LIVE OUT OF THE JOY OF MEMORY.
The advantage of age thirty over twenty is that we begin to develop a sense of memory. The advantage of age forty over thirty is that our memory is expanded and we begin to see patterns and connections all through our years. The advantage of fifty over forty, well I forget what that advantage is. Our memories link one decade to another until we see we are a part of a whole. Sure, there are bad memories, but they become our teachers and our good memories bring us strength and hope.
Olin Stockwell was one of the last Methodist missionaries to leave China after the Communist takeover and was imprisoned before he was expelled. Alone and far from home he felt deserted, especially at Christmastime. One day in the midst ofthis despair he heard coming from another cell a Christmas carol sung by another inmate, sung in Chinese. He answered back with his own Christmas carol, and soon there were others all over the prison, separated by walls and bars, who never ever saw each other, but were united in singing the songs of Christmas joy.
Stockwell never met the prisoner who restored his faith that dark night, but as he was leaving prison he sang back to him, “God be with you till we meet again.” And answering back the prisoner took up the song, “By His counsels guide uphold you, with his sheep securely hold you. God be with you till we meet again.”1
Stockwell and those prisoners were living on withdrawals from the bank of memory of the God who blesses in the midst of dark times.
It may come to you as a phone call or a letter or a picture that you stumble on which triggers a recollection and evokes a flood of memories of a grateful joy.
I URGE YOU, LIVE WITH THE JOY OF LOVE. Love as something you do, not just think about.
They asked John the Baptist, “What do we need to do to turn toward God?” He said to the crowd, “Share. Those of you who have too many clothes and too much food give to those who have nothing. To you who are tax collectors, stop exploiting the people.” Practices of economic exploitation must be given up. To the soldiers he said, “End your brutality, your violence, your intimidation.” All of these are acts of love not just good emotions.
Jim Moore is a United Methodist pastor in Houston, Texas. He tells a story from his experience when serving on the staff of the First Methodist Church of Shreveport. He said it was nearing Christmas and some people of the Outreach Committee came to him with an idea and a plan. They said, “there are people in our town who are alone and who won’t have a Christmas meal. Let’s open the church on Christmas afternoon for anybody who’d like to come to come and sing carols, eat and hear the Christmas story.” Jim asked them if they’d be willing to work on that and they said “yes, we’ll be willing to give up our Christmas afternoon and we have talked to other who’ll come and help us also.” So he said, “fine, let’s do it.” (It’s always easier to say yes if somebody else is ready to do it.)
So they invited the people of Shreveport to come Christmas afternoon to the church between one o’clock and five to eat and sing Christmas carols. After Jim Moore had had his Christmas meal at home he decided to drive down to the church to see how things were going. He got there about two o’clock and as he pulled into the parking lot he notice the members of the Outreach Committee were coming out of the church. He said, “what happened? Is it over? Didn’t anyone show up?” They said, “Oh, they came; there are three hundred people in there having a wonderful time but somebody else came to relieve us and send us home.” He said, “Who’d do that?” They said “well, go in and find out.” So he went into the kitchen and there was his friend, Rabbi Richard Yiont who’d come with members of the Jewish congregation, the B’nai Zion Temple. They’d come and said to the Methodists, “This is your special day, go home and be with your families and we will work for you.” What an act of love and consideration, a gesture of friendship for these members of the Jewish congregation to reach out to the Methodists.
Christmas is a joy of surprise and memory and love because first of all it is the joy of Christ’s coming. With Paul, we are confidant that the “Lord is at hand.” He is come and he will come. That means that the world as we know it is not a closed system, whatever that may have meant once. It is open, by the power of God, to new arrangements of its particular parts. This recreated power of God which we have seen, gives us reason to be done with fear and to live and hope and to rejoice.
Let us pray…