The Surest Mark of the Christian is Joy. Advent 3
Isaiah 35: 1 – 10; Luke 1: 46b – 55; Matthew 11: 2 – 11
Joy is the serious business of heaven. (C.S.Lewis)
The announcement of a pregnancy usually brings great excitement and happiness. That’s goodnews. The goodnews of a birth morphs into joy. The joy lasts longer than the happiness. Any announcement of good news engenders a measure of joy whether a planned holiday, a long dreamed of destination, or the announcement of new medical treatment that will help. Our spirits are lifted, we gain new energy and our hopefulness is restored. Arising from within us there is joy that lasts longer than a happy feeling.
Let us see how this common experience helps us understand today’s readings.
Our first reading is the prophetic-poem of Isaiah 35. The prophet sets forth the promise of God in poetry. An expansive view is expressed of a desert flowering, danger removed, well-being restored and a return to the temple of God. The latter means that their relationship with God is restored. Isaiah’s prophetic-poem spoke to the people’s deep longing for the security of their nation, justice and God’s blessing. The prophet is conscious of his people’s long history of God’s guidance, protection and blessing. Their history with God goes back to the time of Abraham’s and Sarah’s call to leave home and become a family and a people for God. God had brought them through many trials and tribulations and now they were a nation. God had rescued that nation from slavery in Egypt using Moses and Miriam. We call that me momentous historical event ‘The Exodus’. Isaiah speaks to his people through this prophetic-poem encouraging them to trust God for their future, because the people were dispirited and lived in a time of much injustice and political uncertainty.
Here lies the first and enduring message of our readings. It is a message that fills us with a hope that the God who has brought us to this point in our lives will be with us in the future. That hope nurtures our hope and the seeds of joy are sown. I believe this is true for us today at Leighmoor when three key people move on: Gillian, Joy and myself. Already I am seeing signs amongst both current and new members in the church of folk who are willing to take up the reins so to speak. God is acting amongst us.
In the second reading from Luke Mary speaks with joy and wonder of her unnerving task as the mother of the Lord’s anointed – a saviour who will bring in God’s Kingdom. Can we begin to imagine what she felt? A young woman engaged to be married is pregnant in a war torn land oppressed by an arrogant conqueror. She has a spiritual visitation announcing she is pregnant with God’s child. This story is told to us in a few short sentences. We cannot really imagine her initial fear and bewilderment. Neither can we imagine the mechanics of her pregnancy. They are irrelevant really. We cannot imagine her courage in carrying out God’s commission. We cannot imagine her thankfulness that her fiancé will stand by her. We cannot imagine her growing joy and the awesome privilege of being entrusted with mothering God’s anointed. The mothers hearing this can imagine some of her feelings. Luke gives to us a poetic account of her joy, wonderment and prodigious responsibility.
Again we see that God is acting, but in a way that only a few can see. That’s right only few knew what was going on – Mary, Joseph, Elizabeth and Zechariah, Anna, those humble shepherds and those learned men from the East: a small group of disparate people. Yes in all this God was acting and only a few could see!
We also see that their hope and joy was related to the political situation, which they believed God would address with a new order. Today we have twisted the Faith so that it only relates to our personal lives and not our political. I think we make a grave mistake in so doing. Right now God might be more active in the actions of those involved in addressing our world’s most pressing needs of climate change and homeless millions than our personal lives. I suggest when you think of God’s future be aware that God’s future and blessing for us includes our political life. That is, how we organise our society and practice justice in the community.
Our Matthew reading jumps some 30 years to Jesus with John the Baptist in prison. John the Baptist’s ministry led to a number of his disciples becoming Jesus’ disciples. But what was happening to John? His ministry had been successful. At least many people came to him for baptism. The expectation of a Messiah soon to come would have excited the people with hopeful expectation. Yet we can sense the doubt rising in John when he sent some of his disciples to ask Jesus whether he is the Messiah, the Christ. That would not be surprising. John’s despair and sense of failure is understandable. Uncertain, alone and imprisoned it seems that all was lost. Jesus sends an enigmatic reply:
“Go and tell John what you hear and see: 5 the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. 6 And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.”[Mt 11: 4-6]
Jesus was going about healing and teaching – yes impressive stuff but it was not bringing down the Roman rule. In fact, Jesus didn’t seem overly concerned about the Romans.
John found it hard to see that Jesus was the one that he, John, had imagined. There lies the issue. We often imagine God’s future using our preconceived notions of what God’s future might look like. But God’s future is beyond our complete grasp. We can only imagine, in part. If John had lived on beyond the Crucifixion and to the Resurrection of Jesus, he would have gone through greater doubts and possibly utter despair, before recognising God’s emerging world-wide plan of salvation.
God is at work in surprising places, changing lives, building hope and addressing the needy.
So we need to look and discern: watch and wait expectantly. That crazy Greta Thunberg and the school children who have protested about the lack of response to climate change by our government may be part of God’s work to rescue this planet from our insane greed. Their concern for this world – God’s creation – gives me hope and nurtures my joy. Likewise the present state of the Church in the Western world may be just a long hard spiritual winter before a renewing spring flourishes. It maybe that God is preparing us for a new and exciting life.
There are three lessons for us in these texts: 1) the future belongs to God and the vision of God’s future will be woven into our lives. 2) God is acting through the lives of a few faithful people to bless this world as God did with Mary, Elizabeth, Zechariah, Joseph, the Shepherds and Wise Men. 3) God is acting in surprising ways often in direct contrast to what we imagine. This is possible true of John who could have been expecting a revolution but instead it was a small movement that took centuries to gather momentum.
In all this there is joy. Samuel Gordon said, “Joy is distinctly a Christian word and a Christian thing. It is the reverse of happiness. Happiness is the result of what happens of an agreeable sort. Joy has its springs deep down inside, and that spring never runs dry, no matter what happens. Only Jesus gives that joy. He had joy, singing its music within, even under the shadow of the cross. It is an unknown word and thing except as He has sway within.”
Joy is a by-product of a loving relationship. It always is, and deep joy arises out of that profound relationship we have with God through Christ Jesus and in the power of the Holy Spirit. It’s because the relationship with God reminds us that our lives begin and end in God. What happens in between is of no greater consequence than our resting in the love of God.
What can we do? Live faithful lives, look for the surprising and embrace it with discernment and love one another. Here is a delightful tale that I hope will encourage you for it contains the germ of God’s vision for us.
There is a story about two young people who were very much in love. Christmas Eve was coming and they wanted to give presents to each other. But they were very poor and had no money for presents; so each one, without telling the other, decided to sell his or her most precious possession. The girl’s most precious possession was her long blond hair and she went to a hairdresser and had it cut off. She sold it and bought a lovely watch chain for her lover’s watch. He, meanwhile, had gone to the jeweller and sold his watch to buy two beautiful combs for his beloved’s hair. They exchanged their gifts. There were tears at first and then laughter. There was no hair for the combs and no watch for the watch chain. But there was something more precious and that was their self-sacrificing love for each other. [Quotes & Anecdotes p. 284]
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Peter C Whitaker, Leighmoor UC: 15/12/2019
/ www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org
