Christopher Thomas
Sermon for the Third Sunday of Advent, Year A – 12/13/20
Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11
Canticle 15
1 Thessalonians 5:16-24
John 1:6-8, 19-28
I am always and forever fascinated by language, by words, what words mean, what they stand for. Because words are simply, merely representative of actions and feelings and realities that reflect and actually go beyond our mortal human experiences. Words are mystical, bordering almost on magical, because they transcend linear time and space; sometimes we tire of them, but they don’t have a shelf-life and expire; no, no words are past, and present, and future. And that excites me! Anything that transcends, that breaks the bounds, the boundaries, the limits of linear time, excites me, because it lifts me out of my own mortality, if even for a moment, and gives me brief glimpses of God’s arc of time and space.
And so, as we light the third candle on the Advent wreath, in the name of “joy,” I find myself drawn, again, to the consideration of this concept of, well, joy. What is “joy?” It is such a tiny word that it’s actually pretty easy to miss, particularly with everything that’s going on, all the stuff, all the craziness, all the watching-and-waiting, all the Christmas cards, and parties, and gift-wrapping, and anxiety around planning for and to and about. About what?
“Oh, Fr. Christopher, of course I know what joy is! Must you over-spiritualize every single thing? Just let me be happy in all my pre-Christmas anxiety!”
Now, let’s don’t confuse “joy” with “happy.” Two different words exist to describe two different concepts for very good reasons.
We know that feeling that rides along, somewhere at the surface of giddiness, a calm delight, the scent of warm cookies coming out of the oven or the feel of a good down comforter on a cold winter evening. We feel those things, I’d venture, almost superficially, maybe without paying much attention, as they come and they go from our daily existences. I’d call that “happy,” that feeling in the moment of some wonderful experience.
No, joy is something else. In my search for the birthplace of joy, real joy, I have to go back to the place where creation is sparked, where life begins, and the very closest place that I can access that is deep within, deep down inside my gut. There’s a gravitas to joy that belies its very name, joy. Because those of us who have known true joy know that it is birthed in suffering. Nothing worth having, nothing that ever produced true joy came without a cost, without a price, without some sort of suffering.
We didn’t just light the candle of happy, we lighted the candle of joy.
Much like faith, hope, and love, joy is an active pursuit. If you think about it, there is absolutely nothing passive about joy. You don’t just happen into joy. A choice is made, a road is chosen, something is given up in favor of something else, or someone else, a yielding to something larger than self. Joy is a characteristic or a nature that you/I/we choose, to the mutual exclusion of other things. And so, what is that saying?
I feel sure that Mary knows, don’t you? She must. It would be just too cruel otherwise.
“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior;
for He has looked with favor on his lowly servant.
From this day all generations will call me blessed:
the Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is his Name.
He has mercy on those who fear him
in every generation.
He has shown the strength of his arm,
he has scattered the proud in their conceit.
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,
and has lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has come to the help of his servant Israel,
for he has remembered his promise of mercy,
The promise he made to our fathers,
to Abraham and his children for ever.”
– The Song of Mary (Luke 1:46-55)
That’s not a happy song; that’s a song birthed in joy, joy in the sure-seated knowledge that God is about to move in this young peasant girl’s life, and yet so incredibly beyond her life, to a new life, for the world, in an amazing, incredible, new way, with this thing, this Word (capital W, past, present, and future) that is going to be incarnated, God coming among us.
Does she have any idea that this road, that she has chosen (I don’t believe God forced it on her) will involve suffering? Does she know how the story ends?
Did any of you parents, in that in-between time of your finding out you’d be parents and the actual arrival of your bundle of joy, consider that there would be some suffering along the journey?
Any time we birth something new, and I’m not just talking about a baby here, folks, I mean anything new, a new idea, a new dream, a new hope, a new love, a new relationship, a new identity, maybe a new ministry, are we realizing that there’s most likely going to be some suffering that mixes in with the happy to create something we can name joy?
It’s that in-between time that becomes the problem, the proverbial 9 months of some dream coming to pass, to fruition that gets me every single time.
So now it’s true confession. I don’t wait well these days. I was a good “wait-er,” I had much more plentiful patience, I was the poster child for delayed gratification back before I turned 50, back when it seemed like life was going to go on forever, that linear time was an endless commodity for me. I waited well then, really I did. I never felt the suffering aspect of the fleeting nature of chronos, that my part in the relay race would soon be over with, and I’d pass the baton to someone else. But with every passing day, with each additional gray hair and a deeply receding hairline and wrinkles and withering body, I know that the baton will pass.
And so, my heart aches in a joy-filled way, for John, John the Baptizer, John the oh, so faithful one, the one who knows that it is not himself, (because he is only the announcer) but he is the one who also wants to be sure of whom he passes the baton. His own mortality stares back at him as sure as mine, and yours, and Mary’s. John knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the answer to the question, “Are you the one?”
On this third Sunday of Advent, we are at the furthest point out from where we started, and also the furthest point from the finish, of our journey. And that is the point where it’s easiest to lose our way, to lose sight of the goal, to lose our identities. John, who has been so strong all along in his faith, in his knowledge of Jesus, from his prison cell, proclaims Jesus’ identity, and in effect, his own. He knows in the midst of his journey who and whose he is!
And so, in all of the bountiful grace and mercy that we know Jesus possesses, for John, and thankfully, for us, Jesus assures us, through John, the he IS, in fact the great I AM, the one who is coming, to dwell among us! I AM the Word (Capital W), logos, past, present, and future. I was here, I am here, and I will be here. The miracle that we anticipate, that we await celebrating, again, is this incarnational intersection between God’s time and ours, and on this farthest point out, we know it will be joyous, and joyful, and joy-filled.
On Joy and Sorrow
“Then a woman said, Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow.
And he answered:
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter
rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being,
the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup
that was burned in the potter’s oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the
very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart
and you shall find it is only that which has given
you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your
heart, and you shall see that in truth you are
weeping for that which has been your delight.
Some of you say, “Joy is greater than sorrow,”
and others say, “Nay, sorrow is the greater.”
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits alone
with you at your board, remember that the other is
asleep upon your bed.
Verily you are suspended like scales between
your sorrow and your joy.
Only when you are empty are you at standstill
and balanced.
When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his
gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your
sorrow rise or fall.”
– Kahlil Gibran (1883 – 1931)
