Humans are complex creatures, aren’t we? Those we love we tend to hurt. We love God and yet we sin against God. We have goals and aspirations that are noble and strong , and yet we get tripped up by our own weakness along the way to fulfilling our goals.
We can never seem to outrun the allure of the pleasures of sin for a season. Even those who are not accustomed to giving in to temptation, those who do not actively indulge in sin very much, know, if they’re honest, how much of an uphill battle it is to keep our noses clean, to keep from falling. Those who stop being honest about their frailties in this regard become “holier than thou”, which of course is a worse sin than most.
And yet today in our second celebration of Advent, we are encouraged to consider a big and bold and challenging and encouraging idea that’s wrapped up in a three letter word: JOY.
Joy is part of the festivities of the season for many. There are great and wonderful reasons, we are told, reasons that are both historical and current in our lives, for being jubilant and celebrating good things and expressing this loaded word: JOY.
But you know, it’s hard to string those letters together when, because of how very hard life is and how very real our present pain is, we are presently bleeding. Often we come to church bearing the wounds of our week. Let’s be honest.
But…here we are, back again at this word: JOY. It is the theme of our advent celebration today and it is a “Christmas” word. No matter how I feel or what I think when I see that word, it is a word to be reckoned with. And it’s up there on the screen. Staring at me.
Today we’re continuing also with our series on the Fruit of the Spirit, and as we’ve seen, the fruit of the Spirit that we are discussing today connects with this Advent theme. In particular, I’m going to ask Keitha to read an important Advent passage. Let us listen to the Word of God with fresh ears:
Luke 1:26 In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, 27 to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28 The angel went to her and said, "Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you." 29 Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. 30 But the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. 31 You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end." 34 "How will this be," Mary asked the angel, "since I am a virgin?" 35 T he angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. 36 Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. 37 For nothing is impossible with God." 38 "I am the Lord’s servant," Mary answered. "May it be to me as you have said." Then the angel left her. 39 At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, 40 where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth. 41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. 42 In a loud voice she exclaimed: "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! 43 But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? 44 As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.
This is a very comforting passage, I find. I also find it disturbing that this is a comforting passage, because however familiar it is it really proclaims something shocking. Very shocking.
Now most of us in this room believe in God. If you’re like me you were raised to not believe in God, only to discover along the way that you were raised with a delusion, a theory that could not be proven and which closes the door on the best explanation for the mysteries that characterize life. Mysteries like love.
Like self-sacrifice. Like the “coincidences” that occur constantly in our lives that, when our eyes open, point artfully to a Divine reality. So we may believe in God and in Christ and truly trusting in Him may well be part of who we are, part of our identity. And yet, we should consider, are we really expecting God to break in to our lives, our reality? I think that often we don’t expect God and I think that’s part of the human condition.
For sure the people alive around the time of the Incarnation, the time that Jesus was born, they weren’t expecting God to break in to their lives. That’s not completely accurate. Some of them were expecting Messiah. Some had in mind that God would break into history by sending a mighty warrior who would vanquish the enemies of the Jews.
That was their hope after being an oppressed people for many, many generations. But it was still God at arm’s length. God sending someone else to do His work. To take care of His business.
I think people of faith easily think in those terms. We see people doing what we call the work of God. People who serve in the area of justice, like Charles Cheng who now works at Kairos, a church-based justice organization. Like Yonge Street Mission staff.
We can accept that God may come to us in someone who visits us in the hospital, in the priest or pastor who brings us eucharist. We may even have a good urban theology that teaches us that we are to see Christ in the face of the poorest of the poor. All that is great, and good and true. But it’s still arms length. It’s still God with someone between Him and us. It still keeps the Almighty at a safe distance.
So what’s so shocking about this passage? [Highlight the bolded text below on Powerpoint]
Luke 1:31 You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end." 34 "How will this be," Mary asked the angel, "since I am a virgin?" 35 The angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.
What’s so shocking? This passage says that God is breaking into to human reality. The Everlasting One is personally breaking in to the human situation. The Creator is coming. Wrapped in human flesh. No more arm’s length safety. [Reach out right arm] No more human theories about God. No more missing the point of what God is saying.
No more wondering why God allows human suffering from His place of comfort and majesty. No more asking, as though there could never be answer, no more asking: “Who is God? What does He think? How does He feel? Why does He leave me here bleeding and haemorrhaging and suffering all alone?
Or maybe our questions is, “What would He look like if we could dare to look at Him? [Stretch out left arm] What would He do if He was to break into my reality and my pain”?
“The holy One to be born will be called the Son of God”. Divinity has beaten a path into the human dilemma, looked humanity straight in the eyes and called us….[Pause]…. brother, sister, friend”.
And so today we really do need to consider JOY. What does this season call us to? What does God say to us in this season of light, especially when we may be so aware of the darkness around us and inside us. When our experience of life is presently, perhaps, the opposite of joy.
Let’s look at another familiar passage:
Luke 2:8 And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9 An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.10 But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.12 This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger."
This Joy is Transcendent
Good news of great joy. For all the people. So there’s something in the message of this season that is universal – for everyone; that is not information about bad things like we find in the evening news and there is something that informs us about a great joy.
There’s not a lot in life that’s for everyone equally. We’re used to understanding that life doesn’t treat everyone equally. Not everyone is wealthy or healthy.
Not everyone has the same access even to the necessities of life. As much as we look at things like poverty in Canada and get involved in advocating for people who have real needs among Canadians, we recognize that, compared to a lot of nations in the world Canada is a filthy rich nation.
And even in the simplicity that most of us live in, we live like kings compared to people for whom eight people sharing a bedroom is the norm.
Eating one meal a day at most is the norm. Something as extravagant as entertainment as we know it does not exist.
There is a great deal of inequity in the world. But there’s something about this news of great joy that the angels bring to us that is for ALL the people. In this news we share something in common. In this news we are united across dividing lines.
There is something very good in this news. Good news usually doesn’t sell well. Every once in a while someone starts a good news newspaper or a good news tv broadcast. What happens to those ventures? They die…not to a lack of good news, but due to enough people being interested enough to watch good news when there’s so much bad news being broadcast on the next channel.
But this is GOOD news. Something we should want to hear, want to know about. Maybe even want to spread to our neighbours. And it is news of great joy. This news is worthy of our attention. It is worth stopping to hear. It’s good. It’s about something that will bring great joy. And it’s for you and for me and for the one sitting next to you.
What is the nature of this news of great joy? At the very least it is transcendent. That means it goes beyond ordinary limits; it surpasses what we expect; it exceeds our imagination. If everyone in any circumstance of life can access this joy, it must be a joy that rises above circumstance. It must be a joy that is not the property of one class or one nation or one people.
This Joy Makes Me Look Up
If this is a joy for everyone it is a generous joy. If it is a generous joy about the great news of Christ’s coming, then it’s going to cause me, it would seem likely, to shift my focus from only my needs, to the needs of someone else. Perhaps you. Perhaps this is a joy that takes me out of my personal sorrow.
Maybe my own sorrow changes, maybe it doesn’t, but what seems to me to be implied here is that this joy, this news of the Incarnation, God taking on human flesh, lifts me up above my situation and calls me to participate in something much greater than my singular life. Somehow this news connects me to you and you to me.
And it calls to both of us to lift our eyes up, to look beyond the valleys and even the hills to the One who created both from His dwelling place, and who, this good news suggests, is not planning on sitting tight in his dwelling place.
He’s coming. He’s coming to you and He’s coming to me. So I think I better look up. That would be a good thing to do.
This Coming Joy Calls Me to Commitment
If you come to church much, you have a good idea of what faith is about. You know who Jesus is. You know that He came to us as a baby not to stay a baby but to grow up to be the man Jesus. The fully human, fully God person who would reveal to us the thoughts of God, the heart of God.
All the fullness of God would be revealed in Jesus as He would walk the streets of Jerusalem, talk with the people and walk with the people and heal the people.
Who would be tried before Pilate and unjustly condemned. You see The Christ child grows up to be the one who suffers for our sakes on the cross; motivated and spurred on and incarnating the mighty love of God, Jesus will die…on the cross.
And He’ll defeat death and triumphs over the grave. And all our hope and purpose and love are somehow bound up in His whole magnificent life. Born in abject poverty, in a vile, stinking stable. Humble. Weak. Yet so incredibly powerful and world-changing in his passionate love for humankind, for you, for me.
The joy of this season is an invitation to something that transcends my pain. To something that makes me look beyond myself to the needs of others. But it is also a call to commit or recommit myself to the truths of this season. That’s not a popular thing to say. A call to truth is a call to making a decision that others don’t necessarily want me to make.
What truths does this season of joy call me to? Simple. The gospel is real. The incarnation of Christ…God manifested, come to us in the flesh. This is not a fiction. It is rather the most important truth there is. And this truth calls to me to commit my whole life to this Christ child that we celebrate this season. See, it’s more than a call to believe. A good friend and respected pastor says that you can tell what a person believes by how they live, not by what they say they believe. So this goes way beyond a call to believe what we would call the gospel.
It is a call to expect God. To expect that God DOES reach into human history… that means, by the way, into your story…the life journey you are now on. And He reaches into our lives in order to shape us.
In order to make us like his own beloved Son. And it starts by the Holy Spirit of God birthing something in you, as it birthed something in Mary.
That’s where the joy comes from. And that’s where this Advent Sunday of Joy and the reality of the fruit of the Spirit: Joy converge. God’s joy is birthed anew in us as He sends the Holy Spirit to do one of two things.
If we’ve never known the Son, if we’ve never known Jesus as Lord and Saviour, if we’ve never received Him, the Holy Spirit comes and births faith in us. He gives us the capacity to understand the gospel.
Have you ever wondered why some people understand the gospel and others just don’t see the point? I have a relative who says: “I’ve heard the gospel and it hits me cold. It just doesn’t mean a thing”.
When the Holy Spirit comes and He is welcomed, He takes up residence in you. And He calls you to Jesus. This is an incredible gift. So if your heart is stirred, be sure to receive the gift.
That’s one thing…The Holy Spirit brings faith. Saving faith. The other thing the Holy Spirit does is renew faith. We may have been pulverized by this past week. Hopes and dreams have been bloodied and we’ve lost track of why any of it matters. The Holy Spirit calls us to reclaim what we have believed, to return if we need to, to a place of surrender to God’s will. To allow Him to bind up our wounds. To allow Him to take up the broken pieces of our lives.
You know, He wants to do that. He cares when we get hurt. He cares when life smacks us around. He cares when we stumble and fall. And He does way more than care.
He calls us to lift our eyes from the muck and mire around us…to look upon Him, even as He comes to us…as an infant. What an absolutely amazing thing. To be called upon to gaze upon the wonder of the baby in the manger, and to try to grasp once again what deep and profound love exists in that manger.
That the Christ of God would leave His comfort at the right hand of the Father in order to come to me, in order to come to you, in the manger. Think of the energy. Think of the effort. Think of the love bound up in this act of Incarnation. There is joy in such thoughts. There is hope in such an understanding.
I would hope and pray that the joy that calls out to us this season would fall upon ears that can hear. I would hope and pray that this deep, divine joy that beckons our souls does indeed break out in us this Advent season. We are complex creatures. But our Creator knows. And our Redeemer, the One whose arrival we anticipate afresh this Advent, knows and loves and reaches out to you and to me in order to say: “Come, follow me”.
Let’s pray.
