Third Sunday in Advent

The question being asked in these weeks as we wait again for the Christ child to be born into our lives, is what child is this? The question is important as Jesus is politicized and batted around in the so-called “Christmas wars”. We like to say Jesus is the reason for the season. But is anyone’s faith really in jeopardy if a Wal-Mart greeter says Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas? Of course not, everyone celebrates Christmas, but is anyone’s day really ruined because that same Wal-Mart greeter says Merry Christmas instead of Happy Holidays? People who buy into this conflict are acting as if “Merry Christmas” and “Happy Holidays” have never been uttered before this year, in fact they are not new terms, they have been around awhile. Perhaps it is time for religious fundamentalists and secular fundamentalists to step back, relax, and enjoy this season as they are lead to enjoy it.

There is a more fundamental reason for us to ask what child is this. It is an important question for us because it helps us to understand who Jesus is for us today. He will be born in modest circumstances, and grow up to change lives he teaches and touches, helps and heals, weeps and laughs, as he tells stories and as he prays.

Who is this? At his baptism, God will be pleased, at our baptism, we will declare that this one sent by God and who pleases God is Jesus the Christ, the Son of the living God, and we will be immersed in obedience and in honor of him. He is friend and brother, Lord and savior. He will die on a cross, and be raised from death and he will leave us with the promise to “be with us until the end of the world” (Matthew 28.20). He is the one for whom we light the candles of hope and peace. Next Sunday we will light the candle of love, and today we have lit the candle and celebrated the joy we find in him.

To claim Jesus as our joy is not to pretend that life is rosy all the time. There has been too much uncertainty in our lives, too much disappointment and disillusionment, too many hard decisions to make, and too little appreciation for what we have done. And no normal person is happy all the time, it’s just not natural. But we can rejoice that even when life is hard, God is good.

So what do we mean by joy? In the church, joy is about knowing that the goodness of God and the mercy and grace of Jesus is available to us always. It is there for us to grasp and hold on to even when, especially when our hearts are breaking. It is the sense of deep satisfaction that speaks peace to our souls.

In the church, we find our joy in Jesus Christ and we join other faith followers of his as we do. “The early Christians believed that the coming of Jesus marked the sign of God’s final redemptive act, and all of the joy that Israel had anticipated was now found in Jesus. His birth caused an outpouring of humanly and heavenly joy (Luke 1-2). His ministry and resurrection bring out the same feeling. The book of Acts describes the early church sustaining this mood of rejoicing and spreading it beyond the borders of Judea (Harper’s Bible Dictionary. San Francisco. HarperSanFrancisco 1996. p.548-549).

We find joy in the children we love and in our most intimate and mutual relationships. I can look into the faces of eager brides and grooms and at their parents and see joy. There is among Christians a kind of joy that stands even at a graveside as through teary eyes we say our final goodbyes to loved ones. We do not blame God for our loss, but rather rejoice in God’s gift of our loved ones to us. Joy is found in the leisure time we enjoy. Watch a woodworker build something or a cook baking something and you will see beyond the hard work a person doing what gives her or him joy. Talk to a gardener about the pride she takes in her yard or listen to a mechanic go on and on about the engine he rebuilt. You will hear joy.

People who have labored under the weight of oppression, and who are able to lift that burden know joy. Rosa Parks and those who walked for a year in Montgomery, Alabama rather than ride segregated buses knew joy when the law allowing their coercive seating was lifted. I will never forget the sight of South African Bishop Desmond Tutu voting for the first time in his life, literally dancing with joy as he cast his ballot. That was pure joy.

Paul knows that Jesus is our joy even from his prison cell, a dank miserable place from which he wrote many of his letters. Yet his joy in Jesus is so strong, it becomes the theme for his relationship with the church and it is the model for the church’s relationship with God in Jesus Christ. His letter to the Philippians is all about joy.

“Paul urges the Philippians to rejoice. He wants them to find not a superficial cheerfulness but a deep joy in what God has done in Christ and is continuing to do through the church. Paul is not thinking of something that is merely an emotional experience or that is in any sense a passing feeling, but of deep and lasting joy that comes through a deepening relationship with Christ; this joy is expressed in sharing his love and concern for others. If too many of we Christians today lack such joy, it just may be that we see our faith to a great extent as an individual matter, and so do not see Christian life in terms of mutual respect and concern or experience the love and support of fellow Christians. Can we experience the joy of the gospel without living it?” (New Interpreter’s Bible, volume XI. Nashville. Abingdon Press, 2000. p.546).

Of course we can’t. We cannot talk about joy without living joyfully just as we cannot talk about blessing or love or outreach without blessing others or loving others, or reaching out to others.

But if Jesus is the source and center of our joy, there are some things we can do.

We can stand securely in our relationship with Christ and understand what freedom in Christ really means. Paul has been talking to the church about getting their priorities straight because some among them have been saying, “we are so free in Christ that we can do whatever we want, we can eat what we want, drink what we want, think what we want. Whatever we couldn’t do then, we can do now.” They sound like some Disciples congregations who do not understand that we are related to each other by our common commitment to Jesus Christ and to the mission of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). It’s like the first time we were away from our parents, that first gulp of freedom away from the gaze of parents was sweet, and it led some of us to go out and test every boundary we had known. What our parents did not know, wouldn’t hurt them, and if they did not know, they would not hurt us. Hopefully, good sense kept us out of too much trouble.

The Philippians were right to a point. We are indeed free in Christ, but we stand on very shaky ground when liberty in Christ becomes license to disregard the people in our families or in our church community.

Paul says, stand firm, recover your sense of joy at doing all you can to serve this body of Christ not because the law says to, but because your love for the church leaves you with no other choice. Stand firm and just keep thanking and praising God. Remember the source of your salvation. Stand firm and fast in the love God has for you, and in this community God has given to us to do ministry in Jesus’ name. Rejoice and be glad, and be the source of joy for somebody, be the reason a visitor returns to worship with us!

Rejoice in the love of Jesus that will see us through conflict on to resolution. One of our core values is building relationships, and at our meeting later this morning, you will hear how important it is that we continue to know each other, and you will hear about how we plan to make this house of faith an open and inviting spiritual home for others. That is what the church is called to be and that is why we all have a stake in resolving the conflicts that rise up among us. We don’t have to deny their existence, they will not go away if we do; so let’s help each other out the way Paul urged his friend to help out those two women in dispute. They have been helpful to Paul and he wants the church to be helpful to them.

Paul knows that the joy and unity of the church depends on everyone, especially its leaders being accountable to one another. It is not about blame or about who is right and who is wrong. Joy comes when there is a meeting of the minds and good steadfast perseverance to an issue’s end. So let’s have whatever conversations we need to have and let’s get it more and more together everyday so that each day our joy in Jesus and in each other will increase.

We can rejoice that Jesus has shown us what joy looks like. He gathered people to himself and loved them unconditionally, he invited people to follow him, he never forced them to be his disciples. We want this church to grow, but if we are gentle in our conversations with people, we will see that there is no need to assault people with the joy of Jesus Christ. We are invited instead to simply tell our story, and show by our actions and our love that we have joy in him.

Christian joy is confidence bathed in prayer. As we offer our prayers of thanksgiving our joy gives us strength, gives us hope, helps us to bear with each other. It helps us to care about God’s world and God’s people, but not to worry so much that we live in obsessive fear. Rejoice and care enough to act, to dream, to plan, to accomplish what we plan.

Jesus our joy is the source of incredible peace. It is the shalom we talked about last week. It is what will help us to give ourselves mind and heart to the good news of Jesus.

As we wait for this child to be born in us again, we can prepare for him by rejoicing in what God has already done. “We are the hungry and thirsty who have been fed. We are the bound who have been set free. We are the sinners sentenced to death who have instead been given life. We are the fearful before the terrors of existence who have been given hope” (Interpretation series. Psalms. James L. Mays. Louisville. John Knox Press, 1994, p.347).

We can praise God that the child who is coming will be our redemption and we can say so. We have breath and spirit today and that is a marvelous thing. God has filled us with good things in this Advent season with the promise of more to come.

Catch the rhythm of his joy. Hear it, live it, sing it as we wait for the child who will come and set us free. Claim the joy that he is now and live with the joy of Jesus Christ at the center of our lives. Thanks be to God, and may Jesus Christ be praised. Amen.

Dr. LaTaunya M. Bynum
Senior Pastor