GREAT JOY

A Sermon the 3rd Sunday of Advent

Pastor Laura Gentry

Zephaniah 3: 14-20

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Let us begin with an Advent prayer written by the late Henri Nouwen:

Lord Jesus,

Master of both the light and the darkness,

send your Holy Spirit upon our preparations for Christmas.

We who have so much to do

seek quiet spaces to hear your voice each day.

We who are anxious over many things

look forward to your coming among us.

We who are blessed in so many ways

long for the complete joy of your kingdom.

We whose hearts are heavy

seek the joy of your presence.

We are your people, walking in darkness, yet seeking the light.

To you we say, “Come Lord Jesus!”

Amen.

This morning, we have come to the third Sunday in Advent. Our Advent wreath is glowing brighter, especially now with the addition of the pink candle of joy. It is beautiful to see how the light is growing on the wreath, for this light symbolizes how the light of Christ is coming into our world, into our darkness.

We are no stranger to this world’s darkness. The darkness is all around us. It is obvious this time of year as the dusk starts hovering before it’s even hit four o’clock. It reminds us of the darkness in our hearts. I read an article that said the number one stressor this season is finances. People stress themselves out wondering how they can afford the Christmas presents they are buying. Instead of focusing their hearts on the coming Christ child, they worry about financial matters.

The second biggest stress of the season, the article said, is grief. People think about the loved ones they have lost and how Christmas just isn’t the same without them. Many people become overwhelmed with loneliness this time of year.

I guess I’ve always known this, but this year I’m experiencing it myself. The first Advent season without my mother has been punctuated with moments where I sense the depth of my loss. I’m all but boycotting Christmas. I’m not putting up the big Christmas tree or decorating the house or sending cards and I haven’t been able to bring myself to buy present one. I know, as many of you do, the heaviness of grief this time of year.

And yet, it is precisely because of this heavy, complicated, human pain we bear that we are made aware of of our need for the growing light of Advent. It is because of our brokenness that we come to seek the light of Christ—a light we need more than we can express. We seek it with all our heart and soul and mind.

I was profoundly struck by something I read by Dietrich Bonhoeffer this week. Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran pastor and theologian. He was also a participant in the German Resistance movement against Nazism during World War ll. He was subsequently arrested, imprisoned and eventually executed in 1945, shortly before the war's end. So here was a man who understood, firsthand, the terror of being in a prison cell. And here is what he wrote:

“A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes... and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside, is not a bad picture of Advent.”

The door of freedom must be opened from the outside. Bonhoeffer understood that our freedom is not in our own hands. The Advent message is that through we are traveling in the dark, our God has unveiled a plan for a bright future through Jesus Christ. It’s God’s plan, not ours. That’s why we can wait in hope and, yes, even in joy.

And this is what we hear in our scripture reading from Zephaniah for today. The prophet tells the people who sit in great darkness that the power of God is in the midst of them, bringing victory. These people have no reason to hope. Their land has been taken over by foreign invaders. Many live in exile. Their tears flow like the rivers of Babylon. Yet, they are given word that God will be like a mighty warrior in their midst. But this is not the kind of worldly power that we often think of when we hear the word “warrior”. There is such beautiful language used in this prophesy. We hear that God is “a warrior who gives victory; he will rejoice over you with gladness, he will renew you in his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.”

Rejoice over you with gladness. Renew you in God’s love. These are images that remind us more of a mother than a warrior. And the most beautiful image is that God will exult over you with loud singing.

The good news is that no matter how deep our despair, no matter how debilitating our grief, no matter how solid our prison walls, the door is being opened for us. The darkness is being drowned. The light—the pure, vibrant light we so desperately need—is dawning upon us. Yes, us.

Martin Luther preached that the Christmas message was really about us. In a famous Christmas sermon, he wrote:

“Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people; for there is born to you this day a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord.” In these words you clearly see that he is born FOR US. He does not simply say, Christ is born, but TO YOU is born; neither does he say, I bring glad tidings, but TO YOU I bring glad tidings of great joy. Furthermore, this joy was not to remain in Christ, but it shall be to ALL PEOPLE.

It is for us and for all people. Christ is born for us all. He will rejoice over us with singing. Great joy is coming. The door is opening from the outside. Do you believe it?

If you do, then the candle of joy can burn in your heart. May it burn brightly and overwhelm your darkness. Amen.

© 2009 Laura Gentry

GET READY

A Sermon the 2nd Sunday of Advent

by Pastor Laura Gentry

Luke 3: 1-6 • Phillipians 1:3-11

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

How do you get ready for Christmas at your house? Do you put the tree up? Hang lights? Write Christmas cards? Bake cookies? Shop ‘til you drop? All of the above? Christmas has become a rather hectic season that seems to begin sooner and sooner every year. A friend of mine named Holly made a declaration in October. She said: “I am putting up my tree and getting out all of my Christmas music on November first. That’s what I’m doing. I’ve made a decision. No one can stop me.” And indeed, no one could. On All Saint’s Day, Holly had her house fully Christmas-ized.

At church, we are also about the business of getting ready for Christmas. But here, it is an altogether different kind of preparation. Here, we observe the season of Advent, designed to prepare our hearts. The word “Advent” comes from the Latin “Adventus,” which means coming. So it centers around preparing our hearts for the coming of Christ. It is a time of expectant waiting as we light another candle each week, marking this time on our Advent wreath.

Today’s scripture lessons, like the others in the season of Advent, help us focus on how we are to wait for the coming of Christ. The short gospel reading features the famous Advent prophet, John the Baptist. He appears here, not as the unborn baby leaping in his mother’s womb upon hearing the voice of Mary, the mother of Jesus that we heard about just two chapters earlier. Now the story has skipped ahead and he is suddenly a grown man making his way in the wildness—full beard and everything. And he cries out to all those will listen, boldly insisting they prepare the way for the coming savior, dauntlessly demanding they repent in order to do so.

John’s call to repentence is one that echos down through the years and disturbs our sense of comfort today. He’s not singing happy Christmas cheer like the speakers at the shopping mall and the stereo at Holly’s house (beginning at the top of November). He’s not interested in twinkling holiday lights and Black Friday shopping bargains. No, his way of preparing us for Christmas is different. The mountains must be brought down and the valleys filled in, and the crooked ways must be made straight, he trumpets. These are metaphorical images for what he is asking us to do. John’s call is for us to completely and utterly change our lives.

To repent, you see, means to stop going in one direction and turn around so you can go in another. By inviting us to repent, he is asking us to stop and take a hard look at our lives, to be radically honest with ourselves about our sin. We need to be asking: what’s wrong with this picture? What’s not building up the body of Christ in me? How am I actually working against the will of God by what I’m doing and by what I’m not doing?

Our reading from Phillippians, I believe, sheds specific light upon how we can and should change our ways. Paul has written this letter to the church at Phillipi in less than happy circumstances: he has been imprisoned because of his preaching. And yet the whole missive glimmers with joy.

He begins with a greeting of exuberant gratefulness: “I thank my God every time I remember you, constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you.” This reflects the solid friendship Paul has formed with this congregation. They have troubles and conflicts like any congregation. They are by no means the model church and they even have theological differences but because they share in the gospel, their hearts are knit together in the family of God nevertheless. There is unity in this friendship, despite their differences. And what does Paul pray for these friends? That the one who began a good work among them will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.

With great longing on his words, Paul expresses his desire that they get ready for Christ’s coming—which he believed to be at any moment—by embodying Christ’s compassion. “And this is my prayer,” he writes, “that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.”

Love in Christ, that’s what keeps Paul going in his dingy prison cell. That’s why he can write such relentlessly positive letters. He know the secret: love conquers all. At the end of the day, what matters most in our lives is the love we give and receive. And the source of that love is God, who loved us enough to send Jesus to be the Savior of the world. Paul knows that if the Phillipians allow the love of God to overflow in their hearts, they will be changed. They will be radically different people who will be a bickery little congregation fighting over the small stuff. Instead, they will find their unity, find their voice and proclaim the joyful, good news of Jesus Christ with love in word and deed. Their lives will produce a harvest of righteousness that can change the world.

Paul’s prayers for them were, indeed, answered. They go on to produce a harvest of righteousness and spread the gospel far and wide. In the book of Acts, we read about how much they accomplished with their shared mission. They embodied the kind of peace we heard about from Isaiah as we lit the Advent wreath today.

So how do you and I get ready for the coming of Christ this Advent season? How do we allow this season to be more than a deluge of busy activities? We must take John’s words to heart and repent and turn away from our sinfulness and our cold, hard-heartedness. We must take Paul’s words to heart and turn to the lovingkindness of Jesus himself and transform the world. This is what God expects from us. That’s the Christmas gift that matters most. So let’s get ready!

Let us pray: God of All Compassion, we thank you for sending your son, Jesus, to be our Savior. Help us to prepare for his coming by repenting of our sin and taking up the mantel of love, that we may live righteously and bring about the peace you desire for our world. Amen.