Community Church Sermons

Third Sunday of Advent, Year A – December 16, 2001

"Joy Breaks Out!”

Matthew 11:2-15

 

 

Today we light the Advent Candle of Joy.

 

Smack dab in the middle of the pain and penitence represented by the first two purple Candles on our Advent Wreath, we light a rose-colored Candle. And we call this rose-colored Candle Joy!

 

Now we Americans are not all that good at metaphors and symbolic things. We like the hard-cold facts, and our tastes run more toward technology than to art. So lets be sure we all understand what’s going on here with the Advent Wreath today.

 

You might say that this Wreath is like your life! And your life is chock full of all sorts of human experiences. Joys and sorrows. Gains and losses. Hopes and fears. And the Wreath is a complete circle because, you see, life is never lived in part, but always in whole. Once, we were little children, and we could not fathom the end of life. But once you hit forty….or fifty…or sixty…or more… Once, we lived almost completely in our dreams of what we would one day be and do. But as life goes on and some dreams pass away and others become realities, we often find ourselves with less and less to dream about, and more and more simply to remember. Do you know what I’m saying?

 

Lately, I’ve been experiencing a strange thing. I’ll be driving along in the car, listening to Oldies on the radio, and a song will be played that almost immediately transports me back to a particular moment of my teenage years – taking Sandy at night to see the submarine races at Lake Quinsigamond (which was just a ploy to get her to go parking) – sitting on the front porch at night with Dennis Astrella trying to figure out how big a firecracker we needed to set off by the front door of a girl named Marilyn to get her to notice him without her father calling the police– going to sock hops, and high school football games, and hanging around with the guys at the wall on Burncoat Street. Hearing the music again somehow stirs up in me the very feelings and sights and sounds of those long-ago moments, and its almost as if I’m there again. But of course, I’m not. And when the song ends, I have this kind of melancholy feeling because I know I’ll never get that moment back again. It’s gone forever.

 

Do you see life differently today than when you were a kid? Life is not any individual isolated moment, but a whole series of moments that stretch across the width and breadth and height of our lives. Life is like the circle of a wreath. And the more you move around it, the more you become aware of the frailty of your humanity.

 

But you and I have been given a gift, and that is the gift of Jesus. And even though the circle of life may expose the full extent of our weakness, our sin, and our sorrow, God has promised us a Savior!

 

So in the face of what we know about ourselves, we light candles.

 

One of my colleagues describes how important candles are as she tells about her childhood journeys with her family to her grandmother’s house on Christmas Eve every year. The family would always attend the Christmas Eve service at their own church at 7 o’clock, and then pile into the family station wagon with the wood-grained sides to make the trip to grandmother’s. Grandmother lived in another town quite a distance away, and if the weather was bad, the family would not arrive until well after midnight. But, my colleague says, no matter how stormy or late it was, when they came around the last curve in the road, they would see the candle – just one old electric candle glowing in the frost covered living room window – a sign that Grandmother was waiting for them to arrive.

 

So in the midst of the cold night of our diseases and divorces and distressing events, we light a candle of Hope. In the face of war and conflict and estranged relationships, we light a candle of Peace. And these two candles burn brightly before us today in this Advent wreath that represents the circle of our life. They are signs that we - like that Grandmother - are waiting for Jesus to come and transform our pain and sin into Hope and Peace.

 

And today, we light the Candle of Joy!

 

It takes great faith, you know, to light this Joy Candle.

 

Isaiah had that kind of faith when he wrote the words we heard earlier today. The nation was defeated. The people were in slavery. Israel was in exile in Babylon. And Isaiah describes the state of his and Israel’s life by painting a word picture of a burning, colorless, life-less desert. And I think Isaiah was very perceptive in using this description because, for many of us, life often becomes like a desert - dried out, and parched, and wilting away under the scorching sun. I know my life has gone through some pretty desert-like times. How about yours? Isaiah was describing the human condition, not just Israel’s condition.

 

But how does Isaiah respond to this desert time of life? By complaining? No. By becoming bitter? No. By giving in to despair? No.

 

Isaiah responds to his desert by lighting a candle – by creating a dream – about Joy! Listen:

 

“The wilderness and dry land shall be GLAD, the desert shall REJOICE and blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly, and REJOICE with JOY and singing.”

 

“Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for JOY.”

 

“For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water…”

 

When life was at its lowest possible point, Isaiah lit a candle – he dreamed a dream - of Joy! But it was not a joy based on wishful thinking, or positive thinking, or delusional thinking. It was not a dream about Israel becoming strong again, or about him becoming wise enough to turn the situation around. No, there was nothing anyone could do to make life better for either Israel or Isaiah. This dream was about something else.

 

SomeONE else! This was a candle glowing in a window in expectation of a Savior’s arrival. Isaiah created a picture in his heart and mind about the JOY that will dawn when the Savior comes.

 

Years later, when John the Baptist was in prison, he sent messengers to Jesus. Are you the One Isaiah was talking about? Are you the fulfillment of Isaiah 35?

 

And Jesus answered, “Go tell John this: the blind are seeing, the lame are walking, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news preached to them.”

 

In other words, Jesus told them to go tell John that JOY is breaking out all over!

 

I’m wondering if you’ll light a Candle of Joy in your life today. I know that some of you are going through really hard times right now. Even with the brightness of the holiday season upon us, some of us are facing dark times, lonely times, fearful times, tearful times. And many of us have in our lives people we love very much whose joy has been taken away in one way or another. I’m wondering if you’ll light a Candle of Joy today – for yourself and for those you love.

 

It’s not all that difficult to do, but it does require great faith. You see, lighting this candle of Joy in your life means to begin the discipline of painting a new picture of  life – in all its dimensions – through the filter of Joy.

 

I heard recently about a man who learned that his younger sister had terminal cancer. He, like all the other members of the family, was absolutely devastated. There would be chemotherapy and radiation – not for a cure, but for time and for quality of life. And as his sister and the rest of the family engaged that long arduous process, he says they became a family preoccupied by the cancer, and the treatment, and most especially by the prognosis. There was a sort of collective depression that settled upon the whole family.

 

But one holiday weekend when they were all together, someone brought up an old memory. It was nothing special, just a remembrance of some silly thing that happened years ago, and when it was told, everyone laughed. Moments later, someone else told another story. And then another. And another. And before long, the house was full of laughter.

 

As the family parted that evening, the sister hugged her brother and all the others and said, “This has been such a wonderful day!! Thank you so much!”

 

And on the long drive home, this brother thought about his sister’s words. He held in his mind the picture of her smile, the sound of her laughter, the brightness of her eyes as they’d shared all those stories. And he thought to himself, “I wish there was some way to give her that gift every day.” Then he remembered how almost every day was full of the treatment regimen which exhausted her and laid her low. And then he came up with an idea.

 

When he got home, he sat down at his computer and began to write. He reached back into his memory and pulled out moments he and his sister had shared when they were kids. And he wrote about them, with as much detail as he could, but every once in awhile inserting the question, “What can you add to this?” Every day he sat and wrote. Every day he mailed another letter. Every day she took them with her to the oncology clinic. Every day she wrote back. And every time they got together, they talked about all they’d written. And they laughed for hours at a time.

 

A few years later, the end of his sister’s life drew near. As he sat by her bedside, she tenderly took his hand. She said, “You know, these last eighteen months have been some of the best months of my life. We found so much joy in our lives once we took the time to look for it. And you know, I’m sort of looking forward to hearing more of these stories from mom and dad when I get to heaven.”

 

This man says that the most beautiful miracle he has ever witnessed was the miracle of the joy his sister found in the very face of illness and death. And that joy, he insists, gave her strength and resolve to squeeze every drop of goodness out of the days she had, and to look to the future with confidence and hope!

 

Will you light the Candle of Joy today? Will you light it for yourself? Will you light it for someone you love?

 

It’s sort of like a grandmother, lighting a candle in the living room window, looking forward to the Joy of when her family arrives. And the promise we are given is this: we have a Savior seeking to come into our lives with Joy!

 

What is the Joy you’re looking for today? Can you visualize it? Can you imagine what it will be like on the day your prodigal son comes home? Can you fathom the joy of the day you see your deceased mother, or father again – when you discover that even that person who seemed completely lost has been truly found by the grace of God? Can you feel the wonder of the moment when Israelis and Palestinians sit at table together? Can you perceive the day when your old, worn out body is renewed by the power of the Spirit and you are stronger and more vital and more alive than you’ve ever been before?

 

Jesus comes to bring you Joy!

 

So light the Candle. Place it in the window of your life.

 

And look for Joy! Work for Joy! Dream about Joy! Share your Joy!

 

Joy to the world! The Lord is come!