“The Other Side of Joy”

Luke 3:1-6

Zephaniah 3:14 - 17

Rev. Martin C. Singley, III

Everywhere you go these days, you hear the music!

“Chestnuts roasting on an open fire… ( let the congregation fill in the blank).”

“Oh, you better watch out, you better not cry…(let the congregation fill in the blank).”

“I’m dreamin’ of a white Christmas…(let the congregation fill in the blank).”

“Oh come, all ye faithful…(let the congregation fill in the blank).”

Everywhere you go these days, you hear the Christmas music! Secular tunes, religious carols, you hear them while walking through the stores, and even while zipping down the Interstate listening to the “all Christmas, all the time” station on your car radio. Isn’t that the best radio of all? It sure beats Sports Talk!

Everywhere you go these days, you hear the Christmas music – except in the church.

“O come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel that mourns in lonely exile here…”

Quite a different kind of music, isn’t it!? And there is a reason for that.

Out in the world, the merchants want to get you to Christmas as fast as they can! It used to be that the official Christmas season didn’t begin until after Thanksgiving, but the commercial interests learned that the quicker they can get us out Christmas shopping, the better. So now Christmas starts even before Thanksgiving. I think it was earlier in the week of Thanksgiving this year that I stopped by the Food Lion and saw that they already had Christmas trees for sale, and as I strolled through the store, I heard “Silent Night” being played over the store’s speakers and found myself humming the tune. I had not even tasted turkey yet, but there I was standing by the manger singing “Silent Night.” That’s how it was at the Food Lion.

But not in the church. In the church, we say, “Hold your horses!” “Not so fast!”

You may have noticed that we have not yet sung any congregational Christmas carols in our services. Instead, we have tried to honor the season of Advent by not jumping ahead to Christmas. Take my word for it, Jesus WILL be born again this year. The angels will sing, the shepherds will come, the magi will follow the star, and we will sing all the songs of our Savior’s birth.

But not yet.

The coming of Jesus means nothing at all, unless we know why he came.

I want to ask you to picture Advent with me as we remember that most wonderful of all Advent hymns, “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.”

Picture, if you will, the nation of Israel, defeated by the Babylonian army, their capital city Jerusalem burned to the ground, their people carted off as prisoners of war to Babylon. Imagine their tears, their sorrow, their despair as they live in exile. Listen to their cry:

“O come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel that mourns in lonely exile here…”

Let’s picture this in our own nation’s history. African villages invaded by slave traders, families tied up in shackles and thrown into the rancid bowels of a slave ship, transported across an entire ocean to a strange and foreign land. Families split up, children sold off at auction off, women raped, even shoes taken away so they cannot escape.

“O come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel that mourns in lonely exile here…”

Let’s bring it into our own lives. Picture these experiences that are with us in the sanctuary today: a spouse has died, a job has been lost, a friend has betrayed you, a child has gotten into trouble, a disease has been diagnosed, an addiction has taken hold, a dream has been lost, the aging meter is spinning faster and faster toward running out of time.

“O come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel that mourns in lonely exile here…”

It is important that we not get to Christmas without coming to grips with the pain of Advent’s exile.

Because it is only when we embrace our own and the world’s pain that we get to experience the JOY of what Christmas means!

Today, on the third Sunday of Advent, we take the turn toward Joy. When Advent began three Sundays ago, we stood with all who experience exile in whatever way they do, and we lit a candle of Hope. That candle represents our prayer that God will come and rescue us from the hurt we are experiencing in life. And if you have come to church today bearing some pain of exile, I want you to know that candle burns for you.

Last week, on the second Sunday of Advent, we lit a candle of Peace – of Shalom. It is a prayer that the Prince of Peace will come and reconcile us to God, to each other, and to ourselves. You see, our exile is not just that external forces have ganged up on us and brought us pain, but that deep within our own lives, there is brokenness. Some of us don’t like ourselves very much. We doubt our worth and suffer all the consequences of lost self-esteem. Many of us have broken relationships with people we need to love and we don’t know how to mend them. And many more of us than we might be willing to admit are a long ways from God and the ways of God. Some of us wonder if God is really there, and if God IS there, why God allows bad things to happen to good people. If you have come to church today without inner peace, I want you to know this candle burns for you.

But today, on the third Sunday in Advent, we take a sudden turn. The purple candles that represent the passion and pain upon which we light those two candles praying for Hope and Peace now give way to a pink candle! And it is the candle of Joy!

And this candle of Joy is a wonderful symbol because it represents God’s response to our prayers for Hope and Peace in the midst of our exile.

“O come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel that mourns in lonely exile here until the Son of God appears…that’s OUR prayer!

And here is God’s reply…REJOICE! REJOICE! EMMANUEL SHALL COME TO THEE, O ISRAEL!

And suddenly, we find ourselves given a promise.

I once read an account of a Jewish man being held in a Nazi death camp toward the end of World War II. When he and hundreds of other Jews were unpacked from the railroad car that had brought them to the camp, they knew what was coming. They had heard what happened at these camps. And even as they were marched through the gates, they could see the smoke and smell the odor of burning human flesh coming from the ovens.

“O come, O come Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel that mourns in lonely exile here…”

Those were not his words, but they surely capture the prayer of all who were marched into the death camps. He was reasonably healthy so, unlike those who were weak and sick, he was not put into the line of those who went to the showers and never came back. He was made a part of a work detail. Days went by. Then weeks. Then months.

“O come, O come, Emmanuel…”

Then one day, an amazing thing happened. All of a sudden, the sound of an aircraft engine pierced the sky and over the treetops roared a P-51 Mustang.

“The German guards,” he said, “dove to the ground in fear. But we – we Jews – we jumped for joy! We knew the Americans were coming!”

Today is that kind of day for us and our world. With the lighting of this pink candle, God answers our plea. Over the treetops of our problems, our wounds, our fears, our losses, our brokenness, our failures, and all the other things that send us into human exile ROARS the sound of God’s coming to save us!

So we light a pink candle of Joy!

But is it enough to simply light a candle? Religious people are all the time lighting candles when we should be out working hard to bring Joy to the world.

So how can we be real-life harbingers of Joy?

Well, first, by embracing the pain of the world.

A strange thing happens to me whenever I drive through a city at night. My eyes are always drawn to the building that I know is the Medical Center and I imagine in my mind what is taking place in the Intensive Care Waiting Room. Goodness knows, I have spent more than a few hours in such places, sitting with family members keeping watch over a critically ill loved one. And if you have been in one of those ICU Waiting Rooms, you know what happens there. You go in as a stranger, but soon become part of all the other people watching over their loved ones too. You bond together. Pray together. Weep together. Laugh together. And as one group leaves because their loved one has either died or survived, another family comes in, and you welcome them.

So when I’m driving along on the Interstate and see a great Medical Center, my mind mysteriously projects itself through the doors, and down the hallways, and into that waiting room where families wait in exile. And I whisper a prayer for them.

I wish I could develop more of that. I wish we Christians could become more aware of the pain all around us. We should never go past a school without knowing that inside that school is a little boy or little girl who the other kids tease and bully, and make their little lives miserable. And if we could be sensitive to that, perhaps we could at least say a prayer. We should never pass by a nursing home, or a playground, or a gated community or a rundown neighborhood without being aware that there are exiled people there who need someone to care about them. And at the very least, we can offer a prayer.

Or, we can do more than pray. I loved what Rhonda said last week toward the end of her sermon about letting your life sing. “It’s never too late,” she said, “to sing a song of peace! It’s never too late to show compassion to those the world rejects! It’s never too late to volunteer for a local charity or give to a worthy cause. It’s never too late to send a card to someone who’s lonely or downtrodden. It’s never too late to take soup to a sick neighbor. It’s never too late to let your life sing!”

Learn to embrace the exiles around you. Figure out ways to bring the light of Joy to their lives.

And don’t forget yourself.

In today’s reading from the prophet Zephaniah, we hear a wonderful piece of news as we contend with the pain of our own lives: “The Lord our God is with you, he is mighty to save! He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.” (Zeph. 3:17)

You see, not only do we receive Joy from God, God also finds Joy in YOU! So let God into your life and especially into your places of exile. Let God quiet you with his love. It is God’s great JOY, to come into your life and led you to salvation!

So as we turn the corner today on Joy Sunday, it’s finally time. Embracing exiles in every time and every place, it’s time to sing a Christmas carol.

“Joy to the world, the Lord is come!”