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Third Sunday in Advent, 2005
Rejoice In ALL Circumstances
When you hear
St. Paul say to the Thessalonians, ‘Brothers and Sisters: Rejoice always,’ do
you think, ‘Well that sounds good, but it isn’t very realistic? How about the
times when my car breaks down, my roof is leaking and I’m overdrawn at the
bank?’ Today we are told that we, indeed, should rejoice always, ‘in all
circumstances give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.’
(1Thessalonians 5:16-24) For a moment think about your life and I will think of
mine as we hear this challenge and admonition to rejoice always.
Joy! How
often do you experience ‘joy’? I’m not talking about feeling good, when
everything is going right, the kids are behaving, the kitchen is clean, we’re
having a night off and a vacation is in sight. No, joy is a gift from the
Spirit of God that enables to believe and know and yes, even feel, that even
when circumstances are not going well, either inside of me or outside of me,
that all will be well. Joy is different than a grin or a feeling. It is a
deep gift, a conviction, but something we know inside of us that God is in
control; it all doesn’t depend on me. It is not quite the same as peace,
for it is names as a unique gift, but it is close to peace. It must be a
sister to peace.
We live in very,
very troubled times. Wars continue in Iraq, the Middleast, suicide bombers
give their lives to kill even more people, violence increases in all forms
constantly. People are poor and hungry in countries distant from our own
and even here, an affluent and powerful country, we are dismayed by divorce,
broken families, children without parents and grave injustice between the rich
and the poor.
In the Christmas
season we all love to hear the bells, smell the smells of spice and sweetness
and see the designs of green and red. My thought is that much of this
delight is not very deep. Does all the commercialism and the enticing
beauty that surrounds it address the pain and injustice that is calling out for
attention? I’m thinking that it may be a sort of escape for a month from
the reality of what really needs to be addressed. In regards to joy, I
question that all the song and dance is really deeply joy. No
wonder there is a big let down on January 2nd when we must return to
face the ‘real music’ which is off key and dissonant compared to the yuletide
song.
This is not to
sound like Scrooge, but to awaken us to a gift from the Spirit that money cannot
buy. Joy is always there for us, even when we know that we are far from a
just society where everyone is fed and clothed and welcomed. We can
certainly sing the songs of the season, but we can sing with joy when we are
connected to the Spirit of God who calls us to tend to the needs of society and
address its injustices.
Our Advent
prophet, Isaiah adds to our understanding of joy. He writes ‘The spirit of
the Lord God is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me; he has sent me to
bring glad tidings to the poor, to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty
to the captives and release to the prisoners, to announce a year of favor from
the Lord and a day of vindication by our God. I rejoice heartily in the
Lord, in my God is the joy of my soul…’ (Isaiah 61: 1-2A, 10-11)
We notice that
Isaiah is totally aware of the Spirit of God, the Lord’s anointing and that from
this awareness he reaches out to the poor with the Word of salvation, healing
for the hurting and freedom for all imprisoned behind physical bars or emotional
bars. His rejoicing is ‘in the Lord,’ his God.
This may sound
obvious, but it really is the key. There is no joy or real rejoicing apart from
being ‘in the Lord’ and it is ‘in the Lord’ that we are given a share of God’s
own joy. More specifically, joy comes from the Spirit of God. In
another place in Scripture Paul speaks of joy in Galatians, Chapter five, which
bears reading in its entirety, vv. 22 and following, ‘…the fruit of the spirit
is love, JOY, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness
and self-control.’
There it is, our
‘joy,’ nestled among love, peace and the other gifts of the Spirit.
Incidentally, in theological language, joy is one of the ‘Fruits of the Spirit,’
to distinguish them from the seven ‘Gifts’ of the Holy Spirit. If
joy is a fruit then it must be connected to the tree that bears it and this tree
is the life and risen humanity of Christ himself who gave himself in love for us
in the midst of the most unspeakable suffering and injustice.
The tree of the
cross gives life and fruit to us. The Spirit that gives us joy is the
Spirit that was released upon the world when Christ died and was raised by the
Father. Joy is sourced in the Risen Christ and flows from his sacred
wounds and loving passion for us. There must have been times for Jesus
when his own joy was deeply submerged beneath his own suffering and feelings of
abandonment. When he surrendered to the Father’s will and went forward
with the gift of his life he must have felt joy.
There is a clue here that
suffering and joy are not separate. It is from the suffering that Jesus
embraced with love for his Father and us that joy was released into the world.
We can suffer and if it is in love then we can have joy at the same time.
I always think of the woman I met many years ago when I used to preach
informally in people’s homes as part of a parish mission. She was confined
to a wheel chair with crippling rheumatoid arthritis. She couldn’t move
much at all and it was apparent that she had to be in pain. Yet, she
radiated a look of joy.
I remember this
woman because to me she is a symbol, a sacrament, of what deep joy is. Joy
is not a stranger to suffering, in fact, it seems to flourish in suffering, but
only suffering born in love and that for us Christians is possible because of
our union with Jesus Christ who lives in us by the power of His Spirit.
Joy is possible and available and real in our own sufferings and urges us as we
aware of the sufferings of the world around us to do what we can to eliminate
them.
Finally, what we
must do to ‘access’ this joy in the Spirit is to be with the Spirit in prayer.
We must take the time to immerse ourselves in prayer to have joy and to sustain
it. We must soak ourselves in prayer, be with, stay with the Spirit and
ask for this gift, especially when times are stressful and we are bearing great
suffering. There will always be some resistance to prayer, especially at
times of sorrow and stress, there is a temptation to abandon prayer and to think
that it is hopeless and futile. God as abandoned us. The truth is
the opposite. At these times all the more must we take the time, make the
time for prayer. The Spirit of Jesus will not disappoint you, but
will tell you only to ‘come back tomorrow for more.’
Yes, these are
stressful and sad times, joyless times, in many ways. Aside from the
disruptions of nature and the disruptions that we with human nature have caused,
there is always a need for joy and today there is a real need for joy, something
that many people don’t even know they need or for whom it is so foreign they
don’t know it is a gift waiting for them. Joy is offered to all of us
today through God’s Word in St. Paul and Isaiah. It certainly is always
from the Spirit of the living Christ and it is this Spirit that inspired Paul
and Isaiah to share their experience with us.
Remember to pray
to the Spirit, stay with the Spirit and ask for the gift of joy. It will
be given to you, you will feel it, though it is much deeper than a passing
emotion, and you will know in your heart that you have joy and other people will
know that your joy and long for it for themselves. J-O-Y, Jesus, Others,
Yourself, a way to think of ‘joy,’ Jesus is first and he gives you the joy of
His Spirit and your joy will radiate to others as you put them before yourself,
because selfishness diminishes joy. Then we sing with the carolers we will
really know the message of ‘Joy to the world.’
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