"Sing aloud, O daughter Zion; shout, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter Jerusalem! The LORD has taken away the judgments against you, he has turned away your enemies. The king of Israel, the LORD, is in your midst; you shall fear disaster no more. On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem: Do not fear, O Zion; do not let your hands grow weak. The LORD, your God, is in your midst, 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 as on a day of festival I will remove disaster from you, so that you will not bear reproach for it. I will deal with all your oppressors at that time.
And I will save the lame and gather the outcast, and I will change their shame into praise and renown in all the earth. At that time I will bring you home, at the time when I gather you; for I will make you renowned and praised among all the peoples of the earth, when I restore your fortunes before your eyes, says the LORD."
--Zephaniah 3: 14-20
"Surely, it is God who saves me; *
I will trust in him and not be afraid.
For the Lord is my stronghold and my sure defense, *
and he will be my Savior.
Therefore you shall draw water with rejoicing *
from the springs of salvation.
And on that day you shall say, *
Give thanks to the Lord and call upon his Name;
Make his deeds known among the peoples; *
see that they remember that his Name is exalted.
Sing the praises of the Lord, for he has done great things, *
and this is known in all the world.
Cry aloud, inhabitants of Zion, ring out your joy, *
for the great one in the midst of you is the Holy One of Israel."
--Isaiah 12: 2-6 (The First Song of Isaiah)
"Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."
--Philippians 4: 4-7
"John said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our ancestor'; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire."
And the crowds asked him, "What then should we do?" In reply he said to them, "Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise." Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, "Teacher, what should we do?" He said to them, "Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you." Soldiers also asked him, "And we, what should we do?" He said to them, "Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages."
As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, John answered all of them by saying, "I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire."
So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people."
--Luke 3: 7-18
Years ago while serving as a youth minister I was helping our young curate – assistant priest for the uninitiated – with a lesson on Advent with our kids. At the end a one boy asked him what the deal was with the pink candle, to which this curate, eager to show off his newfound church knowledge, explained that we take the purple of Advent and mix it with the white of Christmas and voila, we get the pink – or rose – candle. To which this little kid said very plainly, “Purple and white don’t make pink?” The curate shrugged and said, “That’s the best I got, kid!”
The pink candle lit for the Third Sunday of Advent
The pink candle stands out because this third week of Advent stands out from the rest of the season. We called this past Sunday "Stir-Em-Up Sunday", drawing from the first word in our Collect, but its more popular name is Gaudete Sunday. Gaudete is Latin for ‘rejoice’ taken from the traditional opening chant, or introit, prescribed for the day. It’s also reflective of the rejoicing that permeates throughout our Scriptures. The prophet Zephaniah says, “Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter Jerusalem!” and “the Lord will rejoice over you with gladness and renew you with love.” In our canticle, the First Song of Isaiah, the prophet sings, “Therefore you shall draw water with rejoicing from the springs of salvation.” The apostle Paul, writing to the church in Philipi, calls them to “Rejoice in the Lord always—again I say, rejoice!” And in Luke’s Gospel we hear John the Baptist yelling at the brood of vipers. Oh, there’s rejoicing there, too, we’ll get to that!
For some of us, it’s easy to rejoice this time of year. Hearts are practically giddy in anticipation of Christmas. but when we peel back the layers of our Scriptures, I suspect we will find that the voices calling us to rejoice are not doing so with the giddiness that we often experience around us this time of year, but rather they are crying out from a place of deep longing, anchored to an acknowledgment of God’s love and presence in human life, which is often anything but joyful.
The prophet Zephaniah puts in a rare appearance this week. If you know your prophets—and I’m sure you do—you’ll know that some of the gloomiest passages in all of the Hebrew Bible are found in Zephaniah. It’s true! In the first chapter, starting with the second verse, we hear God say through the prophet: “I will utterly sweep away everything from the face of the earth…humans and animals…birds of the air…fish of the sea…I will cut off humanity from the face of the earth.” Yikes! But just two chapters later, we hear a different tune being sung, one where the word of God, which began as irredeemable judgment, has been transformed into transcendent gladness, and that which once anticipated the sorrows of the people now celebrates their chorus of joy.
We hear from another prophet this week, as our canticle, is taken from the 12th chapter of Isaiah. In this First Song of Isaiah we hear the promise that God is the people’s stronghold and defense, that they should rejoice in God and call upon God’s name, especially in anticipation of disasters the prophet had said earlier will come if folks don’t change their ways. Even during the exile, which starts in chapter 40, this instruction to rejoice in God’s deliverance endures.
Speaking of disasters, does anyone know where Paul was when he penned the letter to the Philippians and told them to rejoice in the Lord always? He’s in prison! What’s more, the church in Philippi was itself enduring great hardships and persecutions, and many more were to come. Yet somehow out of that pain Paul is able to construct not only a message of hope but one that dares proclaim that the people should rejoice…always!
Then there’s John the Baptizer. Where’s the joy in this guy? As he stands by the River Jordan every sort of wayfaring stranger from tax collectors to Roman soldiers are gathered. He calls them a brood of vipers, out there fleeing to him, so as to hide out from their wickedness. We talked a lot about the lack of joy in John’s message in my parish's Tuesday Bible study last week, but we also discovered a kind of joyful invitation that he offers. Notice how much of what he says is rooted in economic justice – Own more than you need? Great! Half of it can go to others, and you can start sharing from your bounty instead of stockpiling more. John’s calling the people to see their own intention and to be more than they have been; you’ve been thinking you already know yourself, well, look again, because your same-as-always life is over. There’s a tinge of fear and lots of hesitation on our part when we hear John (or someone like him) call us to metanoia, to turning ourselves around, but I’d like to think that such an invitation is worth rejoicing over. That, I believe, is why Luke refers to what John's doing as "proclaiming the good news."
Make no mistake, each prophetic voice this morning is speaking amongst communities that have experienced pain, trauma even, with dark, foreboding horizons ahead. How could any of them rejoice? It is the promise of God’s abiding presence, breaking into the world again, to which each of these voices proclaims. Zephaniah says, “The Lord your God is in your midst.” Isaiah says, “The great one in the midst of you is the Holy One of Israel.” Paul says, “The Lord is near.” And joy and excitement can be heard in John’s voice as he declares, “One who is more powerful than I is coming, who will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.’
How is such joy possible, especially when we consider that each of these prophets was killed? It is a lesson, I suspect, that is taught to us by suffering. That is not to say that God causes or is glorified by suffering, far from it, but it is to say that when someone understands that God is still in suffering, in the absurdity of it all, they have a perspective that allows one to see beyond the suffering, to rejoice in the same way the prophets rejoiced. The Incarnation is so extraordinary, in part, because it takes place in a time when folks were desperate, when many felt the world had been left empty, and in the midst of Empire, Emmanuel arrives. The arrival of Love incarnate does not replace all suffering with joy – we need only look around, perhaps at our own sufferings– instead it makes joy possible. It allows us to dare to be joyful, to dare to hope, to dare to hang on to the mercy and love of God even when we may feel obligated to do anything but. In some ways it is the most radical and revolutionary thing we can do, to rejoice in the midst of a world filled with pain.
So rejoice, rejoice, believers! Rejoice not because Christians are called to believe that everything will be ok, or that the pain will stop, but we rejoice in the saving grace of a God who loves us so much as to not only come among us, but to promise never to leave and to never give up on us. This is the joy being stirred up today. This is joy for all who long to know the peace of God that passes understanding. For this we rejoice…always…and again I will say, rejoice!
