Sermon For Advent 3C
December 13, 2009
Texts: Zephaniah 3:14-20; Isaiah 12:2-6; Philippians 4:4-7; Luke 3:7-18

Who here this morning is feeling total, unbridled joy?

Is there anyone feeling at least a little bit stressed with the events of the season?

And is there anyone, and you don’t have to admit it,
Who feels even a little Grinch-like
As in the Grinch who hated Christmas,
The whole Christmas season.

Many of us have somewhat ambivalent reactions toward this season.

On one hand, the Christmas season seems to bring out the best in people,
We love to see the Christmas decorations,
It’s great to visit with friends at the round of holiday parties,
Who doesn’t love Christmas cookies, particularly those made by small children,
And the snow the past week made the whole area look like a Sierra Club Christmas card.

Christmas is definitely in the air.

But on the other hand,
For some of us, adding all the Christmas events and tasks
To already overloaded schedules adds unwelcome stress.

And for some of us,
The events of Christmas
Bring back memories of those who are no longer with us,
Leaving us with a feeling of longing and grief

And for those who are alone,
The sense that the rest of the world is celebrating,
Can accentuate the loneliness.

Our collection of texts this week,
For this Third Sunday in Advent
Echoes this dual sense of the Advent season,
And mirrors our own mixed joy and distress.

On one hand we heard three texts
That emphasize joy,
A joy that wells up from a life grounded in the Lord.

And on the other, in Luke’s Gospel,
We heard John the Baptist strike fear in the heart of his listeners
As he chastised those who are unrepentant.

John lashed out at the people
Who were not meeting God’s expectations for right living.
We sometimes lash out at ourselves,
When we don’t live up to the expectation we set for ourselves.

This collection of texts,
Which by the way I don’t choose,
For they are assigned in the lectionary,
Could almost have been put together
By one of Garrison Keillor’s Lutherans.

Keillor would say that Lutherans, when they celebrate,
Feel joy, but not too much joy.

We start out with the prophet Zephaniah encouraging the people of Israel
With the words
“Sing aloud, shout, rejoice and exult.”

And then the text from Isaiah
Ends with “Shout aloud and sing for joy.”

Finally we hear Paul tell the Philippians,
Rejoice in the Lord always;
Again I will say rejoice.

At this point, after three readings,
We’re starting to feel the joy,
The joy we want to feel with Christmas approaching.

Almost like the old camp song,
“You’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy
Down in your heart.

But then in case we Lutherans are feeling too much joy,
John the Baptist shows up,
With his words that you can almost interpret as saying
Merry Christmas, you brood of vipers!

Bah Humbug!  Just when we were starting to feel a sense of joy!

After hearing John the Baptist’s “brood of vipers line,
You might expect Scrooge to walk through the door,
Telling you that you will be boiled in our own Christmas pudding. 

We have seesawed our way through the lessons this morning
First up into the air with calls to joy
And then down to the ground with the Baptist’s angry tone.
Despite the joy we heard in the two readings from
The Old Testament prophets Isaiah and Zephaniah,
These two books are not really known for being light-hearted and upbeat.

Both of these prophets
Are writing to the Israelites in exile.

The bulk of both of these Biblical books
Is filled with prophecies of doom and punishment
For people who have sinned and rejected God.

These two joyful passages are little interjections, filled with comfort,
For a people who have repented of their sins,
And are now being restored to God.
The people have been forgiven and are to rejoice.

John the Baptist,
Whom many consider to be the last Old Testament prophet,
Has much the same role as the prophets Isaiah and Zephaniah,
To call people to repentance. 

The crowds gather around John,
Because they sense that he is somehow special.

But John is not going to let them off easily.
He calls them a brood of vipers and admonishes them to repent.

He instructs them in the kind of living that God expects from them,
Much as Isaiah and Zephaniah instructed the Israelite people 500 years earlier.

But John has an additional message for the people,
Which is at the heart of the Good News for us.

John isn’t ready to tell the people to rejoice,
But he does give them the promise of One who is to come.

John’s role since birth has been to prepare the people for Jesus.

As he calls the gathered crowds to repentance,
He tells them that one is coming who is more powerful than he.
This One will baptize with the Holy Spirit. 
Although John does not offer much comfort with this message,
He points us toward Christ,
The same Christ in whom Paul tells us to rejoice.

In the letter to the Philippians, Paul encourages them
And by extension us,
To rejoice in the Lord always.

Neither Paul nor the people he was writing to
Were living the good life,
That you would normally associate with joy.

Paul, himself, was imprisoned, writing from a dark dank prison cell.
Under those circumstances, you might think Paul would be pretty far from joyful.

The Philippians were living in a city
With heavy Roman and Greek influences,
In which Jews and Christians were considered outcasts,
And in addition, there were even theological differences among the Christians,
Which were causing added strife.

Yet with this backdrop,
Of his own imprisonment and their strife filled lives,
Paul encourages the Philippians to rejoice!

I wonder how the Philippians heard this call to joy.

I know how I feel when I am having a downer of a day,
And I’ll bet my down days are nothing compared
To life for a Christian in a Roman city in the first century.

Yet even on my bad days,
I don’t take kindly to someone telling me to just cheer up.

So how is Paul’s command to the Philippians to rejoice
Different from the usual cheer up commands we are likely to receive?

First, since it is coming from a dear friend that they know is imprisoned,
Who has given them a full report of his hardships,
The Philippians may have been touched by his concern for them
In the midst of his own adversity.

Secondly, Paul gives them a source and ground for their joy.
Their joy is to be in the Lord,
Who is near
And to whom they can give all their worries and concerns. 

Paul doesn’t tell them that either of their situations
Is going to magically change.
Paul is not going to get out of prison quickly,
And the situation in the Philippians’ church is not going to immediately change.

But Paul does tell them that they are not to worry,
Rather they are to pray and let their request be known to God.
The peace of God which passes all understanding
Will keep their hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. 

They are not to worry,
Not because somehow everything around them
Is suddenly going to change,
But because God will hear their prayers
And guide them in the way they are to go.

So in the middle of Advent,
Amidst our sometimes ambivalent reactions to the whole Christmas season,
How do we hear Paul’s command to rejoice?

In this Advent season,
The stress, or the unfilled expectations, or the longing for someone who is not here,
Can leave you feeling as if joy took up residence in some distant land.

A just cheer up command
Is not likely to produce positive results for you.
In fact it might mean
That you will just show the command giver a withering look!

So is Paul’s command to rejoice
Just one more item on your to-do list,
Or can Paul’s words create a transformation in you.

Rejoice, do not worry may seem like an impossible command
On a day when your sticky note lists have birthed more baby lists.

Yet Paul’s command is different because it comes with a promise and Good News.
The Do NOT Worry About Anything command,
Is followed by a promise that in prayer God will take on your worries.

It is in prayer that a transformation out of worry can occur.
To pray requires that you stop your frenetic actions,
In those brief moments of prayer, you can stop fretting,
You can breathe deeply and feel, as Paul said, that the Lord is near. 

It is impossible to worry incessantly,
When every cell of your body is engaged in prayer to God. 
I’m not talking about one of those quick uttered prayers
While you’re doing six other things,
I am talking about the deep focused prayer
Where you mentally fold yourself into God’s outreached arms.

When you are praying a deep prayer, your heart rate drops,
Your blood pressure drops,
A calm does descend on you,
And God can transform your reaction to a situation.

As Paul tells the Philippians,
Rejoice always and do not worry about anything,
God will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

The peace of God transcends human worry and depravation.

If we go back, for a minute, to the story of the Grinch,
Perhaps you will remember that the Whos down in Whoville, who loved Christmas,
Continued to rejoice and celebrate Christmas
Even when their gifts, dinners and decorations
Had been stolen by the Grinch. 

The Whos showed the Grinch
That they could rejoice in the Lord,
And that Christmas was not bought in a store.
Their peace and joy was not found in gifts, food or Christmas trees.

And God, who can do anything,
Transformed the Grinch that day,
Causing his heart to grow three sizes in just one day.

If you are feeling a bit Grinch like,
Perhaps buckling under the stress of expectations about Christmas,
Then God’s Word given to you through the Apostle Paul
Offers the hope of comfort and peace,
And the possibility that your heart may grow three sizes today.

May your joy, even if subdued, be in the Lord, who is near.
May you carry all your worries, burdens and expectations to the Lord in prayer.

May the peace of Christ
Which passes all understanding
Keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.