ANTICIPATION

Third Sunday of Advent

Isaiah 35: 1-10

December 16, 2001

The third Sunday of Advent has traditionally been the Sunday of "JOY." Hope, peace, joy and love; the four traditional themes of Advent. What is the joy of the season?

One radio station in Yakima has been playing Christmas music 24 hours a day since Thanksgiving, if not before. Decorations for Christmas – trees, red and green colors, snowmen, stars, angels, nativity scenes, festive wrapping paper with ribbons and bows have been around for over a month. The festive Christmas scenes of traditional Christmas’ past fill the stores – carolers "walking in a winter wonderland," there are the "chestnuts roasting on an open fire," there is the one horse sleigh gliding across the snow covered roads toward a house filled with lights and a fire in the fireplace. We can find a Santa at every shopping mall ready to have your child or grandchild tell them what they want for Christmas and then have their picture taken on his lap. There are candles and candy canes, there are festive banners on city street poles. And how could we not forget the light displays on houses across the city and country – lights on the roof, lights on the bushes, icicle lights hanging from the eves. There are manger scenes with angels and reindeer and Santa.

And then there are the parties. I enjoy the parties. Staff parties at work, church gatherings of various kinds, Open Houses – we have been doing it for 31 years. We all have our favorite Christmas and Holiday candies, cookies, punch, hot drinks. There are the parties where gifts are exchanged, people dress up in their Christmas sweater, sweatshirt, ties and dresses and jackets.

Then there is the music – we can’t forget the music. Bel Canto and Camerata gave wonderful concerts; the symphony chorus performed Handel’s Messiah last night. There is the ballet Nutcracker Suite that is a tradition at Christmas; I have never seen it, so I guess I need to go some year. The Christmas hymns at church about the birth of Christ and that night are special to many of us and we can sing them by heart. I have a CD collection of just Christmas music; it is ready to play at any time.

There is the mad dash to get presents, hid them and then wrap them. There is the excitement of more presents under the tree, the anticipation of family and friends, the reading of Christmas cards from family and friends scattered across the years and miles. There are the stockings hung by the fireplace. There are the decorations that we put up every year. Kathy and I have some tree decorations that we still use from our first Christmas together 31 years ago. As we put them on the tree all kinds of memories flood my mind. There are some our kids made when they were preschool age. You have them, too.

What is the joy of Christmas? Oh, I’m sure that nearly all of us would say the proper answer if asked – the joy of Christmas is the birth of Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of God coming into the world. Yes, we all know that. Yet, if you look at how Christmas is celebrated by much of the culture the joy is all wrapped up in the traditions, the wrappings, the festive atmosphere, the commercialism and consumerism. As soon as December 25 arrives, it all disappears, put into a storage cabinet until next October. Call me cynical, call me Scrooge, but I believe that the Church is fighting a battle to retain the meaning of Advent and Christmas that frequently gets glossed over in our culture.

Few of us are really lacking for anything. We have more things, more clothes, more gadgets than we really need. In comparison to some people in our community, we have a lot; compared to the rest of the world what we have is sinful. Yet, deep in our hearts we know that true joy and happiness can never be found in material things. Part of our human condition is that we try to fill the emptiness in our lives with material things, knowing all along that we will never be satisfied; we always want more and more. All the lights and sounds, presents and food, glitter and excitement is only a veneer covering the longing and emptiness that yearns to be heard and seen in the depth of the human soul.

The prophet Isaiah was speaking to people who were feeling abandoned and forsaken. In captivity in a foreign land 1,000 miles of desert from home, they felt that God had abandoned them. In the midst of their grief and despair when they felt no hope, the prophet proclaims a message of hope. In the midst of the darkness of despair and hopelessness a voice proclaimed Good News. That parched desert is going to bloom, water will break forth and plants will grow; life will come from what appears to be nothing. A highway will appear leading them back home. It is God’s Holy Way! Only God’s people get to walk on it. There will be no need to fear coyotes and wolves, bears or lions, snakes or jackals. You can’t even go astray on this highway; there is no way you can get lost. If you don’t believe you have the strength to make it, God will provide the strength; those of a fearful and weak heart will find the strength.

Isaiah refers to these people as being "redeemed" and "ransomed." Redeem is a family law term having its meaning in the buying back of people sold into slavery to pay debts. Ransom has its history in economic and cultic terms of buying back a person or animal from an obligation. They mean "buying back," returning to its original owner after paying a price. The people of Israel had abandoned God, but God had not abandoned them. The joy Isaiah proclaims is the Good News that God has not abandoned us but through God’s gracious love and grace calls us back from the parched desert of lostness into wholeness and life with God. The joy is the proclamation of what God is doing and will do.

In light of what our country has experienced in the past 100 days, I think we would pause to reflect on what Christmas is all about. The innocence and naiveté is gone. Loads of presents under the tree cannot take the place of a loved one taken suddenly in violence. All the sweaters or tools or ties or neat gadgets we will receive cannot mask the pain, the loneliness, the brokenness, the hurt of a torn relationship or an empty chair at the table. It is an opportunity to plumb the depths of what we truly value and so live. It is an opportunity to get past the veneer of sentimentality and hype to grasp the essence of love made real in human life. The spiritual part of our lives is of more value than all the presents under any tree. The wholeness of relationships lived in peace and love can never be bought. Justice, peace and equity for all is possible – but only through the One who made us and redeems us.

What is the joy of Christmas? What is the joy of Advent? It is being overwhelmed again at the gracious love of a God who calls us into life out of the brokenness and pain of our existence. It is being in awe at how God chooses to show that love by becoming one of us that we may see the way. The Joy of Christmas is in living that out in our daily lives.

The joy of Advent is not something that can be conjured up with music, decorations, parties, lights and presents. The joy of the season is in a relationship with God that drives us to our knees in humble thanks and so transforms our lives.