Testify to the Light

Advent 3 – Joy

Today's readings: Isaiah 61: 1-4, 8-11; John 1:6-8, 19-28

Grace and peace to you in the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Today we light the third candle on our Advent wreaths - the candle of Joy:

"The Joy of God-With-Us does not come as naïve optimism, or surface level feel-good-ness. Joy cannot be imposed from on high. Joy cannot be commanded. The Joy of God-With-Us is mingled with grief, exists side by side with mourning, knows that pain and death are all too real, but do not have the final word. This joy tends tenderly to beauty, and softness, and the gladness that comes from paying attention to what matters. The Joy of God-With-Us is collective, liberating us from deadly despair. Joy is gestating in darkness; it comes unexpectedly. Joy invites our expectation, and demands our participation. Prepare the way, for joy with sorrow. May Joy be birthed among, within, and through us, this Advent." Advent liturgy © Enfleshed: 2018, Rev. Anna Blaedel

I wonder.. where have you found joy this year? Within this year of devastation and tragedy, where you have you surprisingly still found joy? Maybe there were days of celebration or maybe there were subtle moments, fleeting moments, unexpected moments.. maybe there were smiles through tears, moments suspended in time, surrounded by the joy and sorrow this life simultaneously brings. As we heard in this morning’s Advent candle lighting, “The Joy of God-with-us is mingled with grief, exists side by side with mourning, knows that pain and death are all too real, but do not have the final word.”

God is with us this year and every year, bringing our hearts hope, peace, and joy. This Emmanuel-God-with-us is the SAME God who gave life to all things, whose breath filled our lungs and continues to breathe life into us today. Emmanuel (God) was there in the beginning; God was there on the arc during the flood, God was there in Egypt where the Hebrews were enslaved for generations, God was there in the desert as they wandered for forty treacherous days and nights, God was there in a manger on that starry night in Bethlehem and God is here with us in 2020, as the story of humanity trudges on. God - the Alpha, the Omega, the beginning and the end of all things -appeared enfleshed on this earth to bring us peace, to fill us with hope, and give us cause to rejoice.

The passage we heard this morning from Isaiah is the same one that Jesus himself proclaims in the synagogue at the start of his ministry (Luke 4:16-21). The prophet Isaiah declare these words of promise to a troubled Israel, “The Lord is coming to bring good news to the oppressed, bind up the brokenhearted, proclaim liberty to the captives, release to the prisoners, comfort to the mourning and to declare the year of the Lord’s favor, because the Lord loves justice. These newly liberated peoples will be like oak trees planted of the Lord to display God’s glory! They will rebuild what has been broken, destroyed and ruined – repairing their cities and towns. Rejoicing and exulting God, they will be acknowledged as God’s people, dressed in garments of salvation and robes of righteousness! Just as what is planted springs life, so the Lord will spring up righteousness and praise before all nations!” (Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11 paraphrased)

These are hopeful and powerful words for Jesus to call to attention for his own ministry. He is the one Isaiah was referring to. He has come and he will fulfill the scriptures, as promised. We know, on this side of history, that Jesus does these things and more. He not only liberates, binds ups and comforts, but claims victory over death itself. This is most certainly cause to rejoice, to exult our God and to continue this holy work. Prepare the way; the Lord has come!

We as the Church are the people who continue to rejoice and exult God on this earth. We are the ones robed in salvation and righteousness. We are the ones called to do the holy work of reparations, restoration, rebuilding, and nurturing the liberating life God springs up all around us. That is how we prepare the way of the Lord, who will come again in glory. Until Jesus’ return WE have been entrusted with the earthly kingdom. WHILE we wait expectantly for Christ to come and reign, we are called to point to Christ, just like John the Baptist (John 1:7-8). We witness to the gospel, we enflesh the gospel, we are the voice calling out in the wilderness and testifying to the true light of the world. We may be the inhabitants of the kingdom of God, called to the Lord’s work, but we recognize that we are not the Messiah. Rather we, like John, are witnesses, testifying to the light, so that all might believe that God. Is. Real; that God is present.

I have been struck by the testimony, the witness that has been shared by YOU at our midweek Advent worship services these past few weeks. The stories we share about God showing up in our lives matter. They witness to the hope, peace, and joy that we’ve been talking about! They testify that GOD IS REAL! And this same witness can be seen in the ways in which YOU have continued to find ways to keep the mission and ministry of God alive in our current world riddled with disease, social unrest, natural disasters, increased division and crippling loneliness. You have responded with love and tenderness; with Christmas gifts for families who can’t afford their own, with cards and phone calls to those who are alone, with pillows and toiletries and emergency items for our brothers who lost their only source of shelter in a fire. Seeds, you have found ways to worship through the despair, to praise God in the storm, to embody Christ on earth and therefore witness to the world that God has not abandoned us, but is right here, enfleshed in you and me.

We wait for the Lord, but we do not idle as if there is nothing to live for in the meantime. When Jesus spoke those words from Isaiah in the synagogue he told them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” The scripture has been fulfilled. We have been set free. We have reason to hope and reason to rejoice. And we have the gift of participating in the continual fulfilling of that scripture as the body of Christ on earth until God returns. As the Rev. Lenny Duncan proclaims, “Dear Church, we are the ones we’ve been waiting for..You are the generation that has been chosen for this time, this place, this moment in human history.. It is you. You with all your flaws, fears, doubts, brokenness and downright utter humanness – you are called for more.”

Go therefore and testify to the light and prepare the way of the Lord; rebuild what 2020 has destroyed, restore what 2020 has broken. Hope for a better future that IS possible because of God who promises to rise up life out of all the death and devastation. Let your heart be at peace knowing who God is and what God has done, is doing and will do. Rejoice for you get to have a part in it all. Praise and exult God who has fulfilled these scriptures in our hearing.

Amen.