The Mighty One

The Advent Wreath- The Pink One

The comedy of lighting the wreath.

We continue on our way through the season of Advent, and we’ve arrived at perhaps the most peculiar and confusing of the weeks.

Or at least, that’s the case when you’ve volunteered to be the candle lighter!

(Thanks to…)

Because today we light two regular purple candles.

The first represented hope, the second represented peace.

But in addition, we light the pink candle.

When you’re looking at this thing, the pink one sticks out like a sore thumb, and for whatever reason causes liturgical confusion!

Shouldn’t the weird one go first?

Shouldn’t the weird one go last?

Why do we have a weird one at all?

Why does this one need to be different?

Why does it stick out like a sore thumb in the middle of all of these purple candles?

Well, these are particularly good questions when we remember what the pink candle represents:

The Joy Candle

Yes! This is so great!

Joy does stick out like a sore thumb in our world, doesn’t it?

Joy doesn’t really seem to slot in to our normal expected schedules or regimes.

Joy kind of does it’s own thing, and if you’re not paying attention, it can look like it doesn’t belong there.

But it does.

Joy is surprising, curious, and often without explanation.

Which is why I’d like to show you one of my favorite scenes from the Simpsons movie and do nothing to give it any context.

A shameless excuse to show one of my favorite scenes from a Simpsons Movie.

<play clip>

Listen, Joy doesn’t need reason or rationale.

It can just be there, bring a smile to our face, and light up our day.

But the question for us today is this:

What is the source of joy?

Where do we find it?

How can we get more of it in our lives?

Let’s take a look at both of these texts today:

Mary’s Source of Joy

On one hand, you might struggle to find any!

Unwed Pregnant Teenager

In our own world, progressive and accepting as it believes itself to be, even now this would be bad news for a young girl, wouldn’t it?

It would be a situation of societal discomfort for sure, if not downright exclusion and banishment.

Not a good start.

And it gets weirder if she would have tried to explain herself, wouldn’t it?

Her best defense is the truth: God did this to me.

Imagine our reaction if someone came up to us and told us that?

Yes, I’m single.

Yes, I’m engaged.

Yes, I’m a teenager.

And yes, I’m pregnant.

But don’t worry! God did it!

Sometimes the things that sound the most ludicrous are actually the truth, aren’t they?

But still, I can’t imagine Mary found a whole lot of sympathetic listeners beyond Joseph.

And what God asked of her is going to be uncomfortable.

I’ve never been pregnant before…

But I have it on good authority that it’s not exactly the most pleasant experience.

By the time our twins were born, they weighed 8 pounds 2 ounces and 7 pounds 6 ounces respectively.

So that means for at least the last couple of weeks, if nothing else at all was uncomfortable, Sarah was carrying around 16 extra pounds of baby!

Everywhere! Every day!

Can you imagine Mary wondering as I often do if there weren’t any openings as a missionary to Hawaii or something?

Couldn’t God have called me to something like that?

So the odds are really stacked up against Joy in Mary’s life.

Yet, she is tremendously joyful.

Luke 1:47 “and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,”

Seriously? Social exile and your spirit rejoices?

Luke 1:48 “for he has looked with favor on the lowly state of his servant. Surely from now on all generations will call me blessed,”

You’ve got to go through labor, and you can still call yourself the favored one?

She’s not devoid of hope either.

Luke 1:52–54 “He has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty. He has come to the aid of his child Israel, in remembrance of his mercy,”

She knows (Mary knows) that for whatever joy she’s experiencing now, there’s more joy to come at the hands of this child within her.

He’s going to change the world.

And even that truth alone fills her with joy.

Isaiah’s Source of Joy

To speak of gladness at this point would just be laughable.

Remember, as we’ve been wandering through the prophet this advent season that he’s speaking to exiles and conquered people.

These are people who militarily have been beaten up for a few generations in a row now.

And to those folk, the losers of God’s kingdom, Isaiah says

Isaiah 35:1 “The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad; the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus”

Wonder what their reaction to that would have been?

Are you nuts!?!

More hope for those who have lost it.

Isaiah 35:3–4 “Strengthen the weak hands and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who are of a fearful heart, “Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God. He will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense. He will come and save you.””

Isaiah 35:10 “And the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.”

There is joy in hope.

Even when that hope is quiet, unspoken, relenting.

It provides tremendous joy.

Still, we wonder where Isaiah and Mary are finding their sources of joy?

Classic Themes of Joy

What you are looking for, you will find.

There are so many folks I know who have mastered the self fulfilling prophecy of despair.

They tell themselves over and over and over again that things will be terrible, and then guess what?

Things are terrible.

That’s because whatever you are looking for, you will find.

If you want reasons for despair, this world won’t disappoint you.

If you want reasons for anger, this world will show up mightily.

If you want reasons for sadness, there is a Taylor Swift breakup song with your name on it!

But if you want joy…

You can find that.

It’s there for the taking too.

I might even argue it’s in greater supply than any of the rest of our list so far.

We just have to have eyes to see.

And yet…this isn’t where Isaiah and Mary find their joy.

Fortunes will be reversed

Like I said, there’s hope for a better future, and that can be a really good source for joy.

Weeping may last for the night, but joy comes in the morning.

Anyone who has been sick and seen healing knows what I’m talking about.

Anyone who has weathered the storm of grief knows what I’m talking about.

Anyone who has had nothing else to hold on to but hope itself knows what I’m talking about here.

Hope can be a really good source of joy.

But still…that’s not where Mary and Isaiah get their joy from.

Dollar Bin Joy

Some people who have been hunting for joy have convinced themselves to settle for happiness.

Some people who have been hunting for joy have trained themselves to settle for optimism.

Some people who have been on the prowl for joy have allowed themselves to wallow in the pit of “eh, ok.”

It should be clear here too that this isn’t the source of joy for Mary and Isaiah.

It’s not powerful enough to lean on mere optimism when you’re thirsty for joy.

Happiness cannot do the heavy lifting work of firm knees and strong hands the way that joy can.

They’re fishing for something much bigger.

And they found it:

The Real Source Here: God The Mighty One is the Actor.

I can’t emphasize this enough: this is such an important point in our understanding of faith.

For as much as we try to manufacture joy, as much as we try to be masters of our own destiny, for as much as we feel like the weight of the world rests on our shoulders alone:

It does not.

The truth of the matter is that God acts, and we respond.

It bears itself out in all of the stories we read today:

For Mary:

Look who’s doing all the action in this song of Mary:

Luke 1:49 “for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name;”

Luke 1:52 “He has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly;”

Luke 1:54 “He has come to the aid of his child Israel, in remembrance of his mercy,”

Mary can find joy in her situation because…she has absolutely nothing to do with her situation!

It’s God who brought her this far.

It’s God who will see her through the isolation of social exile.

It’s God who will tend to her through the pangs of childbirth.

When you can lean on God, you don’t have to lean on yourself.

And Mary finds tremendous joy in that reality.

This is God’s world, and while we have broken it, God is in the process of setting it right in Christ through Mary.

For Isaiah:

It’s the same story for Isaiah.

Isaiah is not inviting people with weak hands and feeble knees to start hitting the gym.

Isaiah is inviting those people with weak hands and feeble knees to allow God to start making them whole.

And that sounds ridiculous.

Especially if you are or have been suffering from some ailment and begging God for relief, I can imagine.

I can imagine someone out there saying now “Yes, but my hands are still weak, and my knees are still feeble.”

Yes. Hope sometimes sounds ridiculous in the moment of despair and tribulation.

And yet, the hope that God will set those ailments right for us, living in to the faith and trust of that reality, that can be a tremendous source of joy and comfort, can’t it?

Whatever suffering we’re enduring now, we know that it will be made right whether in this life or the next.

And so we rejoice!

For us on the idiot proof highway:

I love this image of the highway in Isaiah.

The unclean shall not travel on it, but it shall be for God’s people…

I think because, as God said to Peter in Acts, that God has the ability to make all unclean things clean…maybe there will be no one left!

No traveler, not even fools, shall go astray.

Well, maybe that video clip earlier wasn’t just for laughs.

You can try to run away from the joy and hope of the Lord, but you can’t. You simply can’t.

You can try to give way to this world’s madness for a little while, but try to resist God’s plan for this hurting world? You can’t. You simply can’t.

You can try with all your might to outrun the love, grace, mercy, compassion, and forgiveness of Jesus Christ, but friends when he’s after you, you can’t. You simply can’t.

So, one might ask…

If we are to lean on the power of the Mighty One, if our source of Joy comes from God’s Action in our lives and around the world, what’s left for us to do?

What we do: Participation

When the boys were much smaller, one of the things they loved the most was to come out in the driveway with me and wash the car.

I’m talking when they were 3, 4 maybe.

And while they really really loved washing the car with me, I can assure you with all of my heart that they were in no way helping me getting the car clean.

In fact, I’m reasonably certain with whatever muddy clothes they were wearing on any given day they were actively making it worse.

The only way that car was getting clean in those days was because of my action, the things that I was doing with and for the car.

And yet…I wouldn’t have traded their presence for anything in the world.

They were out there participating in this activity with me, and in doing so they showed me two truths simultaneously:

1) That relationship is more important than the outcome.

2) They showed me that they wanted to be like me.

And so…when we participate together with what the Mighty One is doing, are we actively helping God make it happen?

No way!

We are in fact, I believe, almost always making it worse.

And yet…

There is value in the relationship we get to build with our God when we participate in his healing work, and

It shows God that like a pair of boys emulating their father, we want to be just like God too.

When we help others to have strong hands and firm knees…

When we come alongside those who are down and out, who are in dire and desperate need of healing, we get to participate in what God is already at work doing in the world.

We might occasionally make it worse, and we should own that and repent of that.

But we are participating in the work that God has already begun to bring about strong hands and firm knees.

And as we develop relationships with our brothers and sisters in that healing journey, we also deepen our relationship with God.

When we help the other ransomed of the Lord to sing.

I’ve had the conversation with a few folks around here that the Christmas season is the literal definition of a trigger.

If you’ve ever experienced a loss, or a trauma, or a hurt around this time of year, you know exactly what we’re talking about here.

The minute the lights go up on the tree, you get a reminder of a particularly difficult season of life.

And so when we gather together to sing for Joy at the work of God’s hand in ransoming us, and when we invite others to sing with us, we’re participating in what God is doing in the world.

We can invite others into the joy that Christ is already working on in the world.

When we lift up the lowly and fill the hungry with good things.

Look, you and I, we’re probably not going to solve world hunger.

As a church, if we dedicated every single resource at our disposal, we wouldn’t be able to stop world hunger.

But that shouldn’t be a reason to not act.

It should be a reason to participate.

If God is in the business of lifting up the lowly and filling the hungry with good things, then we ought to participate in that work.

We ought to go visit St. James and help distribute to those in need.

We ought to spend time at the food bank working to end hunger in our neighborhood.

We ought to pray with and for those who are insecure in this moment.

And we ought to do all that we can to bring about God’s kingdom in the world, recognizing all along that it’s God at work, and we are invited to participate.

So, this Advent, let the weird candle light the way.

Let joy be your first response, not your last.

Let God’s action be the source of your joy, not your own ability or understanding.

Know that we are invited to participate in whatever God’s at work in the world with.

And know that like Mary, each and every one of us, we are favored by God.

Try and run from it. You can’t. You simply can’t.

Let us find our joy in that.