I Think I Hear Rejoicing

I’ve got a little secret to tell you about the Advent wreath. If you’ve grown up with an Advent wreath you might think that all Advent wreaths look alike – that maybe Jesus told us how Advent wreaths are supposed to look and we’ve been doing the same way ever since. Like maybe there’s a passage in one of the gospels that says, “The number of the candles shall be four. No more. No less. Four shalt be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be four. Five shalt thou not count, for that is too many; neither count thou three, for that is too few. Six is right out. Four shall be their number and their colors shall be purple with the exception of the third candle which shall be pink or rose.”[i]

Here’s the truth, though – not all Advent wreaths are the same. If you visit other churches you may find that there are four purple candles in the ring, or even red candles. That’s the British tradition. Some churches even have four blue candles, which is a more recent innovation. And personally, I’m a little suspicious of blue for Advent since it seems to me like a plot by the liturgical manufacturing industry to create a new color for new products. But that’s just me being cranky.

There is special meaning to the Advent candles that we have here, though, and there is a reason why the third one is pink. Purple is the traditional color of the season, just like it is for Lent, and it reminds us that just as Lent is a time to prepare ourselves for Easter, Advent is a time to get ready for Christmas. Christians are invited to use this season as a time to renew spiritual practices and wait on God’s presence. Purple is also the color of royalty and we use this color to remind ourselves that Jesus reigns in our hearts.

So why pink? Because long, long ago, before there were Protestants and Catholics and we were all one church, the mass on the third Sunday of Advent began with the Latin word gaudete, which means ‘rejoice.’ And even though this was a penitential season when Christians were identifying areas in their lives where sin still needed to be rooted out, the use of the word ‘rejoice’ meant that the mood could get a little bit lighter on this day. Pink or rose was the color of joy and so priests were allowed to wear that color on this day. The promise is that not only is Christmas near, but Christ and his coming are near. So we rejoice. So that’s why we have pink. It’s a holdover from ancient celebrations in the medieval church.

That may seem a little strange, but there’s a lot that’s strange about the season before Christmas. Why trees? Why holly? Why figgy pudding? And what is the deal with dogs barking to “Jingle Bells”?

Nothing is stranger than John the Baptist, though. His message makes a strange appearance on the Sunday of joy. He shows up in his animal skin clothes with his strange diet of locusts and wild honey and he greets the multitudes who come out to the desert to see him with these cheery words – “You bunch of snakes! Who told you to flee from the wrath to come?” Merry Christmas!

Can you imagine how the bishop would handle a pastor who began sermons this way? It doesn’t exactly fit our United Methodist slogan, does it? Open hearts, open minds, open doors…open hostility.

Only it’s not hostility. Not exactly. Johns’ harsh words come because he recognizes that God is coming into the world and the world is not the way God intends it to be, so it’s going to be uncomfortable – particularly for those who have invested a lot in the ways of the broken world. So John talks about the ax lying at the root of the tree to chop down those who are not bearing fruit. And he talks about the winnowing fork that will separate the wheat from the chaff so that what is not useful will be purged away in the fire.

What do all those images mean? John spells it out for his listeners. He tells the comfortable people who hear him that they must share their resources with those who have nothing. He tells the tax collectors, who were known for their corruption, not to take more than their share. He tells the soldiers, who could easily abuse their position, not to intimidate the people, not to make false accusations and to be content with their wages.

In other words, if the people who came to him were serious, they would have to begin to live as if the Messiah coming made a real difference in the world. They would have to change their lifestyle. They would have to change their behavior. They would have to start living like citizens of a God-filled land rather than a God-forsaken land. They would have to stop being snakes and start being signs of a new day.

If they could make that turn…if they could start being those people…if they could start directing their lives toward God…then maybe the last thing the passage says about John wouldn’t seem so strange. After all the dire warnings and all the images of destruction and judgment, Luke tells us simply, “And in this way, with many other exhortations, John preached good news to the people” [Luke 3:18]. You have to be on the lookout for good news.

So there’s John in the middle of our Sunday of joy like a bullfish in a clam bed. (That’s a bad thing, trust me. I’m working on my Eastern Shore imagery.) But maybe he’s not too far off from how some of us may be feeling in this season leading up to Christmas. Maybe we are looking for the joy, too.

We have been talking in the last two weeks, and particularly in our Advent Gatherings, about how we don’t want to miss what this season is all about. It is so easy to be overwhelmed by expectations and we end up spending money we don’t have, wasting time we’ll never get back, and focusing on things that amount to a distraction from the gift God has given us in this baby in a manger. It can leave us looking for joy.

Or maybe we just feel out of step with the season. We drive by houses at night and see the lights on and the greenery draped down rails. We cut on the radio and hear Bing Crosby singing, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” Television specials tell us we ought to be happy. But for many people, the relentless pressure to be happy creates a different kind of stress. Maybe we’re remembering a loved one who has died in the past year or many years ago. Maybe our relationships with people we want to be close to are strained. Maybe we’re wondering where the good news is. The holiday blues are real and they threaten to overwhelm the joy.

Or maybe we are aware of just how far away God seems. We know that Christmas will come and still children in the Congo will be recruited for armies, people in Somalia will struggle to get enough food as warlords fight for control, American boys and girls will go off to war in Afghanistan, and our neighbors on the Eastern Shore will still be living in substandard housing. Or maybe we know the darkness of night in our souls and wonder if we can be acceptable to God or if God even cares. And where is that joy?

In the other reading for this morning, the apostle Paul tells the Philippian Christians to “rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, rejoice.” Rejoice in the Lord always? Really? Rejoice when the world is the way it is? Rejoice when I feel the way that I do? Rejoice when I can’t take any more rejoicing? How does Paul expect us to do that?

The artist and writer Jan Richardson wrote a reflection on this week’s readings and she noted that rejoicing, joy, is not the same thing as feeling happy. Paul is not trying to legislate us into a particular mood. He’s not saying, like Bobby McFerrin, “Don’t worry, be happy” (though he does say, don’t worry). It’s more like “Don’t worry, rejoice – put your hopes and your dreams and your desires into action in this world. Live into the pattern of the kingdom to come.”

The word Richardson discovers for this is to “verbify” your life. The verbs that Paul uses, she says, “impel us to move and to choose and to resist stagnating in one place.” She goes on to say, “[F]requently we make the mistake of assuming that rejoicing depends on feeling happy, and [that’s hard for] those for whom happiness is a stretch in this season. I was thinking of Marge Piercy’s poem ‘For Strong Women,’ and the line where she writes, ‘Strength is not in her, but she/enacts it as wind fills a sail.’ I was thinking of how joy is sometimes like this: not something we summon from inside ourselves but something that visits us. Calls to us. Asks us to open, to unfurl ourselves as it approaches. Like Mary in the presence of the angel, her yes poised to fall from her lips.”[ii]

What if we unfurled ourselves to the possibility of rejoicing in this season? What if, no matter how we felt we put ourselves to doing the things that Christians are called to do – giving, working, praying, sharing, praising, taking no more than we should, abusing no one, loving everyone? What if we “let our gentleness be known to all” as Paul commands? What if we verbify our Advent desires –what would we discover?

One of my favorite songs is one that Norah Jones sang a few years ago entitle ‘One Flight Down.’ It is a slow jazz piece with a haunting feel – very Advent-y. And the recurring refrain is “One flight down there’s a song on low/and your mind just picked up on the sound…it’s been there, playing all along/now you know. The reeds and brass have been weaving/leading into a single note.”[iii]

It’s just a simple meditation using the image of an apartment building and a melody being played on the floor below. But somehow I feel that is where that rejoicing is in us, too. One flight down, there’s a song on low. The Christmas music that sings of a world redeemed, restored, renewed, and resurrected is playing. I think I hear rejoicing. Do you? Thanks be to God.

Philippians 4:4-7

Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I say, rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to all people. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious but in all things, pray and share your desires with thanksgiving, making them known to God. And the peace of God which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

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[i] A tip of the hat to Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

[ii] Jan L. Richardson, “Advent 3:As on a Day of Festival,” The Advent Door, http://theadventdoor.com/2009/12/11/advent-3-as-on-a-day-of-festival/,

[iii] Jesse Harris, “One Flight Down” as sung by Norah Jones.