Gaudete Sunday
December 12, 2010
Isaiah 35.1-10; Canticle 3;
+ I feel the need to make a retraction. I don’t think I’ve ever ever had to make a retraction in a sermon. And even if I had before, I think my pride prevented from actually doing it. But I, humble priest that I am, must do so this week.
Last week I mentioned our own dear Joanne Droppers in my sermon. And I used a word in describing a comment she made to me the previous week that I used a bit too nonchalantly. That word was “curmudgeonly.” I believe I said that she made a “curmudgeonly comment” to me. I realize now—and I realized as I said it last Sunday—that it was the wrong word to use. Curmudgeon is really a kind of ugly word. It means “ill-tempered” or, worse yet, “joyless.”
Now, that definition “ill-tempered” doesn’t bother so much. I make ill-tempered comments all the time, as everywhere here no doubt knows. But joyless—that, for some reason, bothers me. Such a word doesn’t describe someone like Joanne. And it shouldn’t describe any of us who call ourselves “Christian.” And the whole concept of joylessness just runs counterculture to everything we are partaking in, especially today.
This Third Sunday of Advent is also known as Gaudete Sunday. Gaudete Sunday is the Sunday in Advent when we light the pink or rose candle on the Advent wreath. This pink candle is a sign to us that the shift has happened. Now there are more candles lit than are unlit. We are moving closer and closer to that dawn of Christ’s appearance among us. The feast of the Incarnation is upon us—that time in which we realize God and humanity meet. The light has won out and the darkness, we now realize, is not an eternal darkness.
Gaudete means “rejoice” and that is exactly what we should do on this Sunday. We should rejoice in the light that is winning out. We should rejoice in the fact that darkness has no lasting power over us. As the darkness fails, as the light brightens and shines upon us, we find an emotion coming up within us. It’s bubbling up within us. It’s building. And that emotion is…joy. And it is a glorious joy.
This Sunday sets a tone different than the one we’ve had so-far in Advent. We find that word—rejoice—is the “theme” of the day. Last Sunday I talked about hope—about the fact we don’t think about hope very often. We all hope, but we don’t necessarily articulate our hoping as hope per se. This week, it’s joy we are considering.
Unlike hope, which we have to stop and consider whether we are actually feeling it or not, joy is not an emotion we have to consider. Joy is something we either know we are feeling or not. It’s a lot like love. You know when you are in love. There’s no getting around love. It comes into your love, unasked for often, and disrupts everything. (or maybe that’s just me). Joy is a lot like love. It comes upon us, often unasked for, and drives all darkness away. And, in doing so, it sometimes disrupts everything. We don’t see things the way we did before. It is the emotion that permeates everything we hear in our scriptures this Sunday.
In our reading from the Hebrew Bible, in Isaiah, we hear Isaiah say to us that even the wilderness, “will rejoice with joy and sing.” And in our canticle, we find that beautiful song of joy, the Magnificat—the Blessed Virgin Mary’s rapturous song of rejoicing.
My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.
This emotion of joy is something we oftentimes take for granted. Let’s face it, joy doesn’t happen often enough in our lives. It is a rare occurrence for the most part. And maybe it should be. It is certainly not something we want to take for granted. When joy comes to us, we want to let it flow through us. We want it to let it guide us and overwhelm us. But we often don’t think about how essential joy is to us.
Joy is essential to all of us as Christians. It is one of those marks that make us who we are as Christians. If we look closely at the lives of the saints, they are the ones who show us the way forward. And they are the ones who are marked—through and through—with joy. They are the ones who have let joy come upon them and transform them. They are the ones who, even in sometimes overwhelming and frightening times, when overcome by darkness and despair, have still let joy come to them and be present in them.
Gaudete Sunday always reminds me of Father Alfred Delp. Delp, as you’ve heard me talk about before, was a German Roman Catholic Jesuit priest. In 1944, he was arrested as a conspirator in the plot to kill Adolf Hitler. That Advent of 1944, was the last Advent he would observe. On February 2, 1945, within weeks, essentially, of the liberation, Alfred Delp was hanged by the Nazis.
Still, that final Advent of his life, as he sat in prison, was one that obviously was like none other in his life. Even in that prison, even knowing he would soon be facing a mock trial a kangaroo court that would almost surely find him guilty and would condemn him to death, Delp was able to find a glimmer of joy in that Advent season.
Delp wrote, “May the time never come when men forget about the good tidings and promises, when so immured within the four walls of their prison, they see nothing but gray days through barred windows placed too high to see out of.”
And later, he wrote, “There is so much despair that cries out for comfort; faint courage that needs to be reinforced; perplexity that yearns for meaning…. God’s messengers who have themselves reaped the fruits of Divine seeds, even in the darkest hours, know how to wait for the fullness of the harvest.”
This time of Advent is a time of waiting for us. We are waiting for the light. We are waiting for the fullness of the harvest that will come with that light.
I love that definition of joy. Sometimes, cultivating joy in the midst of overwhelming sorrow or pain or loneliness or depression can seem overwhelming and impossible. That’s why it is a discipline. When things like sorrow or pain or loneliness or depression descend upon—and they descend upon us all—we need to cling to joy. We need to search deep within us for that joy that we have as Christians. That joy comes when we put our pains into perspective. That joy comes when we recognize that these dark moments that happen in our lives are not eternal. They will not last forever. That, I think, is where we sometimes fail. When we are in the midst of those negative emotions in our lives, we often feel as though they will never end. We often feel as though we will always be lonely, we always be sad, we will always mourn. But as Christians, we can’t allow ourselves to be boxed in in such a way. As Christians, we are forced, again and again, to look at the larger picture. We are forced to see that joy is always there, just beyond our grasp, awaiting us. Joy is there when we realize that in the midst of our darkness, there is always light just beyond our reach.
Joy doesn’t mean walking around smiling all the time. It doesn’t mean that we have to force ourselves to be happy at all times in the face of every bad thing. If we do that, we become nothing more than a programmed robot or a trained puppy. True joy comes bubbling up from within us. It comes from a deep place and it permeates our whole being, no matter what else is going on in our lives or in the world around us.
As we know, the overriding “theme” for Advent—if there is such a thing as a “theme” for the season—is that cry, “Come, Lord Jesus.” That cry is a cry of truly holy impatience. Impatience is one of those things frowned upon by most people. But in this sense, impatience is not necessarily a bad thing. Impatience can drive us and motivate us. And the impatience that causes us to cry out, “Come quickly, Lord Jesus” is fueled by a deep and abiding joy. It is a joy that comes from deep within our very essence—from that place of our true selves. And it is a joy that allows us to say with humble confidence (and not with arrogance): let life throw at us what it will. Even in the face of everything terrible or sad, I will rejoice.
So, as we gather together this morning, to share in the Eucharist—that ultimate celebration of joy—let us not forget the joy we feel at seeing this pink candle lit. We have made it this far. The tide has shifted. The light is winning out. The dawn is about to break upon our long dark night.
As we ponder this, as we meditate on this, as we take this with us in our hearts, let us pay special attention to the emotion this causes within us. Embrace that welling up of joy from deep within. And as it wells up, as it bubbles forth, let us exclaim what is bursting like a fire in our hearts to say,
“Come, Lord Jesus! Come quickly!”
December 12, 2010
Isaiah 35.1-10; Canticle 3;
+ I feel the need to make a retraction. I don’t think I’ve ever ever had to make a retraction in a sermon. And even if I had before, I think my pride prevented from actually doing it. But I, humble priest that I am, must do so this week.
Last week I mentioned our own dear Joanne Droppers in my sermon. And I used a word in describing a comment she made to me the previous week that I used a bit too nonchalantly. That word was “curmudgeonly.” I believe I said that she made a “curmudgeonly comment” to me. I realize now—and I realized as I said it last Sunday—that it was the wrong word to use. Curmudgeon is really a kind of ugly word. It means “ill-tempered” or, worse yet, “joyless.”
Now, that definition “ill-tempered” doesn’t bother so much. I make ill-tempered comments all the time, as everywhere here no doubt knows. But joyless—that, for some reason, bothers me. Such a word doesn’t describe someone like Joanne. And it shouldn’t describe any of us who call ourselves “Christian.” And the whole concept of joylessness just runs counterculture to everything we are partaking in, especially today.
This Third Sunday of Advent is also known as Gaudete Sunday. Gaudete Sunday is the Sunday in Advent when we light the pink or rose candle on the Advent wreath. This pink candle is a sign to us that the shift has happened. Now there are more candles lit than are unlit. We are moving closer and closer to that dawn of Christ’s appearance among us. The feast of the Incarnation is upon us—that time in which we realize God and humanity meet. The light has won out and the darkness, we now realize, is not an eternal darkness.
Gaudete means “rejoice” and that is exactly what we should do on this Sunday. We should rejoice in the light that is winning out. We should rejoice in the fact that darkness has no lasting power over us. As the darkness fails, as the light brightens and shines upon us, we find an emotion coming up within us. It’s bubbling up within us. It’s building. And that emotion is…joy. And it is a glorious joy.
This Sunday sets a tone different than the one we’ve had so-far in Advent. We find that word—rejoice—is the “theme” of the day. Last Sunday I talked about hope—about the fact we don’t think about hope very often. We all hope, but we don’t necessarily articulate our hoping as hope per se. This week, it’s joy we are considering.
Unlike hope, which we have to stop and consider whether we are actually feeling it or not, joy is not an emotion we have to consider. Joy is something we either know we are feeling or not. It’s a lot like love. You know when you are in love. There’s no getting around love. It comes into your love, unasked for often, and disrupts everything. (or maybe that’s just me). Joy is a lot like love. It comes upon us, often unasked for, and drives all darkness away. And, in doing so, it sometimes disrupts everything. We don’t see things the way we did before. It is the emotion that permeates everything we hear in our scriptures this Sunday.
In our reading from the Hebrew Bible, in Isaiah, we hear Isaiah say to us that even the wilderness, “will rejoice with joy and sing.” And in our canticle, we find that beautiful song of joy, the Magnificat—the Blessed Virgin Mary’s rapturous song of rejoicing.
My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.
This emotion of joy is something we oftentimes take for granted. Let’s face it, joy doesn’t happen often enough in our lives. It is a rare occurrence for the most part. And maybe it should be. It is certainly not something we want to take for granted. When joy comes to us, we want to let it flow through us. We want it to let it guide us and overwhelm us. But we often don’t think about how essential joy is to us.
Joy is essential to all of us as Christians. It is one of those marks that make us who we are as Christians. If we look closely at the lives of the saints, they are the ones who show us the way forward. And they are the ones who are marked—through and through—with joy. They are the ones who have let joy come upon them and transform them. They are the ones who, even in sometimes overwhelming and frightening times, when overcome by darkness and despair, have still let joy come to them and be present in them.
Gaudete Sunday always reminds me of Father Alfred Delp. Delp, as you’ve heard me talk about before, was a German Roman Catholic Jesuit priest. In 1944, he was arrested as a conspirator in the plot to kill Adolf Hitler. That Advent of 1944, was the last Advent he would observe. On February 2, 1945, within weeks, essentially, of the liberation, Alfred Delp was hanged by the Nazis.
Still, that final Advent of his life, as he sat in prison, was one that obviously was like none other in his life. Even in that prison, even knowing he would soon be facing a mock trial a kangaroo court that would almost surely find him guilty and would condemn him to death, Delp was able to find a glimmer of joy in that Advent season.
Delp wrote, “May the time never come when men forget about the good tidings and promises, when so immured within the four walls of their prison, they see nothing but gray days through barred windows placed too high to see out of.”
And later, he wrote, “There is so much despair that cries out for comfort; faint courage that needs to be reinforced; perplexity that yearns for meaning…. God’s messengers who have themselves reaped the fruits of Divine seeds, even in the darkest hours, know how to wait for the fullness of the harvest.”
This time of Advent is a time of waiting for us. We are waiting for the light. We are waiting for the fullness of the harvest that will come with that light.
I love that definition of joy. Sometimes, cultivating joy in the midst of overwhelming sorrow or pain or loneliness or depression can seem overwhelming and impossible. That’s why it is a discipline. When things like sorrow or pain or loneliness or depression descend upon—and they descend upon us all—we need to cling to joy. We need to search deep within us for that joy that we have as Christians. That joy comes when we put our pains into perspective. That joy comes when we recognize that these dark moments that happen in our lives are not eternal. They will not last forever. That, I think, is where we sometimes fail. When we are in the midst of those negative emotions in our lives, we often feel as though they will never end. We often feel as though we will always be lonely, we always be sad, we will always mourn. But as Christians, we can’t allow ourselves to be boxed in in such a way. As Christians, we are forced, again and again, to look at the larger picture. We are forced to see that joy is always there, just beyond our grasp, awaiting us. Joy is there when we realize that in the midst of our darkness, there is always light just beyond our reach.
Joy doesn’t mean walking around smiling all the time. It doesn’t mean that we have to force ourselves to be happy at all times in the face of every bad thing. If we do that, we become nothing more than a programmed robot or a trained puppy. True joy comes bubbling up from within us. It comes from a deep place and it permeates our whole being, no matter what else is going on in our lives or in the world around us.
As we know, the overriding “theme” for Advent—if there is such a thing as a “theme” for the season—is that cry, “Come, Lord Jesus.” That cry is a cry of truly holy impatience. Impatience is one of those things frowned upon by most people. But in this sense, impatience is not necessarily a bad thing. Impatience can drive us and motivate us. And the impatience that causes us to cry out, “Come quickly, Lord Jesus” is fueled by a deep and abiding joy. It is a joy that comes from deep within our very essence—from that place of our true selves. And it is a joy that allows us to say with humble confidence (and not with arrogance): let life throw at us what it will. Even in the face of everything terrible or sad, I will rejoice.
So, as we gather together this morning, to share in the Eucharist—that ultimate celebration of joy—let us not forget the joy we feel at seeing this pink candle lit. We have made it this far. The tide has shifted. The light is winning out. The dawn is about to break upon our long dark night.
As we ponder this, as we meditate on this, as we take this with us in our hearts, let us pay special attention to the emotion this causes within us. Embrace that welling up of joy from deep within. And as it wells up, as it bubbles forth, let us exclaim what is bursting like a fire in our hearts to say,
“Come, Lord Jesus! Come quickly!”
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