JOY: How Will We Prepare?

Read: Luke 3:1-6

By Jessica Patchett

In those days, in those crazy days, when the world seemed to be in constant turmoil and people couldn’t figure out who was trying to save the day and who would pose the next threat ... in those painfully somber days when people couldn't take one more bad news story … the word of God came to John, son of Zechariah in the wilderness.

In those days, in those busy days, when religious hearts found hope in King Herod’s construction project at Temple Mount in Jerusalem and political minds searched for wisdom among decrees from Rome and Syria … the word of God came to John, son of Zechariah … in the wilderness.

They were days not unlike our days. Regional power players sparred in local insurrections; families caught in hotzones weighed the terror of violence at home against the fear of becoming migrants in foreign lands; and religious leaders scrambled to construct moral and ethical scaffolding around the deteriorating old world order.

They were unsettling days. As confusion and chaos clamored on at full volume, the word of God whispered in the wilderness, “Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight. Every valley be filled, every mountain and hill be made low; the crooked be made straight and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God."

The word of God, the salvation of God didn’t emerge from Jerusalem … or Rome … or the Temple … or a safe home or state-of-the-art hospital. The word of God was heard in the wilderness and born to a couple who became refugees trying to save their newborn son from being killed by a vengeful king.

Human beings saw the salvation of God born in a manger, in part, because of the selfless hospitality of a Palestinian innkeeper. Shepherds keeping their flocks by night saw the salvation of God, in part, because wise Eastern emissaries shifted their allegiances from a vengeful king to the prince of peace. We have seen the salvation of God grow in wisdom and stature, in part, because everyday Egyptians welcomed two young Jewish refugees who gave up everything to keep their child, God’s child, safe from harm.

A Palestinian innkeeper, Eastern wise men and dignitaries, Egyptian families, and Jewish refugees prepared the way for all flesh to see the salvation of God.

In these crazy, busy, unsettling, fearful days, I wonder, how will we do the same?

JOY: Where is the Joy Made Real?

By Sally Graves

A vacuum! It’s a vacuum! It’s a vacuum for me! Yay!

It was actually a dust-buster on a handle, but in the eyes of my 3-year-old grandson, he had been given (by his parents) the best possible birthday present. No need for other presents (grandparents' best efforts to the contrary). Hold off on the candles and the singing. This was delight in its full perfection, not to be distracted. We could see it on his face, hear it in his voice, read it in his body language. A new-found vacuum treasure in a house full of carpets. Joy without limit; joy made real. In so many ways it was a moment above the rest; a moment to savor.

For me, the vacuum cleaner moment has long since passed, but the savoring remains. It’s a delight that often plays in my head (and on my phone, if you’d care to see it). It takes me back to the image of a child, my grandchild, so fully known and wonderfully loved that the only possible response, from him and all who shared that moment, was joy.

And now, here were are in Advent, with Christmas close at hand. For many, the delights of the season are easy and everywhere. For others, they are diluted by distractions. Calendars are crammed with commitments. Heartache makes the reality of delight hard to hold. And so we wonder: Where are our vacuum cleaner moments, the ones that ask us to stop and savor, that insist that we are fully known and wonderfully loved? Where is the joy made real? Waiting for us, in a manger.

JOY: Draw Us Forth

Read: Isaiah 28:14-22 and Revelation 20:11-21:8

"Draw Us Forth" 
by Evan Amo 
Watch Evan Sing "Draw Us Forth" on YouTube

I know I’m waiting for a world to come
Where every division will be made one
This world has but one hope, our Risen Lord
For every disjointed soul he will restore

As I cry out longing
As my spirit groans

For the day that you come again
Where pain and tears will finally end
Draw us forth, draw us in
Into the space between the day and night
As your Spirit’s making all things right
Use us Lord, as you’re making all things new

This world is aching for you to vanquish sin
For every life to be embraced as your image
You will fully liberate those who are oppressed
And conquer every power in love and justice
And as the dark of night is passing away
We work towards your coming justice today
And as the dawn is surely drawing near
Help live out your healing love right here

Help us live out your healing love here
As we look toward the dawn that’s drawing near
Until the day that you come again
Where pain and tears will finally end
Draw us forth, draw us in

JOY: Part of God's Plan

Read: Isaiah 11:1-9

By Shana Hartman

Sometimes I think I make life harder than it really is or than God intends it to be.

I worry, search for answers, and worry some more. Despite my repeated best efforts, I realize over and over that I ultimately wind up right where God intends me to be all along.

One example I reflect on in this season of joy is how I met my husband. About seven years ago I had it all figured out: my current job was not for me and I needed to move on. After submitting numerous applications near and far, and spending lots of time worrying about where I would end up, I received a random voicemail from a guy I worked with but barely knew existed at the time.

The coming months sent me down a path of love and joy unlike any I had experienced. Our relationship grew with ease and with God. I never doubted. I never wondered. God showed up, pointed me in a completely different path than my human mind could fathom, and I (thankfully) heeded His call. I felt “God-Alive, a living knowledge of God ocean-deep, ocean-wide” (Isaiah 11:9 The Message).

While worry will come and my efforts to "do" life on my own will persist now and then, my hope this Advent season is that I can continue to trust in the ease of the Lord and realize that all the other fuss is just distracting background noise.

JOY: God is With Us

Read: Isaiah 12:2-6 and Psalm 100.

By Jerry Jernigan

Frederick Buechner wrote a sermon entitled, "Message in the Stars." In it he wonders what would happen if God literally wrote in the stars, "I REALLY EXIST." He imagines that, after some period of astonishment (and, no doubt, repentance), a child asks "so what?" And the message disappears.

We all want certainty that God is "up there" but scientific or philosophical proof won’t, in the long run, address our deepest needs. Buechner says "what we need to know, of course, is not just that God exists [like some] cosmic intelligence of some kind that keeps the whole show going, but that there is a God right here in the thick of our day-by-day lives..."

Isn’t that the Good News of the Gospels? God came to be with us and, through the Holy Spirit, continues to be with us. Here and now. In the doctor’s waiting room before the scan. Past curfew as we wait for a child’s return. When the umpteenth job interview doesn’t land a job. In times of fulfillment and gratitude and in lonely moments when we wonder if God, or anyone, would miss us if we were gone.

Soon we’ll celebrate the birth of a baby born to a young couple in a hard, challenging time. In some mysterious way, this baby was human and God, Emmanuel – God with us – in the easy days and the hard, the ordinary and the exceptional. So make a joyful noise! Be joyful! God is with us.

JOY: Experiencing Joy This Season

Read: Amos 8:4-12; 2 Corinthians 9:1-15

By Julian Wright
 

This Advent, like most, I am struck by the incongruities. A helpless babe as a Messiah. The lure and lucre of commerce in a season meant to be about redeeming love and – if the manger story retains any relevance – a certain simplicity of living. In today’s scripture, I am struck by the incongruities even more. Amos sends a clear warning on the perils of wealth to greedy capitalists and anyone not nearly attentive enough to the needs of the poor. (Amos 8:4-12). I find the message daunting as my law partners and I gather in much of the bounty of a years’ worth of work, and many of our clients finish deals and tally up balance sheets for the IRS’s year-end deadlines. Yet, we juxtapose Amos with Paul’s (the conventional writer of at least parts of 2 Corinthians) praise of zeal in giving and reaping abundantly. (2 Corinthians 9:1-15). Indeed, in this season of giving – as always, even if a bit late for stewardship season – we are reminded that “God loves a cheerful giver.” (2 Corinthians 9:7).

It is often in such incongruities – these admitted mysteries of life – that I find the Joy of this Season. In heeding Amos’ warning and going from not trampling on the poor and needy to actually trying to help out on occasion, I glimpse hope and perhaps provide it for those I more conscientiously reach out to help. In bountiful giving – in whatever form – I aspire to do as much good and spread as much love in Paul’s “ministry of the saints” as I can. The Joy comes most readily in lighting up the eyes of a child, a family member, a friend, an acquaintance, or a stranger – all of whom give to me in some form and to whom I try to give to in some reciprocal measure – with some type of gift during this time of year and trying to extend that Joy throughout the year. For today, heed Amos’s warning; emulate the generosity of the church at Corinth in giving; and experience the Joy of the Season.

JOY: God's Greatest Gift

Read: 1 Peter 1:8-9 and James 1:2-3

By Elizabeth Anne Cooper

Immediately, the first image in my mind upon hearing this phrase is a large red box with a green bow and in big, gold letters “JOY” is written across the side. I’m not sure if I am embarrassed with the fact that my mind immediately goes to a materialistic object or the fact that my pre-Holiday gift giving stress is starting to kick in.

Either way, one thing is for certain, joy cannot be wrapped up in a pretty box with a large green bow or placed on our doorstep whenever we “place an order” to God. More importantly, joy should not always be confined, contained, or come from a tangible object. Joy can be delivered in so many different ways; the kicker is allowing our hearts to truly see it.

A few months ago someone prompted me with the challenge to focus on three positive things that happened that day instead of focusing on the one, large negative. Through this, I quickly came to realize something I have been taught all along, but rarely practiced in my daily routine: Staying in a constant companionship with God allows us to see more and more glimpses of His beauty and offerings of His everlasting joy. Whether it be a stranger with a kind gesture, a good laugh with coworkers, or an embrace from a loved one (pets included); each of your days are prompted with gifts of joy from above. Our job is to simply seek them out, even on the grayest of days.

HOPE: Finding Joy through Grief

Read: John 1:1-5

By Kim Moseley

Hope, Peace, Joy, Love - words or symbols associated with Advent can ring hollow because this season conjures up feelings of hopelessness, unrest, grief and loneliness for many. I have felt this paradox acutely this fall as one of the facilitators for GriefShare, a 13-week program at Covenant for those grieving loved ones. As the holidays approach statements like "How do I get through? How do I cope?" have been common. This season can feel more like a sense of dread and we don't have to have experienced a recent loss to share this sentiment. But I wonder if there is not space to hold both, both grief and joy, fear and peace, hope and loneliness? Brother David Steindle-Rast, an Austrian Benedict says "grief and joy are more like twin sisters than the sworn enemies we often take them to be. Both speak to listening hearts. Both contain unfathomable depths of feeling. And both point towards gratefulness: grief comes from a heartrending appreciation of what matters most to us, while joy reawakens us to life's wonder even when we've discovered how precarious it is."

In Henry Nouwen's book "Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life" he writes "Learning to weep, learning to keep vigil, learning to wait for the dawn, perhaps this is what it means to be human. In the midst of our sadness there is joy, in the midst of our fears there is peace, in the midst of our greediness there is the possibility of compassion." This makes me think of how Jerry Sittser in his book, "Grace Disguise," following the death of his mother, wife and daughter in a tragic car accident, describes the soul as being elastic, like a balloon. It can grow larger through suffering allowing for the experience of greater joy, strength, peace, and love as well as the natural and legitimate emotions of anger, depression, despair, and anguish. So maybe this Advent we can embrace the paradox and the mystery that “the light shines on the inside of the darkness, and the darkness will not overcome it" (John1:5) by holding all emotions we experience with kindness and nonjudgment. 

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