Holding Joy in our Hearts

Texts: Zephaniah 3:14 - 20 and Luke 2:8 – 20

This is the third week of Advent, which is the week of Joy and of the Shepherds. We light a pink candle instead of a purple candle. As we anticipate the celebration of Jesus' birth ... of Jesus bursting into the lives of humans in an eye to eye / spirit to spirit / soul to soul kind of way, this week we focus on Joy and we focus on the Shepherds.

This joy and these shepherds are not superficial concepts. They are complicated and we must wrestle with their complexities. We are also given the Zephaniah text with which to wrestle.

The Zephaniah text is kind of a cheerleading text. "Sing aloud. Rejoice and exult with all your heart. Do not fear. Do not let your hands grow weak. I will remove disaster from you. I will change your shame into praise."

Jerusalem is going through a tough time. They are despondent, weary, and not praising God. Zephaniah is trying to energize them, telling them all the good things that they may have temporarily forgotten about the God with whom they are in relationship.

The shepherds are doing their job in the fields. It is night when suddenly an angel and the glory of God come out of nowhere, terrifying them. The angel calms them down by sending them on a kind of treasure hunt with a promise that this treasure is from God. Then the text says a multitude of heavenly host appears and praises God. After this praising, all that suddenly appeared leaves, returning to heaven. The shepherds are once again alone in the field.

They want this good news to be true. They believe in what they have just seen. So they go in search of the baby in Bethlehem. Upon finding this treasure just as they were promised they would, they return to their fields glorifying and praising God.

There's a notion that if it takes you seeing the promise to rejoice then your faith is little. We get that idea from passages like Thomas doubting, wanting to see Jesus' wounds and touch the hole in his side. But there are many other passages that talk about seeing the promise as the means for bringing joy and praise.

There are many of us here that would like to see a promise fulfilled. Some of us would just like to hear a promise made on our behalf. There are so many hard things happening – the war, the economy, health insurance, personal tragedy, community tragedy, the list can go on and on.

Christmas is touted as being "The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year," but studies show that it is also a time of severe depression and hardship for oh so many. The expectation of what Christmas should be in comparison to how Christmas actually plays out in our lives can alone be depressing.

Yes, this is a time where like the shepherds we are working in the fields. It is a time like in Zephaniah where some of us do not feel the hope and the presence of our Divine Beloved in our lives. It is easy to go through the motions of Advent and Christmas, saying the right words and singing the right songs all the while covering up our sorrow and our disappointment.

This week we are to focus on Joy. For those of us whose circumstances are dire, we may find it difficult to believe in joy. For those of us who are just working in the fields, joy might also be difficult to latch on to.

I don't know how long it took the shepherds to get to the manger. The text makes it sound like they were there in a half hour, but I doubt that. They were walking and they couldn't just leave their flocks behind. They had to lead those flocks to wherever they wanted to go. As they were journeying ... as they were leading their flocks to see this promise they had been given, I suspect periodically they might have questioned their belief and maybe became frustrated with the journey taking so long.

Christian Advent is a tradition that has been passed down generation after generation since about the Middle Ages. The weeks that we celebrate have their meanings from long ago. It's interesting to know and understand why we do what we do. But, why do we continue the tradition and how does it give us meaning today?

Can we relate to the shepherds being given a promise and then sent on a treasure hunt to find that promise, bringing with them all the sheep that were in their charge? They were still responsible for everything they had been responsible for, but now they had this promise and a journey for the promise to be fulfilled.

Can we relate to the pain and suffering of Jerusalem as Zephaniah reminded them that their God was a good and loving God who really was on their side?

Has the promise of the embodiment of Jesus the Christ been fulfilled within you ... you as the embodiment of Christ? Can you get in touch with that? Does getting in touch with that fulfilled promise which is mostly intangible help you find joy? Not circumstantial happiness? Joy. Deep true joy. This joy which abides in the isness of our soul – based not on how this world works or how our life plays out, but rather on the trueness of our being in relationship with our Divine Love.

We can not base our Advent tradition or the call to Joy solely on the traditions of the past. We must know why today we bother to wait in hopeful anticipation of the celebration of the birth of the Christ. If we don't attach meaning to this for today, then the tradition is hollow instead of hallowed.

Finding the deep joy in our souls when things around us point to despair, is I think what Zephaniah was cheerleading Jerusalem to do. Last week we read Baruch 5 which was also a cheerleading kind of text. "Take off your garment of sorrow and affliction. Put on forever the beauty of the glory of God."

That has to come from somewhere. I believe we are created with a deep well of hope and peace and joy in our soul. Sometimes it flows better than others. Sometimes it does not seem to be flowing at all. The call that I hear from these texts is to reach out with whatever we can and believe the promise of good for our souls, our life circumstances notwithstanding. Reaching out with whatever we can may be called faith. It may be called determination. It may be called foolishness. Seeing the promise sure does help give us the ability to rejoice. The challenge is to see the promises we have already been given – the promises we have already seen and experienced – and then, to hold that joy in our hearts as Mary treasured and pondered the words of the shepherds in her heart. This deep well of joy that we hold in our hearts can then be accessed when we need it most.

This Advent, as we wait for the celebration of the breakthrough of the Christ to the people of earth, we also struggle with so many adverse situations. I am here to cheerlead you toward joy. Find the deep joy that sustains you. Call upon the true love of your God for the fulfillment of the promises for your soul. Remember that you are the Divine's beloved! Hold the joy in your heart as you journey field after field toward the next divine promise yet to be fulfilled.