The Rev. Dr. Austin Leininger
Sermon of the 3rd Sunday of Advent
17 December 2017
Readings:
Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11
1 Thessalonians 5:16-24
John 1:6-8,19-28
Canticle 15
The third Sunday in Advent, called Gaudete Sunday, is the Sunday of Joy. It is the Sunday when the heavy tone of anticipation is lightened as we chance a glimpse at the celebration to come. It is the Sunday when we’re given the alternative Canticle of Mary’s song of praise, when we light the pink candle on our Advent wreath, and when we remember what our anticipation is building toward. It is the turning point between the storm and the rainbow, where we find ourselves suddenly silent… suddenly listening in discernment for the whispers of what is to come and catching our breath as the still small voice within us can finally be heard and heeded—if only for an instant.
For the past two weeks we’ve focused on anticipation in terms of preparation, waiting with bated breath, and recognizing God’s presence already with us in the midst of the journey. Today we’re invited, even for just a few moments, to let the excitement and rejoicing of what is to come to enter into our time of preparation and waiting—to season and enrich our anticipation with the hope, promise, joy, and singing of what lies ahead.
In a season characterized by the already that is at once the not yet of what is still to come, this Sunday serves as our liturgical breakthrough moment—that moment when we can see and experience what is on the horizon breaking through into the here and now.
Isaiah exhorts us to embrace God’s vision of abundance with our words and actions, to proclaim good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captive, and release to the prisoners; to replace ashes with garlands, and replace mourning with celebration! The time of fear, remorse, and regret are passed and the time for rejoicing has come!
We responded in the words of Mary’s jubilation, “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.
Again Paul exhorts us along with the Thessalonians to “Rejoice always!” To “pray with out ceasing,” and to “give thanks in all circumstances;” asking for God’s blessing to sanctify us entirely.
And from John’s gospel, John exhorts us to become the voice crying out in the wilderness. In a world where acting out of compassion and mercy are sometimes met, as John’s voice crying out was met by the Pharisees, with skepticism, confusion, and the “who do you think you are” that challenges our authority to proclaim God’s abundance, John calls us too to take in and exemplify all that our readings today proclaim about God’s joy, presence, blessing, and abundance. We are to become the fruit of God’s kingdom!
Drawing out Isaiah’s proclamation into John’s call to act in preparation, we are called to be a part of bringing God’s reign to life!
This is what God WITH us means—from last week’s readings—and what God’s coming amongst us means, celebrated in Mary’s words of praise from today’s canticle—My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord!
Isaiah challenges us to name salvation itself as a quality of life here and now that reflects God’s desire for human community. Not an otherworldly quality that draws us into the trap of trying to figure out how to do just enough to “get into heaven,” but calls us to the work of realizing heaven in the here and now of God’s abundance in life, love, community, care, and mutual support.
And with Christ’s coming, the message and calling has not only come to fruition, but has been passed along to each of us as we seek and serve Christ in all people, work for justice and peace, and, anticipating next week’s Baptism of Jordan and Marissa’s son, as we too strive to live into our baptismal covenants to be Christ’s hands and heart in the world.
Paul’s message to the Thessalonians taps into this baptismal habituation of love, care, service, and grace in our daily lives and work in the joyful tone of wholeness and completeness that revels in the joy of this Gaudite Sunday! As we strive to act as agents of God’s abundance in all that we undertake, Paul’s exhortation to pray without ceasing becomes understood as a life that is itself a prayer—not that we reach out in silent prayer at every moment of the day, but that we live in God’s abundance as our place of rest, our place of work, our place of joy, sorrow, hope, uncertainty—all of it becoming a part of our faith and our very breathing.
This Sunday we are invited not simply to prepare and wait with bated breath, but to rejoice in the now and already of God’s presence in our lives, which we look forward to coming in all its fullness in the days to come. The coming of God’s kingdom is a time, a place, and an occasion of rejoicing! Whether it is in the ancient prophecies of our Hebrew scriptures, in the 2017th celebration of the birth of Christ that we’ll celebrate a week from today, or in the fullness of God’s reign that is the perpetual yet to come, God’s presence with us, in us, and through us is occasion for rejoicing and celebration!
And so, this Gaudete Sunday, we add the third layer to our Advent anticipation—waiting, preparing, and now rejoicing in this time of yearning for the fullness of God’s love to come to fruition in our lives and hearts; for the birth of the Christ Child who comes to teach us what that love looks like and how to live it every day of our lives.
The reminder to live in the tension of waiting with both expectation of what is to come and joy in the perpetual coming of the One who inspires our lives of faith and mutual care is a much needed one in our home this week. It’s a timely if perhaps difficult and even ironic reminder for my family as we watched the sharp decline and passing of our beloved family dog between Tuesday and Thursday. Nonetheless, or perhaps precisely in preparation for our need of the coming joy, our tree is no longer sitting barren in the middle of our living room. Sparkling with lights and animated by ornaments—not so carefully placed by my children—it is overflowing with the rejoicing and celebration of what is to come. This is not to trivialize John’s exhortation, but on this Sunday of lightening the heaviness of the “Day of the Lord” tone of Advent that is the already and not yet of God’s fullness in anticipation of Christ’s coming, John reminds us not only of the fruits of the labor of our lives and hearts, but also the fruits of the rejoicing and the celebration of our lives and hearts.
Preparation may be work, but done in the spirit of rejoicing and celebration, the work and the waiting become a reminder not only of the enormity of the mystery of God’s incarnation, but also a reminder of the joyous and celebratory Gift of God’s love being born into this world.
And so in our home we are already listening to the familiar Christmas music that brightens our hearts with the expectation of what is to come. The first Christmas cards and gifts from far away places have begun to brighten the festive glow of our home, and Christmas lights decorate the outside of our home as our joyous eager preparations continue. My nephew Brandon’s classes are done for the semester and he comes to join us this afternoon, which means that Christmas is so close we can already almost feel it. And as the excitement grows in our children’s eyes, the Christmas music on the radio multiplies across more and more stations, and the Christmas specials begin to air on television, the spirit of the season ahead stretches out to meet us in this time of waiting and anticipation, and our liturgical celebrations this week, including our service of Christmas Lessons and Carols later today, bid us to relish the short remaining days between now and Christmas with hope, peace, and joy in the already of what is yet to come.
May we be reminded during these last precious 8 days of Advent that our preparations and waiting in anticipation for the birth of the Christ Child are cause for both rejoicing and celebration. Our preparations ought to show forth the fruits of all our hopes, expectations, and anticipation of God’s love breaking through into our world. May each of us be a part of making it so.
Amen