Advent 3: Joy...Pastor Phil Strong

12-12-10

Text: Exodus 1:1-22

● “Light”, “Fulfillment” and “Joy” seem to be themes woven throughout the Christmas stories. I might add a fourth theme, or maybe offer it as the context of the others--- “conflict”.

● Joy and conflict: we hear the sounds of joy in so much of our celebration--- “Joy to the world, the Lord is come…”, “O, come all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant…”; but, we’re still not sure how to respond to such a paradox.

Most of us are in the “ideal” place for Advent, but we don’t realize it.

                It becomes increasingly difficult to capture the essence of Advent because of the way that the season has been packaged for us. It can be tempting to think that because we are struggling to “get in the Christmas spirit”, we can’t enter Advent without an attitude adjustment.

            Advent is about “waiting”; it’s about unmet desires; it’s about “groaning”; it’s about “expecting” (“While we wait, we believers groan…” Romans 8). What Paul is doing is setting the “present” alongside the “future” in order that we might endure the present frustration--- that we might be “joyful”. If those words describe you, you “are” in the Advent mood!

● This willingness to hold “joy” and “adversity” in a dynamic tension is one of the things that I have come to appreciate the story; appreciate about faith.

James 5:7-10 (one of the other Lectionary texts)

“count it all (pure) joy…”

● You get the feeling that this is one of those obligatory Bible sayings; the ones that no one really believes, but we feel compelled to comment on it. And, not just “joy”, but “pure joy”, not the, “It’s okay, hit me again” stupid grin on my “bop-bag” [admittedly, that perpetual smile made me even more angry].

● In the Advent stories, what the people were hoping for was dramatically different from what they experiencing.

James reminds us that hope involves a great deal of waiting and a fair amount of grumbling.

He holds before them/us as an example, Job. Whatever your level of familiarity with that story, you will be aware that this is “not” the illustration you want to hear to describe your situation!

Perseverance is good at one thing: putting us fully in touch with reality.

            Suffering is not virtuous, in and of itself. It’s only redeeming value is found in the opportunity that it offers to establish hope.

Perseverance always assumes one thing: the presence of conflict/adversity.

            It comes from (2) Latin words, “through” and “severe”… through the severe! Perseverance is not living without discouragement or apart from opposition and failure, but living through those things.

● It means that we have out-lasted the opposition. It doesn’t say anything about whether we maintained our dignity or kept our clothes from getting a bit wrinkled in the chaos--- just that we made it through.

Joy and conflict…

“Why is it that we typically find those things we have lost in the ‘last place that we looked’? Why was it the last place and not the first place?” Because it was the least obvious place; the place that made the least sense (e.g. found my keys in the “fridg” once).

            But, even though it’s not the most obvious place, it was the opportune place to find it.

Perseverance is not about conceding to life; it’s not about eliminating our expectations… it’s about expecting more: “hope”.

            Hope describes “how” we are waiting. The waiting is inevitable. It is to anticipate that your faith actually broadens the possibilities, because without hope, your experience IS your reality.

Hope always makes us aware of and available to our longings; our desires.

            I usually know what to do with those desires: I usually offer them some distraction; a “sensation”, if you will, which I trust will divert their attention and somehow ease the inner-discomfort that I am feeling.

            The Christmas season is really good at that: it offers us a bit of “Christmas Spirit” as the perfect cover for our unfulfilled longings.

● When Jesus asked people, “What do you want?” (maybe a question around which we should linger), you get the feeling that they needed to hear themselves answer that question, but, you also get the feeling that Jesus was providing an opportunity for them to go beyond the surface response and find within their interaction with him a way to safely confront some of the deeper longings.

Perseverance means that you will be asked to trust beyond what you believe that you are currently able to handle.

I have concluded that when the present condition of our faith is inadequate, we should expect more grace.

Perseverance requires that we develop a hope that is based on God’s faithfulness and not our own stamina!

            It’s why the Israelites were always celebrating the “righteousness of God”--- that their God was a “loitering God”!

We have trouble coming to terms with the depth of our pain and the severity of our dilemma, so, our hope is not for healing or restoration, but simply for an intermission.

(e.g. Sears Wishbook: one of my favorite days of the year [next to “bat day” at Crosley Field]. The book was intentionally meant to inspire you to broaden your expectations [not called the “Come-on-get-real-book”, or the “Sears Sensibility-book”].

The book was a catalogue of all the stuff that, any other time of year, I had no shot of getting; it would be futile for me to ask. The presence of all that seemed out of the realm of possibility made me settle for something attainable; within the scope of possibility.

Advent is about letting God come to us in unexpected ways and into undesirable circumstances.

Joy cannot be experienced apart from both our present reality and a future hope.  

The good news is that these hopes are indicators that salvation is already happening. God is reaching for us and somewhere in the story, we are made aware of not only our own longings, but of the God who longs for us.

“Joy to the world, the Lord is come, let earth receive her King. Let every heart prepare him room…”