The Second Sunday of Advent-The Rev Melanie Lemburg
The Very Rev Melanie Dickson Lemburg
The Second Sunday
of Advent-Year C
December 8, 2024
We don’t really get to see Zechariah,
the father of John the Baptist, in today’s readings. But we do get to hear from him; and that’s
pretty extraordinary given his story.
Zechariah is a small-town priest. He’s at work, in the holy of holies, offering
prayers and incense on behalf of the gathered people. Maybe he’s praying for himself, for his wife
Elizabeth, for God’s people Israel? Or maybe he’s preoccupied—wondering what
Elizabeth is making him for dinner that night? Suddenly, unexpectedly, an angel appears and
tells Zechariah not to be afraid. The
angel assures Zechariah that God is going to give Zechariah and Elizabeth a son
who God will raise up to be a prophet like Elijah, and he will be filled with
the Holy Spirit. And his job will be to “make ready a people prepared for the
Lord.”
But
Zechariah scoffs and questions Gabriel saying, “‘How will I know that this is
so? For I am an old man, and my wife is getting on in years.’ (Don’t you
appreciate how he shows a little diplomacy for his wife’s age? You can tell he’s been married a while.) And the angel, who seems to get his feathers
ruffled a bit with Zechariah’s scoffing replies, um, excuse me! “‘I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of
God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. But
now, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their
time, you will become mute, unable to speak, until the day these things occur.’” So Zechariah is silenced for at least nine
months, and in that silence and space, something changes in Zechariah. Because when John is born nine months later,
Zechariah is suddenly able to speak again, and the first thing he does is to
sing a song that is overflowing with joy.
Just as John grows inside Elizabeth, being nurtured by her while waiting
to be born, joy grows in Zechariah in his season of enforced silence. And he gives birth to joy in his song that we
all read together this morning.
This
past week, I read a meditation on Advent 1 by the biblical scholar Diana Butler
Bass. She was writing about how Advent
is a season that focuses on both justice and joy, and here’s what she writes
about joy: “Joy is not happiness, even though the two are related. Joy is
delight, gladness, and pleasure — a deep inner wellspring of contentment and
comfort. It is a disposition, an outlook, and maybe even a purposeful practice.
Happiness is what we feel in relation to external conditions; joy is experienced
regardless of circumstances. A wise maxim says, ‘We pursue happiness, we choose
joy.’”
She
continues, “Neither justice nor joy are easy. Indeed, they can be elusive. We
need new eyes to see them, renewed hearts to experience them, and willing hands
to act on them in the world.”[i]
Perhaps
the silence gives Zechariah the space to see, experience, and act on joy in new
and different ways, giving him the opportunity to see where he can choose joy
in his own life and recognize the presence of God’s joy in God’s people Israel. Because Zechariah’s song isn’t just about the
wonderful gift that has been given to him and Elizabeth; it also is recognizing
how God’s work, God’s dream is being brought to fulfillment in a way that will
benefit all people. There’s
simultaneously an individual and a cosmic scope to Zechariah’s song and to his
joy.
In
our epistle reading for today, the apostle Paul also knows something about
choosing joy, and he does this in less than ideal circumstances. When Paul is writing his letter to the
Philippians which is overflowing with joy, he is actually imprisoned, which
shows us that we don’t have to be happy or even comfortable to choose joy. In fact, Paul’s joy seems to find its roots
in gratitude, in remembrance, and in reflecting on his intimate relationship
with the people in the church of Philippi along with a commitment to his work
in spreading the good news of Jesus Christ while he tries to give them the
tools they will need once he is gone.
So,
how do we choose joy this Advent?
First,
we have to be able to recognize joy in our lives, to name it when it shows up,
and to embrace it. For each of us, joy
will look and feel and taste differently.
But ultimately, joy is “an intense feeling of deep spiritual connection,
pleasure, and appreciation.”[ii]
Joy
is often something unexpected, often a surprise. Joy is a sense of well-being, and sense that
things are as they should be.
In
his poem “Joy is the Justice We Give Ourselves,” poet J. Drew Lanham writes,
…Joy
is being loved
up
close
for
who we are.
…Joy
is the day off,
just
because.
Joy
is the kiss of that one,
or
the just verdict
delivered
by twelve.
Joy
is the everything,
the
nothing.
The
simple,
the
complex.
Joy
is the silly,
the
serious,
the
trivial.
The
whale enormous,
the
shrew’s small.
Joy
is the murmuration,
then
the stillness.
Joy
is the inexplicable coincidence.
Joy
is what was meant to be.
The
mystery of impossibility happening.
The
assurance of uncertainty.
Joy
is my seeking.
Your
being.
It
is mine for the taking.
Ours
to share.
More
than enough to go around,
when
it seems nowhere to be found.[iii]
As
one of our Wednesday healing service community shared, joy is the current that
runs underneath and through our lives, like Nat King Cole’s Joy to the World
playing in the background while she was doing her dishes. One of the spiritual practices proposed by
Kate Bowler in her Advent Devotion A Weary World Rejoices this week is that
when we discover joy in our lives, then to give ourselves permission to hum Joy
to the World in acknowledgement.[iv]
Once
we start to see and acknowledge joy in our lives and the world around us, then,
we are called to seek, to choose joy. We
do this through nurturing connections with others; through time in silence and
with God; through spending time in nature which can nurture and feed our joy;
through expressing gratitude, even in the midst of hardship; through God’s reorienting
of us after things don’t go as we had planned.
Joy is a sense of connection with a story that is so much bigger than
our small selves.
Joy
is the current that runs throughout our lives.
This week, may you have new eyes to see it, renewed hearts to experience
it, and willing hands to act on it in the world.
[i] From
Diana Butler Bass’s Substack page, The Cottage: Sunday
Musings: Advent 1 - by Diana Butler Bass
[ii]
Brown, Brene. Atlas of the Heart:
Mapping Meaningful Connection and The Language of Human Experience. Random
House: New York, 2021, p 205.
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