Prepare Him Room: Hopeful Joy, Isaiah 2:1-5, Romans 13:11-14
First United Methodist Church, December 1, 2019
Pastor Toni Carmer
“Joy to the world, the Lord is come!”
I’ve already heard this much-loved Christmas carol played a number of times—along with others—in the stores where I’ve shopped, for several weeks now. We’ve grown accustomed to Thanksgiving decorations being set up before Halloween, soon followed by the red and green and gold glitters and sparkles of Christmas. I admit that my favorite place to shop is Hobby Lobby, so I guess it makes sense for them to do their best to get us into the Christmas spirit early. We can’t wait and start decorating on Christmas Eve, can we? Our 10-year-old granddaughter Olivia is the one in our family who most loudly complains about pushing the season too early. I guess I’ve gotten used to it and just go with the flow, which perhaps, is unfortunate.
Throughout my ministry I’ve worked hard not to travel too quickly through the season of Advent. I do think it’s important for us to prepare for the coming of Christ, and to not just jump into it. I love singing the minor-keyed Advent hymns, which I’ve discovered places me into a minority. As Kay and Pam and I select hymns for us to sing together in worship, I’ll make a suggestion and at least one of them will crinkle their nose and say, “we don’t know that one.” Sometimes we’ll go with it anyway (I’ll say, it’s so beautiful, it’s worth learning and they’ll agree), and other times we don’t. I’ve learned that I don’t have the voice to be either a soloist or a song-leader, so I can be convinced to sing something else.
But this Advent, we’ll be singing this particular Christmas carol several times during the season of Advent. The beloved hymn is celebrating its 300th birthday this year. “Joy to the world, the Lord is come!” is familiar, powerful, hopeful, and filled with joy. Which are a few things I think we can use right about now. So this Advent season, we’re focusing on joy.
This past week was really busy. It always is when there’s a holiday, as we try to get 5 days of work accomplished in 3 days, plus getting ready for guests and a meal. We go to my sister’s so I don’t have lots of Thanksgiving responsibilities, but I was still baking pies till way too late on Wednesday evening. But that’s only this week’s excuse. It seems our lives are always full, our schedules always busy. We may feel fine, generally/usually with the way things are, but sometimes perhaps we wonder if there might be a better way.
A report published in the Journal of the American Medical Association this week tells of the rising mortality and falling life expectancy of Americans age 25 to 64, who should be in the prime of their lives. Despite spending more on health care than any other country, our life expectancy in the US has decreased while other wealthy nations have continued to make progress in extending their longevity. Scientists talk about such causative factors as the opioid epidemic, other addictions, obesity, distracted driving…but that doesn’t explain it all. Honestly, more than a few of us here this morning may have felt some anxiety as we thought about the family gathering over thanksgiving: could we get through the family time without the MSNBC and Fox people getting into a fight? Would Uncle Joe and Aunt Phoebe be able to pass the butter to each other at the dinner table and then stand side-by-side at the kitchen sink rinsing dishes and loading the dishwasher without getting into tussle?
“Joy to the world, the Lord is come?” Hmmm.
Sometimes we look around and find ourselves thinking, “Something is broken. Something is wrong. There must be a better way.”
The Prophet Isaiah talks about a day when people—not just from Israel but from all over the world—will come to the mountain of the Lord for an encounter with God and God’s truth. We read in the Hebrew Bible where mountains are places where people would go to speak with God…to encounter God. The ark Noah builds gets caught up on a tall mountain after the flood, and the world begins anew. Abraham and Isaac go up the mountain and discover that God provides and God is not a deity who demands blood sacrifice but trust and love. Moses goes up on Mount Sinai/Horeb to speak with God and that’s where he receives the Ten Commandments. Elijah runs up into the wilderness, the mountains, where God finds him in a cave and speaks to him in the silence, saying there is another chapter ahead for the frightened and depressed prophet. We read in numerous places in the New Testament where Jesus goes up to the mountain to pray, to spend time with God. That’s where he takes James and John and Peter and they see him transfigured, along with Moses and Elijah.
People went to the mountains to pray, to meet God, to encounter God, to leave the noise of the world behind.
As Isaiah speaks, he isn’t talking about just any mountain, he’s talking about the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. He says there will be a day when people go to the Temple because they realize things are broken. They realize the answers people are giving to the deep questions of existence don’t really hold water. Greed and materialism don’t solve anything. Worship of the empire isn’t helpful. Hate and fear isn’t helpful. Getting lost in drugs and in a new relationship isn’t helpful. So people are going to look around, realize there must be a better way, and they’ll go to the Mount of the Lord, where disputes are settled peacefully, where swords are turned into plowshares and spears refashioned into pruning hooks. The weapons of war become tools for cultivation, a way in which people are fed, solving a problem, not creating more…
Paul, speaking to the Romans, says the time will come when people will know it’s time to wake up. They’ve been sleep-walking through life. They’ve been going through the motions. But there’s something better than that…something that goes deeper…that makes life fuller and richer.
This isn’t a word of condemnation for God’s people, it’s a word of hope. It’s a word spoken to offer encouragement, even when things around us aren’t easy. Isaiah is offering the people of Jerusalem a new perspective, one that can bring hope even during times of war and despair. A new perspective that allows hopeful joy even when things around us are tough.
“Joy to the world, the Lord is come!” Maybe joy is a possibility…
Perspective, according to His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu in The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World, is one of eight pillars of joy. Perspective is our ability to reframe our situation more positively. A healthy perspective is the foundation of joy and happiness, because the way we see the world is the way we experience the world. But before we talk further about perspective, let’s consider their definition of joy and happiness.
Joy, as shared by the Archbishop is much bigger than happiness. While happiness is often seen as being dependent on external circumstances, joy isn’t. Joy comes from within.
Their personal examples shared in the book include the Dalai Lama’s nearly 50 years of exile in India after being forced to leave his homeland of Tibet. In broadening his vision/opening his perspective, he can not only identify what he has lost in exile, but he can also see what he has gained: things like wider contact and new relationships, less formality and more freedom to discover the world and learn from others. (See him dancing with the archbishop in the photo, dancing is not something a Dali Lamia does!) It’s looking at your situation from more than one angle. If you look from one perspective, you see much sadness, a loss of history, a loss of home. But if you look at the same thing from another angle, you can see some new possibilities. Another perspective.
Edith Eva Eger tells the story in the book of visiting two soldiers on the same day at William Beaumont Army Medical Center at Fort Bliss. Both were paraplegics who had lost the use of their legs in combat. They had the same diagnosis and the same prognosis. The first veteran, Tom, was lying on his bed knotted into a fetal position, railing against life and decrying his fate. We can understand that. It makes sense. The second, Chuck, was out of his bed in his wheelchair, explaining that he felt as if he had been given a second chance in life. As he was wheeled through the garden, he had realized that he was closer to the flowers and could look right into his children’s eyes.
Another perspective. A new perspective that allows hopeful joy even when things are really tough.
There are a lot of tough things in our world. A lot of challenges. But the coming of Christ into the world can change our perspective. Give us hope. Offers us another way of seeing. Another way of responding. Hopeful joy.
Joy to the world. Yes, maybe that can happen now. Maybe it is happening now. Hopeful joy.
As the prophet paints the picture of all the people streaming to the mountain, to learn of God’s ways, they won’t return home unchanged. They will be different. They’ll be changed by what God has to say to them. They’ll have a new perspective. They’ll put on new clothes. (When Scott and I fly south in the winter, we take a suitcase of warm weather clothes. We take off our hats and our coats and our boots and put on our shorts and sandals. There’s a new reality and so we change. Remember how the early Christians after baptism would put on new clothes as sign and symbol of their new reality, a new perspective, a new life and way of being).
We go to the mountain and we come home changed…we receive Christ in the world and we are given this new perspective, a hope we didn’t have before, a vision of what can be, of what will be…
So what will we wear to evidence this hopeful joy?
Looking at the words of the prophet this morning, I wonder if our hopeful joy might be evidenced in becoming intentional peacemakers. Our words are so often the weapons we use to get our way, to settle conflict, to express what’s on our minds. I hear way too much anger and negativity. I admit that the first response that comes to my mind isn’t always the best one. But what would it look like in our relationships, in our interactions, if we intentionally use our words as instruments of peace? What if we use them to offer reconciliation, hope and grace?
What if we use our words to pray for peace? To pray for our enemies? To pray for our leaders? What if we pray that we as a church and as followers of Jesus Christ will be instruments in bringing about God’s vision for our world? What if we pray for hopeful joy to be evident, even in the midst of struggle?
Last night as I was thinking about our peace-making efforts in this season of Advent, I remembered the prayer attributed to Saint Francis. Let’s listen to it again…
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.
Amen.
Joy to the world, the Lord is come.
May hopeful joy empower us.
Amen.
