January 3, 2006

• Joy Sunday... the third Sunday in Advent... always i am struck by the juxtaposition of the Joy and Wonder of the Incarnation and Nativity against the tragedy and reality of the human condition.  Four years ago, it was the Sunday of my first sermon... barely 3 months after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon... 3,000 people dead, the wife of one of the victims sitting in the front of the congregation, and i am to preach about Joy.... last year was the death of my father, and his memorial service was the day before Joy Sunday...

  
  

  This year, Fr. Rozzelle called me the Thursday before and asked me to preach at the 8:00 AM service since the Sunday School was having their annual Christmas Pageant (also known as the Reign of Chaos) at the 10:00 service and there would be no sermon... his theory is that it is just as much work to prepare for one service as for two, and since he knows i am anxious to preach, why not let me do the work? 

  
  

  and so, Joy Sunday, i come prepared to preach on the paradox of the joy of Incarnation into the messy reality of humanity... i am ready to remind the congregation that this is an anniversay of sorts since it was 4 years ago that i preached my first sermon and it was to this 8:00 congregation, our four year anniversary... but Fr. Rozzelle greets me with the news that a young parishioner, a boy of 12, is losing his two-year battle with brain cancer and will probably die...

  
  

  as at the first Christmas, where a 15 year old girl is pregnant, by someone other than her fiancé, in a society that will stone her to death - where is the joy in that?  a man is faced with the reality of a fiancée, pregnant with someone else's child, in a society where lineage is everything, determines everything, including what prayers you are allowed to recite during sabbath ceremonies - where is the joy in that? a little boy comes into the world in poverty, with no clean hospital to check his health - where is the joy in that?  planes are steered into buildings, killing 3,000 people - where is the joy?  my father drops dead of a heart attack - where is the joy?  one of my friends is in prison, possibly for a number of years, and will not celebrate Christmas with his family - where is the joy there?  brian loses his battle with cancer and will probably die, and soon - where is the joy in that?

  
  

  but joy is not dependent on circumstance.  happiness needs things to go well, but not joy.  part of the human condition is that bad things happen > children get sick, fathers die, misguided people destroy and maim, and joy comes, regardless.  it is this that Jesus comes to teach us by his birth.  he comes as an infant, in impoverished circumstance, to show that joy rises above circumstance.  his birth takes place in the shadow of the cross - not many babies get funeral ointments for birth presents- and yet it is through that very cross that we will experience the incomparable joy of being loved by God so much that God gave God's only son for us!

  
  

  and so as Christmas approaches, we should embrace this paradox of heavenly Joy and human reality, for it is the very gift of Christ.  may we all work to bring this joy out into the world, ingnoring circumstance....  

  • 11:58 pm
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