Sermon for 16 December 2012 - The Third Sunday in Advent

This. This is really what I needed on Sunday morning.

The audio:

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In this sermon, I returned to an image I've used at a time of communal grieving: Job, sitting in the ashes. This time, though, I decided to think a bit about Job's unanswered questions as he sat in the ashes.

+ Blessings. +

Kathi Johnson

C Advent 3 – 16 December 2012

Texts: Luke 3:7-18; Isaiah 12:2-6

Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, Grand Prairie, Texas

+ INJ +

Let us pray. O LORD, we call to you; come to us quickly, and hear our voices when we cry out to you. Amen. (Ps. 141:1, alt.)

In many liturgical churches, the Third Sunday in Advent is typically called “Gaudete Sunday” – “Gaudete” being the Latin word for “Rejoice.” We’ve now lit the pink candle on our Advent wreath – the pink candle being symbolic of the joy of this day. Our Old Testament and New Testament readings both call us to “rejoice.” Even John – who at the beginning of today’s Gospel reading sounds quite grumpy – ends today’s reading by proclaiming the good news that one more “powerful” than he is coming. Joy upon joy upon joy.

And yet, when our nation is slammed by incomprehensible tragedy, such as what happened on Friday morning in Connecticut, it can be so very hard to live with joy. The killing of innocents has reached into our time of celebration, and it has given us heartbreak. It can be so very hard to do what our psalm from Isaiah calls us to do: to trust and “not be afraid.”

And so, like so many times throughout human history, we - as people of faith - are caught in the tension of living our lives rejoicing in the Lord “always,” trusting in God and not being afraid, and struggling to catch our breath before the next round of bad news hits.

As I have said the last two weeks, Advent is, of course, a time of waiting. During Advent, we wait to celebrate the coming of the Christ Child. We prepare our homes and our hearts to remember the coming of our Savior – born as an innocent baby.

But in Advent, we also remember that we are waiting for the coming of Christ yet again – waiting for the day upon which Jesus will return “with power and great glory” (Lk. 21:27). And – especially in the dark times of national sadness – we join our voices with Christians, who throughout history have cried, “When, Lord, when? When will you come back to us? When will our broken hearts be healed?”

The people of God are full of questions for God – and we have been for a long time. Whether it is Abraham asking, “Can a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Can Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?” (Gen. 17:17) Or King David crying out: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from me, from the words of my groaning?” (Ps. 22:2) Or the criminal hanging on the cross next to Jesus, asking “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” (Lk. 23:39) We seem to come to God with our big pile of questions, expecting him to give us nothing but a stack of answers.

What are we to do then, when the stack of answers doesn’t come – when we are left with our questions?

One of my favorite stories in Scriptures is the story of Job. Job, who in one day, loses his servants, his livestock, and his children. Upon hearing this news, Job does what was common in his day to show sorrow and grief: he tears his clothes and shaves his head. Later, he is inflicted with a skin disease, and he ends up sitting in the ashes, with only his faith in God to console him, and no answers to the questions he has of God.

Job has three friends come to visit him, and for seven days and seven nights, they do nothing but sit with him – not saying a word because they can see how deeply he is suffering (cf. Job 2:13).

Maybe this is really what is needed when we have deep questions of God. At least for a time, maybe what is needed is a time to sit in the ashes with our questions, not knowing, but trusting. Not knowing, but living in the faith that we are bold enough to profess every Sunday: that we believe in a God who created us, who came to save us by dying and being raised to life, who dwells with us now, breathing life into our weary souls.

For our souls are weary. And they are made more weary each time tragedy strikes – whether it is close to home, or across the country, or on the other side of the world – we live in a world that makes us weary of sin and death.

Thanks be to God, then, that he finds us in our weariness. Thanks be to God, that he draws us up out of the desolate pit, out of the mire that pulls us down (cf. Ps. 40:2). Thanks be to God that Jesus came to us, and died for us, even while we were sinners (Rom. 5:8). Thanks be to God that our questions do not startle him, that our grief does not make him weary, and that our lives - and our deaths – are so wrapped up in him that nothing can separate us from his love.

It is St. Paul who wrote these words that we use often in our funeral services:

“For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom. 8:38-39).

The past couple of days, I've been thinking a lot about the relationship between joy and hope. I've come to the conclusion that joy and hope can, of course, reside next to each other - they already do, in each of us! However, there are times when our joy is made quite small - but those are the times when there is room for hope to become quite large.

And so we wait – not only to celebrate at Christmas the Christ Child coming to us, but also the coming of Christ in power and glory. This is our hope, and we are bold to proclaim it. We are bold to hold onto this hope in the face of so much that tells us that God is absent. But proclaim our hope in Christ we will. Proclaim our hope in Christ, we must.

And may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep our hearts and our minds always in Christ Jesus. Amen.

+ SDG +