Rejoice Even When It Is Not Obvious to Do So

 3 Advent b      December 13, 2020, 3 Advent
Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11 Psalm 126
1 Thessalonians 5:16-24 John 1:6-8,19-28

Lectionary Link

Today is the Third Sunday of Advent.  We lit the Rose color candle.   It is also called Rose Sunday.  It is called Gaudete Sunday, from the Latin meaning "rejoice."  And we've read the epistle message, "Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice."

Rose Sunday, means that we're allowed to lighten up on our penitential habits of Advent.  However this year it seems as though continual penance has been forced upon us.  The pandemic has taken many, many lives our citizens.  We have a country divided about whether we can protect each other by using a simple facial mask.  We have significant people who cannot accept the results of the election and there is much  anger expressed in our political discourse.

And you tell us that we have to rejoice.  Is this asking us to be inauthentic in how we actually feel?

Today is also the day after the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe which is significant for us since we are St. Mary's-in-the-Valley parish church,  and all feasts of Mary are relevant to our identity as a parish which is located in the Santa Maria Valley.

Why should we rejoice?  The Isaian message tells us that good news comes through the one with the Spirit who comforts those who mourn.  And how we need some reasons to rejoice in the time of so much mourning in our country and our world.

Part of rejoicing comes from the ability to access what has been made obscure, because we've not taught ourselves where to look for true joy.

Who would look for the babe in Bethlehem for joy, except the mom and dad of the baby?  Who would expect a peasant  in occupied Mexico to receive an incredible appearance from the spiritual saintly Queen of the religion of the Spanish Conquistadores?  And Mary did not appear to the Spanish Conquistadores but to an unsung obscure native peasant and the end was that native culture was validated as acceptable way for Christ to be known and promulgated in the Mexican territories.  In the Song of Mary, Mary says her spirit rejoices in God her savior, for favoring the lowly, and lifting them up.  And we can rejoice that most of God's saving happens out of sight.

We have not taught ourselves properly to find the good news to rejoice in because it seems to be lost in the singular touches of God out of the spotlight like in the myriad deeds of kindness which help the world to survive.  The innumerable deeds of kindness do not make the news as much as the bad news.  What is the reason to rejoice in this pandemic?  In the countless heroic acts of medical workers and other essential workers who put their lives on the line for others.  Rejoice, indeed that the very worst has brought out of us some of the awesome sacrificial service even as we "hang on by our fingertips" until we make it through this pandemic.

How can we further obey the command to rejoice on this day in the midst of some great woes?

I once remember a news report from a refugee camp on the border of Sudan.  Many were forced to flee and many children were left orphans.  But what was so ironic was to see video of young boys who had a make shift soccer balls and they were playing a game, laughing and smiling.  It so juxtaposed the tragic with the joyful, you wondered how they could be shielded from misery.  Didn't they know that the logic of the situation did not permit smiles and joy?  Did the ignorance of childhood prevent and block them from experiencing the severity of their situation?  Each one us still has within us the experience of infant and childhood joy.  Children can be joyful even when mom and dad and everyone else was stressed out.  Each us has the ability to access our joy memory spot to rejoice for no apparent reason at all.

The practice of the repentance practice of John the Baptist and the encounter of the Holy Spirit allow us to access the full versatility of our spiritual capacity, to do seemingly contradictory things.  We can mourn and rejoice at the same time.  We have the spiritual eyes to access the wide field of life experience and know that at any given time, things are going bad and things are going good.  And we have to be mature in not thinking we deserve to be exempt from all bad occasions, but also need to know that we don't deserve for things to go wrong for us.  What does honest living of mourning and rejoicing make us?  It makes us more than ambi-dexterous; it makes us ambi-empathetic, learning to be with people who rejoice and people who mourn without hypocrisy and without minimizing true suffering.

And so today we respond to this command to rejoice in the Lord, always and again I say rejoice.  Why do rejoice?  Because we can have the spiritual eyes to see that what is bad at any time does not nullify the overwhelming goodness of life that is available to us at any time.  And what does this mean for our ministry?  It means we are given discernment to where to apply the good news work of our lives.

The Prophet Isaiah wrote, "I will greatly rejoice in my God....."  We rejoice in God because the spirit of the Lord is upon us to bring good news to people who need it.  And there is nothing more satisfying that bringing good news to people in word, in deed, in food and health and provision for quality of life.

Let us rejoice that God through Jesus lifts up the lowly.  Let us accept the confession of Blessed Mary about God's favor to the lowly, but not to keep people in lowly conditions but to lift them up with the good news.

Let us rejoice in God our savior today, and find that to be the energy of God's Spirit to go forth and create the conditions so that many people can confess with Blessed Mary, "My spirit rejoices in God my Savior."  Amen.