Today is the liturgical
midpoint of our Advent season – a time of expectancy, gestation, pregnancy if
you will, as we prepare to celebrate the inbreaking of God’s light and love
into our world through the birth of Jesus Christ. It’s a Sunday that has come to be known as guadete Sunday (gaudete is Latin for ‘rejoice’, the first word of the Indroit often sung on this day, today’s
Epistle reading from Philippians 4:4-7).
Some communities also refer to this day as “Stir up” Sunday because of
the first words of the Collect for today:
“Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us…” It’s tradition on this third Sunday of Advent
to light a pink candle, rather than another blue candle, as a sign of a break
in the Advent action… a sign of anticipated joy amid the undercurrent of pregnancy
pangs during this time of holy preparation.
So, today we’re encouraged to rejoice!
And, yet, here
we are in December 2012, gathering on the heels of an exhausting election season;
a terrible natural disaster from hurricane Sandy; continued chronic economic malaise
aligned with the perennial pressures of a hyper spend-spend-spend mania; and,
of course, the horrific slaughter of innocents this past Friday at Sandy Hook Elementary
in Newtown, Connecticut. Are we really
in any mood to rejoice?
Perhaps the
cries of John the Baptist, that wild man out by the Jordan, resonate more
clearly this year – REPENT, you brood of serpents! The imagery of mighty God with an axe in hand
ready to chop down the failing trees that bear no good fruit – our just God
with winnowing fork in hand, clearing out the chaff and tossing it into
unquenchable fire – speaks to deep yearnings that can be frightening to examine
honestly.
Outwardly, we
are fast approaching the midpoint of the winter season – the winter solstice –
a moment in time when we, in the northern hemisphere, due to the nature of the
how our tilted earth rotates around the sun, experience the shortest day and
the longest night of the year. It is
here – when it’s the darkest – that church tradition has placed the remembrance
of the birth of our Savior Jesus, calling us to celebrate a new light breaking
into our dark world. To paraphrase a
popular adage attributed to a 17th Century theologian (Thomas
Fuller), it’s darkest before a new day dawns.
Indeed, after this solstice moment outwardly, we will experience
reversal, perhaps also inwardly – the nights will get shorter as we begin to
experience increase light in our days following Christmas.
It’s because
of God’s promise of eternal light through the coming of Christ into our dark
world that we’re called to rejoice. It is because of the promise of God’s
justice and God’s desire for us to love each other as God loves us that we’re
called to repent.
REPENT
In Hebrew
scripture, the words we render as ‘repent’ convey both a sense of regret and
“the idea of turning back, re-tracing one’s steps in order to return to the
right way.”* The prophets used these
words and concepts to address our lack of honoring our end of the covenant with
God and reminding us that God forgives those who repent. I.e., When you’ve gone
astray, get back on track – get right with God.
*(Achtemeier,
Paul J., Ed. et al. Harper Collins Bible
Dictionary Rev. Ed. (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1996) p. 924)
In the
writings of the New Testament, the Greek words μετάνοια /μετανοέω (meta-noia / noiein) are used to convey the
idea that we need to be constantly changing our mind / coming to a new way of
thinking. Perhaps some of you have heard
that in the Greek word translated as ‘repent’, we can also hear the “turn
around” or “get a bigger mind about.”
According to
the American Heritage College Dictionary
(NY: Houghton Mifflin, 1993), repentance is “1. To feel remorse for
self-reproach for what one has done or failed to do; be contrite…” And this is
where we sometimes stop – passively just ‘feeling’ something like shame or
guilt. But the definition continues, “2.
To feel such regret for past conduct as to change one’s mind regarding it… 3. To
make a change for the better as a result of remorse or contrition…”.
So, in the
wild man’s call to repentance as we prepare for the coming of one who will
baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire, we ought to hear that feeling sorry or
regretful is necessary but not sufficient
for the full repentance that we’re called to as Christians. To repent with Christ is a WILLFUL CHOICE to
TURN from evil, sin, regret, shame, and guilt… and to RE-POSITION / RE-ORIENT
our hearts and minds toward justice and mercy, and ACT towards others with
charitable love.
To illustrate,
John the Baptist, when asked ‘what should we do’ replies by offering three
examples of bearing good fruit of repentance that, interestingly for us to hear
today, all have to do with mitigating economic injustice: share your surplus with
those in more need; do not take advantage of others financially; and do not manipulate
with unjust power and authority to garner wealth that you’ve not earned. Or,as one commentator put it, “no hoarding,
skimming, or extortion.”
However self-righteous
or entitled we each feel sometimes, John warns us that God is quite capable of
cutting down the arrogant and guilty while building up the meek and innocent. The
good news is that we’re perpetually afforded, through God’s justice balanced
with mercy, the opportunity to CHOOSE to counter our sin, turn-around, and
change our hearts, minds, and course of action.
This call to
repentance is the essence of John the Baptizer’s ministry. Response to this
call is how we’re told that Jesus begins his prophetic and messianic ministry
as an adult. Arguably, we could say that
repentance is one of the actions at the very core what it means to follow
Jesus. As we prepare to celebrate his
coming into our world, we are called to prepare ourselves by turning-around,
course-correcting things in our lives that have gone astray.
Following
Christ doesn’t mean turning a blind-eye to injustices in our world. It means owning-up to our responsibility
(response-ability), turning around, and doing something to mitigate or eliminate
it.
REJOICE
Amid the
darkness of this season, while we are engaged in challenging self-evaluation and
community critique of our collective actions or lack thereof, we are also
called to remember and rejoice in God’s promises to the faithful – piercing through
the dark is light perpetual.
The prophet Zephaniah,
after warning his kin about God’s judgment for sin, ends his writing with a
hopeful tone. This morning we heard, “Rejoice
and exult with all your heart… the Lord, your God, is in your midst… [God] will
remove disaster… deal with all your oppressors… save the lame and gather the
outcast… will bring you home” (Zephaniah 3:14, 17-20).
And this
morning we heard from the prophet Isaiah, “Sing the praises of the Lord, for he
has done great things… the great one in the midst of you is the Holy One…” (Isaiah 12:5-6).
We also heard
from Paul’s letter to the Philippians, sometimes called his ‘epistle of joy’
(Philippians 4:4-7), “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice… the
Lord is near”. Paul further instructs us
to pray about everything instead of worrying about anything – bring it all to
God in faith and hope. He assures us
that if we do this, our hearts and minds will be guarded by a peace from God
that will surpass our rational understanding.
That’s good news worthy of rejoicing as we repent.
CLOSING
Repent! Rejoice!
We can’t have one without the other, the Spirit is telling us.
As another pastor
puts it, “There is no getting to Bethlehem and the sweet baby in the manger
without first hearing the rough prophet in the wilderness call us to repentance…
Faithful and fruitful arrival at the manger will be possible only after the careful
self-examination and recommitment called for by John.” (Kathy Beach-Verhey, Co-Pastor, Faison
Presbyterian Church, Faison, North Carolina as quoted in her commentary in Feasting on the Word)
Repent! Rejoice!
Which one comes first for you this year? You can start with either… and we’re
called to do both.
That God is
with us now, no matter how dark the season might seem, warrants our joy and
praise. At the conclusion of today’s
service, Kimy has us singing Hymn 640 “Watchman, tell us of the night.” We can rejoice in the singing of the final
verse, “…for the morning seems to dawn.
Traveler, darkness takes its flight, doubt and terror are withdrawn… lo!
The Prince of Peace, lo! The Son of God is come!”
And, because we
each/all have some ‘housecleaning’ to do as we prepare to accept the gift of
God’s love coming to us through Jesus Christ, repentance is called for – changing
of the direction of our minds and hearts which so easily slide off the focus on
God’s kingdom come, not our own.
Repent! May this Sunday of Advent remind us that God’s
kingdom is come when we accept the new birth of Jesus into our hearts and act
accordingly. God’s will is done on earth
when we work with Christ to fix our world, starting with the repair of broken relationships. He
will lead us into a reign of repentance where goodness and mercy prevail, and
justice is delivered through charity and forgiving love. Amid any earthly darkness, Jesus comes as divine
light with the power to stir up new life within us, the courage to admit our
faults and change our ways.
Rejoice! In the reign of Christ our King we are called
to join in the restoration of wellbeing to ALL: the blind and the lame are
healed; the deaf are made to hear again; the poor and hungry are fed; the
imprisoned set free; the barren lands blossom again; and a Holy Way is established,
along which no danger lurks, and upon which no traveler is ever be led astray
again. “He will wipe every tear
from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no
more.” (Rev 21:4-5)
AMEN.
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