The Second Sunday of Advent Year C

The Very Rev Melanie Dickson Lemburg The Second Sunday of Advent-Year C December 8, 2024 We don’t really get to see Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, in today’s readings. But we do get to hear from him; and that’s pretty extraordinary given his story. Zechariah is a small-town priest. He’s at work, in the holy of holies, offering prayers and incense on behalf of the gathered people. Maybe he’s praying for himself, for his wife Elizabeth, for God’s people Israel? Or maybe he’s preoccupied—wondering what Elizabeth is making him for dinner that night? Suddenly, unexpectedly, an angel appears and tells Zechariah not to be afraid. The angel assures Zechariah that God is going to give Zechariah and Elizabeth a son who God will raise up to be a prophet like Elijah, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit. And his job will be to “make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” But Zechariah scoffs and questions Gabriel saying, “‘How will I know that this is so? For I am an old man, and my wife is getting on in years.’ (Don’t you appreciate how he shows a little diplomacy for his wife’s age? You can tell he’s been married a while.) And the angel, who seems to get his feathers ruffled a bit with Zechariah’s scoffing replies, um, excuse me! “‘I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. But now, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time, you will become mute, unable to speak, until the day these things occur.’” So Zechariah is silenced for at least nine months, and in that silence and space, something changes in Zechariah. Because when John is born nine months later, Zechariah is suddenly able to speak again, and the first thing he does is to sing a song that is overflowing with joy. Just as John grows inside Elizabeth, being nurtured by her while waiting to be born, joy grows in Zechariah in his season of enforced silence. And he gives birth to joy in his song that we all read together this morning. This past week, I read a meditation on Advent 1 by the biblical scholar Diana Butler Bass. She was writing about how Advent is a season that focuses on both justice and joy, and here’s what she writes about joy: “Joy is not happiness, even though the two are related. Joy is delight, gladness, and pleasure — a deep inner wellspring of contentment and comfort. It is a disposition, an outlook, and maybe even a purposeful practice. Happiness is what we feel in relation to external conditions; joy is experienced regardless of circumstances. A wise maxim says, ‘We pursue happiness, we choose joy.’” She continues, “Neither justice nor joy are easy. Indeed, they can be elusive. We need new eyes to see them, renewed hearts to experience them, and willing hands to act on them in the world.” i. Perhaps the silence gives Zechariah the space to see, experience, and act on joy in new and different ways, giving him the opportunity to see where he can choose joy in his own life and recognize the presence of God’s joy in God’s people Israel. Because Zechariah’s song isn’t just about the wonderful gift that has been given to him and Elizabeth; it also is recognizing how God’s work, God’s dream is being brought to fulfillment in a way that will benefit all people. There’s simultaneously an individual and a cosmic scope to Zechariah’s song and to his joy. In our epistle reading for today, the apostle Paul also knows something about choosing joy, and he does this in less than ideal circumstances. When Paul is writing his letter to the Philippians which is overflowing with joy, he is actually imprisoned, which shows us that we don’t have to be happy or even comfortable to choose joy. In fact, Paul’s joy seems to find its roots in gratitude, in remembrance, and in reflecting on his intimate relationship with the people in the church of Philippi along with a commitment to his work in spreading the good news of Jesus Christ while he tries to give them the tools they will need once he is gone. So, how do we choose joy this Advent? First, we have to be able to recognize joy in our lives, to name it when it shows up, and to embrace it. For each of us, joy will look and feel and taste differently. But ultimately, joy is “an intense feeling of deep spiritual connection, pleasure, and appreciation.” ii Joy is often something unexpected, often a surprise. Joy is a sense of well-being, and sense that things are as they should be. In his poem “Joy is the Justice We Give Ourselves,” poet J. Drew Lanham writes, …Joy is being loved up close for who we are. …Joy is the day off, just because. Joy is the kiss of that one, or the just verdict delivered by twelve. Joy is the everything, the nothing. The simple, the complex. Joy is the silly, the serious, the trivial. The whale enormous, the shrew’s small. Joy is the murmuration, then the stillness. Joy is the inexplicable coincidence. Joy is what was meant to be. The mystery of impossibility happening. The assurance of uncertainty. Joy is my seeking. Your being. It is mine for the taking. Ours to share. More than enough to go around, when it seems nowhere to be found. iii As one of our Wednesday healing service community shared, joy is the current that runs underneath and through our lives, like Nat King Cole’s Joy to the World playing in the background while she was doing her dishes. One of the spiritual practices proposed by Kate Bowler in her Advent Devotion A Weary World Rejoices this week is that when we discover joy in our lives, then to give ourselves permission to hum Joy to the World in acknowledgement.iv Once we start to see and acknowledge joy in our lives and the world around us, then, we are called to seek, to choose joy. We do this through nurturing connections with others; through time in silence and with God; through spending time in nature which can nurture and feed our joy; through expressing gratitude, even in the midst of hardship; through God’s reorienting of us after things don’t go as we had planned. Joy is a sense of connection with a story that is so much bigger than our small selves. Joy is the current that runs throughout our lives. This week, may you have new eyes to see it, renewed hearts to experience it, and willing hands to act on it in the world. i.From Diana Butler Bass’s Substack page, The Cottage: Sunday Musings: Advent 1 - by Diana Butler Bass ii.Brown, Brene. Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and The Language of Human Experience. Random House: New York, 2021, p 205. iii.Joy Is the Justice We Give Ourselves – J. Drew Lanham iv.The Weary World Rejoices Individual Download - Kate Bowler p 23