December 15, 2002 3rd Sunday in Advent Commentary by Bruce G. Epperly

See also: [2008][2005]

Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11
Psalm 126
I Thessalonians 5:16-24
John 1:6-8, 19-28

On important life occasions, we “dress up” as a recognition that certain times and places are set apart as extraordinary. The same applies to our preparations during the Christmas season. While there is nothing inherently wrong with giving our friends and families unwrapped presents, our hearts leap with joy when we see brightly colored gifts under the Christmas tree. While those of us who are “all thumbs” choose to deliver our presents in “gift bags,” even these ready-to-hand packages add to the zest of gift giving. They tell the other, “you are special,”  “you matter to me,” or, as the card advertisement proclaims, “I care enough to send the very best.”

In light of God’s deliverance of the exiles, the prophet Isaiah rejoices and calls the people to shouts of joy and acclamation. Those who once mourned are now decked in “garments of salvation.” The Anointed One has liberated the captives, healed the sick, and comforted the brokenhearted and grieving.  Now it’s time to celebrate, wear our very best, and  sing and dance with melodies of praise and thanksgiving. With the words of Isaiah 60, the people proclaim “Arise, shine; for [our] light has come; and the glory of God has risen upon [us].”

Psalm 126 continues the theme of rejoicing and restoration. How good it feels to let go of old wounds and burdens. After years of dealing with tension in a relationship, a chronic illness of body, mind, or spirit, and underemployment, our spirits soar when new possibilities for love, healing, renewal, and creativity abound in our lives. Remember the pictures of the POW’s returning from captivity in North Vietnam. As they took their first steps on American soil, some kissed the ground of their homeland. Home at last! Free at last! God almighty, free at last! So shouted the exiles, the POW’s, and Martin Luther King.

C.S. Lewis notes that one of the primary signs of faith is the experience of joy.  When joy abounds, we laugh, sing, skip, and play.  oy and freedom are gifts of grace, grounded in God’s ever-abundant vision of possibility. More than that, joy bursts forth when, in the interplay of divine and human creativity, our dreams become realities and our possibilities give birth to actualities.

Yet, rejoicing and restoration are social as well as individual experiences.  Healing is a social as well personal reality. God does great things for the individual, but God also does “great things for us.” Health and salvation are indivisible.  We are never fully free until everyone is free. In God’s realm, the experience of wholeness and salvation in one life contributes to wholeness and salvation everywhere.

The church is called to be a joyful church--a place of celebration, singing, and laughter.  God’s grace has brought us together and God’s love has delivered us from captivity to freedom.

The reading from the Gospel of John affirms that joy arises, in part, from living out our vocation in our daily lives. While historically John the Baptist has been seen as a prophet of doom, I would suggest that his call to repentance is also a call to authentic joy.  John’s vocation was to be “a witness to the light,” a path-finder and way-shower. Recognizing his true vocation, John did not covet the role of being the Anointed One. To be voice in the wilderness was enough, for he realized that those who “repented” and let go of their old ways, habits and addictions, would discover the meaning of authentic joy and contentment.

Our vocation is the place where our gifts meet the world’s needs, or where – as Frederick Beuchner asserts, our deep gladness meets the world’s great hungers.  In the spirit of John the Baptist, Advent spirituality calls us to incarnate God’s giftedness in our daily lives. Divine possibilities are God’s “presents” to us. With our own creativity, we wrap our gifts in the unique colors and designs of our personality and life experience.  In gratitude, our lives become our gifts to God and to our neighbors.

As we ponder the gifts under our Christmas trees, we are also invited to reflect on the wonder of God’s love and the wonder of our own being as God’s children.  God calls us to “unwrap” our gifts as we allow ourselves to become mediums of God’s love – givers and receivers of God’s abundant life.

In our journeys of faith, the garments we wear reflect our inner spirit. Spiritual growth is not accidental or incidental, but the result of certain “habits of heart” or “virtues of character.”  In the Epistle to the Thessalonians, the author proclaims certain virtues for the long haul.  While many at Thessalonika lived in anticipation of the Second Coming, the author reminded them the Christ continually comes  to each of us in both the extraordinary or quotidian events of our lives. Christ-awareness is grounded in spiritual preparation:

          Rejoice always!
          Pray without ceasing!
          Give thanks in all circumstances!

These spiritual practices can be embodied in each person’s life, regardless of their external circumstances or inner turmoil.

Rejoice always! In the words of the Psalmist, “this is the day that God has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it.”  Rejoicing does not deny the injustices or pain of life. A number of years ago, I heard a talk by a liberation theologian. I remember being surprised when instead of speaking about injustice and poverty, he spoke about play and poetry.The quest for justice cannot be sustained without hope, imagination, and the ability to play and laugh. We need to remember that social transformation is not primarily about economics or equality, but the all-inclusive realization of abundant life and personal giftedness.

To rejoice is to transform your vision of reality. It is to proclaim that sorrow and injustice will pass, and that the God of healing and transformation will have the final word, and that word is joy!

Pray without ceasing! Too often our adornment is superficial. Our external persona does not reflect an internal sense of peace and centeredness. Our faith is shallow and experience of God arid.

A deep and evolving spirituality, like a good and lively relationship, requires intentionality and consistency. Each event and encounter calls us to prayer.  Interruptions call us to prayer. Even conflicts can call us to prayer. We may choose to take extended times for prayer and meditation--centering prayer, visualization and imagination, the prayer of the heart (the Jesus prayer), Quaker silence. We may also choose short spontaneous prayers throughout the day. These prayers weave a day of many diverse and occasionally conflicting experiences into season of wholeness. As we learn the habit of prayer, God becomes more than a word to us. God becomes a living reality to those who constantly invoke the Divine Presence. In the midst of fiercest storm, we can find a quiet center in God.

The best advice is simply to pray--pray often, pray in all circumstances, pray as you cannot as you can’t!

Give thanks in all circumstances! Gratitude is grounded in our experience of connectedness with God and one another.  We are the beneficiaries of grace upon grace even in difficult times. Here I am not counseling the form of spiritual denial, revealed in the glib statement “praise the Lord anyway!” Thanksgiving transforms your life and opens your eyes to the abundant blessings and gifts of every situation. Though sometimes God’s aim is simply “the best for the impasse,” God’s infinite realm of possibility reminds us that there are no ultimate dead ends or hopeless situations, for God constantly creates a way when there is no way.

Gratitude is a relational virtue. The feeling of thanksgiving gives birth to words of gratitude. Meister Eckhardt noted that “if the only prayer you make is ‘thank you’, that will be sufficient.”  Two phrases that can seldom be overused in relationship are “I love you” and “Thank you.” Living into thanksgiving creates a world of abundance in which out of our perception of plenty, we are inspired to work for a just world for all God’s creatures.

Advent calls us to wear garments of salvation, to decorate our lives with gratitude, prayer, love, and joy. Noticed or unnoticed, God is doing great things in our lives. Let us celebrate and rejoice!

Bruce Epperly is Professor of Practical Theology and Director of Continuing Education at Lancaster Theological Seminary and co-minister of Disciples United Community Church in Lancaster, PA. He is the author of twelve books including God’s Touch: Faith, Wholeness, and the Healing Miracles of Jesus, Healing Worship: Purpose and Practice; and Reiki Healing Touch and the Way of Jesus. His books are availabe at Flux Books.

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