The Episcopal Church of the Incarnation
The Third Sunday of Advent (B)
Isaiah 61.1-4, 8-11
Canticle 3 1
Thessalonians 5.16-24 John 1.6-8, 19-28
May the Lord be in my mind, on my lips, and in my heart, that
I may rightly and truly proclaim His holy Word. Amen.
1) In today’s Collect we remind
ourselves that Advent is a season of penitence, admitting before God that
“...we are sorely hindered by our sins ...”
a) When we think of sin, and
when we confess our sins, it is natural to think in terms of the language we
use in confession, of things “... done ... and left undone ...”
b) It is natural to think in
terms of God’s commandments for how we are to live.
i) And so, today, I would like
to focus on the commandment of our Lord that we ignore more than any other.
2) I could go back through the
Ten Commandments at this point, and speak of devotion to and fear of the Lord, of idolatry and of moral
failings, but the command I have in mind is not part of the Decalogue.
a) It is, rather, an imperative
we hear often enough in Scripture that we tend to take it for granted, and so
tend to ignore it.
i) It is the command with which
our lesson from
3) Rejoice. “Rejoice always” says Paul, as elsewhere he
says, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice” (Phil. 4.4).
a) As Jesus repeats that we are
to rejoice, for our names are written in heaven (Mtt. 5.12; Lk. 6.23).
b) As each time the word
“rejoice” appears in Scripture, it is an as imperative describing how we are to
respond to the presence and blessings of God.
c) And as Mary is quoted in the
Magnificat, our canticle for this Third Sunday of Advent: “My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit
hath rejoiced in God my Savior” (Lk. 1.46-47).
4) Notice that Mary doesn’t say
that she is happy. The world gets it
wrong when it confuses joy with happiness.
a) Happiness is a human
emotion, a feeling of an increase in self in response to a perceived gain or
good.
b) Joy is spiritual. Joy is a feeling of an increase in the
perceived presence of God.
i) In other words, joy involves
a decrease in self that is overcome by an increase in how we are in union with
God.
(1) And that’s what Mary speaks
of:
(a) That God has regarded her
lowliness.
(b) That her soul magnifies the
Lord; she makes His presence what is important.
(c) That God lifts up all who in
the lowliness and humility of their own self seek His glory, not theirs.
c) And when we do put God
before ourselves, what happens?
i) His presence lifts us up, we
rejoice, and His presence also is manifested to others in this joy.
(1) Which is where the story of
John the Baptizer comes in.
5) No one would describe John
the Baptist as “happy”. Clothed in
camel’s hair, subsisting on wild locusts and honey, he is the very picture of
austerity.
a) And that very picture points
to the difference between happiness and joy, between human emotion of gain and
spiritual resonance of God’s purpose embodied in a life here on earth.
b) That picture also points to
something greater–to God’s purpose–just as John points to one who is greater,
the thong of whose sandal he is not worthy to untie.
6) John points. He witnesses.
He bears testimony to the light coming into the world.
a) He is in ancient parlance
the “Forerunner”, the one who goes before to herald the coming of Jesus.
b) John sounds quite special,
and of course he was. Jesus Himself said
of John that none born of woman was greater (Matt. 11.11).
i) He had a special lifestyle
and a special humility, recognizing that Jesus must increase as he, John, must
decrease.
ii) He testified to the coming
of the Lord. He lived as a sign to point
to God.
7) Who has been the Forerunner
in your life? Who led you to faith?
a) A parent or teacher? A friend?
A community of believers?
i) Do you remember how they led
you, or was faith something that started so early that you just always seem to
have had it?
ii) How did they testify? If you think about it, you’ll realize that it
was not by pointing to their own happiness, but by pointing to the presence of
God.
(1) The presence of God in their
own lives and the presence of God in your life.
8) Which really poses a more
particular question. How are you called
to be a Forerunner?
a) How are you called to
testify to the light, to witness to God’s presence?
i) You are called to speak as
John spoke, to say to those who do not know Jesus, “Among you stands one whom
you do not know ...”
ii) You are called, in Paul’s
words, to rejoice, to pray, to give thanks, to hold fast to what is good and
abstain from every form of evil.
(1) In other words, you are
called to testify in both word and deed; in how you offer thanks and in how you
offer worship; in how you are seen to live.
9) Is testifying an easy
thing? No, not if we rely on our own
strengths.
a) But if we rely on God, then
He will increase as we decrease. He
will, in the words of the Collect:
“Stir up [His] mighty power
... [to] with great might come among us ... [with His] bountiful grace ...”
b) In other words, we testify
to God, we witness to His greatness by pointing to how He lifts us up.
i) By pointing, like Mary, to
how God blesses.
ii) By pointing, like Mary, to
how God exalts humility.
iii) By pointing, like Mary, to
how God always keeps His promises.
iv) By pointing out, like John,
that without God we live in a wilderness, and that in this wilderness we must
prepare to receive the Lord.
c) And in this wilderness, in
this season of penitence, that is what we do.
Each of us as an individual and all of us as a community of believers.
i) We point to God, that the
joy we experience in His presence may become the joy of all.
(1) That the light which dawns
will indeed be “Joy to the world,” that the Lord is come and the earth may
receive her King.
In
the Name of the Father, and of the Son,
and
of the Holy Spirit. Amen.