Zephaniah 3:14-20 Isaiah 12:2-6 Phil 4:4-7 Luke 3:7-18
Earlier this week I got a text from a friend I haven’t seen in way too long and it said ‘how are you? Is advent unfolding in the beautiful way it can, or is it a voice crying in the wilderness? Thinking of you…’
The question made me pause and take notice; honestly, it’s been a bit more wilderness crying than beautiful unfolding, but here we are, arriving at this 3rd Sunday in advent and it is Gaudete Sunday – the Sunday of joy – the one where we stop to rejoice; rejoice at our Lord’s first coming; rejoice that he is with us now and rejoice in the sure and certain promise that he is coming again.
As our epistle reminded us, rejoice in the Lord always, the Lord is near, do not worry. Rejoice always.
Rejoicing, or joy, is different from just being happy; happiness is often dependent upon external sources, but joy bubbles up from within – a gift from God, a fruit of God’s holy spirit – and can be found even in the darkest places at the darkest times.
Our other readings tell us about joy and rejoicing too. Our Old Testament reading says we can rejoice with all our hearts because God’s very self is here with us, delighting in us; that God is rejoicing in who we are; that God is actually singing over us. Isn’t that beautiful?
And then we have John, with his brood of vipers and his coming wrath and his scary call for repentance and his axe and his fires and gosh, it doesn’t sound very joyful. But he shares the perfect ingredients for rejoicing – share all you have, treat everyone fairly, don’t steal, threaten or lie, be satisfied, and God will do the rest. And this is his good news, the source and reason to rejoice.
But it’s in the Hebrew scriptures I have spent most of the week; mulling over the passage that says God is near enough to allay our fears, drive away our enemies, and strengthen the work of our hands. God is close enough to gather up the lame and the outcast and bring them home and that God is so near that, if we listen, we might even hear God rejoicing over us with singing; loud singing it says. Singing that drives away disaster.
And as I have gone about this week I have thought about God’s singing. I have wondered what God’s voice might sound like and what song God might choose to sing, and if I can dare to believe, let alone hear, the song that is chosen for me.
A while ago, I told you about a woman I have met in one of the care homes I visit. Nearly 18 months ago the doctors diagnosed her with cancer and gave her 3 months to live. She hoped she might make it to Christmas, last year, and she continued to knit. She’s the woman who said she would knit and knit until Jesus called her home, until she ran out of wool, she would say. And she would return to her room and find bags of wool on her bed with no idea where it had come from, and she knitted beanie hats for prem babies or teddies and socks.
This week I went into her care home again and she wasn’t in the service. The staff told me she was in hospital and is palliative. I went to see her that afternoon and sat beside her bed. She was holding one of her teddies, her breathing was laboured, her glasses were askew, and she was sleeping. I sat and prayed for her, held her hand and just before I was about to leave, I remembered the hymn she would always request at our communion services and I began to sing Amazing Grace over her. Before she opened her eyes she said, ‘I want this at my funeral’ and we shared communion and she said to me ‘if you ever want to tell anyone my story, I give you my permission’.
Because I had this passage from Zephaniah in my mind, I wondered if God might sometimes sound like the voice of one sitting beside a hospital bed, singing the favourite hymn of a dying woman.
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Yesterday in the car, we had a very tired little person in the back, fighting sleep, crying because she didn’t know what to do with herself. As we started to sing wind the bobbin up and row row row your boat so her crying stopped and the car became calmer and then clapping and laughing started. And I wondered if God might sometimes sound like nursery rhymes and action songs in the ears of a fractious baby.
And as I walked the dog, I heard birdsong, really loudly. And it lifted my attention from the pavement to the skies. And I wondered if sometimes God sings like a flock of birds, building nests in tree canopies.
I have read this passage before. I have loved this image for a long time. I had longed to hear God or the angels singing over me. But now I wonder if it is much nearer than I had ever known, more audible than I have ever realised.
So let me ask you the same questions:
How is your advent? Is it unfolding in the beautiful way that it can, or is it more crying in the wilderness?
And, have you wondered what God’s voice might sound like and what song God might choose to sing over you? Have you heard it?
Have you stopped still long enough to listen?
Zephaniah says, ‘The Lord, your God, is in your midst… rejoic[ing] over you with gladness, renew[ing] you in his love;…exult[ing] over you with loud singing’.
Let us pause, listen, hear and rejoice, amen.
Holy Adventures 