Hopeful Joy
(based on Isaiah 2: 1-5 and Romans 13: 11-14)
Today is the first Sunday of Advent. Advent is a time set aside for waiting and
watching; a time of anticipation. Advent
is a time of hope for good and gracious things to come, but it isn’t a time of
passive waiting. We live in the time
between the “already”, for Christ has already come and the “not yet”, for the
Kingdom of God has not yet been fulfilled.
In this time between the darkness of night and the light of what Christ
brings, the writer of Romans admonishes us to basically, “wake up and get
dressed!” Advent is a time of hopeful, active
waiting; waking up and preparing for the Kingdom of God.
This year, the beloved Christmas hymn, “Joy to
the World” celebrates its 300th anniversary. And in celebration of those 300 years, I’ll
being using the theme of Joy during this Advent/Christmas season. Each week during Advent we will close our service
with the benediction by singing one verse of this hymn. This morning we will sing the first verse which
reminds us that there is joy.
Joy to the world!
The Lord has come,
Let earth receive her king.
Let every heart prepare him room;
(Concluding with the chorus, which reminds us
repeatedly that:)
heaven and nature sing!
Did you know that beneath the forest floor among
the tangle of all the roots of the plants and trees there is a fungus called
mycorrhiza? The popular podcast Radiolab
has a great episode on mycorrhiza and in the synopsis they describe this
unbelievable organism by saying that it is “a strange creature that burrows
beneath forests, building an underground network where deals are made and lives
are saved (and lost) in a complex web of friendships, rivalries, and business
relations. It’s a network that scientists
are only just beginning to untangle and map, and it’s not only turning our
understanding of forests upside down, it’s leading some researchers to rethink
what it means to be intelligent.”
Mycorrhiza is also known as “the wood wide
web.” Why? Because this extraordinary
network of tiny tubes in the form of a fungus allows for species to share
information and resources. In fact, it
truly sustains and nurtures the life of the forest. The discoveries in Science are finally
catching up to what we have always known by Faith. And Faith is being enriched and empowered and
made even more joyful through the discoveries of Science! We live in amazing times! This connectivity is at the heart of the
first verse of Joy to the World – And heaven and nature sing! Mycorrhiza is a fitting image for today, a
way in which the earth pulses with connection and with unmatched joy, regardless
of our attention to it.
Isaiah tried to tell the people of Judea about
this great joy that would one day come.
In describing that joy, he said that he saw a temple high in the
mountains where disputes are settled peacefully, swords were turned into
plowshares, and spears were made into pruning hooks. The weapons associated with darkness and
destruction became tools for cultivation and nurture. Through imagery, Isaiah offers the people of Jerusalem
a new perspective, one that offered hope during dark times of war and despair. Isn’t that a powerful image for us
today? That there will one day be a time
when our disputes are handled peaceably.
That there will one day be a time when there will not be any reason or
need of guns or swords to hurt or kill others.
But we still live in dark times.
We still live in the midst of pain and struggle when it comes to these
things across the nations, even in our own communities. What do we do with this “in between time”?
In 2015, two spiritual leaders who knew a
lifetime of struggle and despair, Archbishop Desmond Tutu of the South African Anglican
Church and the Buddhist spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama met for a week. During their time together they spoke about
the answer to one single burning question; How do we find joy in the face of
life’s inevitable suffering?
While people long for joy and hope, sometimes
it can be hard to see or find. Desmond
Tutu had this to say, “Discovering more joy does not, I’m sorry to say, save us
from the inevitability of hardship and heartbreak. In fact, we may cry more easily, but we will
laugh more easily, too. Perhaps we are
just more alive. Yet as we discover more
joy, we can face suffering in a way that ennobles rather than embitters. We have hardship without becoming hard. We have heartbreak without being broken.”
The Dalai Lama said that our purpose in life is
to find happiness. He said that, “It
does not matter whether one is a Buddhist like me, or a Christian like the
Archbishop, or any other religion, or no religion at all. From the moment of birth, every human being
wants to discover happiness and avoid suffering. From the very core of our being, we simply
desire joy and contentment. But so often
these feelings are fleeting and hard to find, like a butterfly that lands on us
and then flutters away.
The ultimate source of happiness is within
us. Not money, not power, not
status. Outward attainment will not
bring real inner joyfulness. We must
look inside.”
He went on to say that, “we create most of our
own suffering, so it should be logical that we also have the ability to create
more joy. It simply depends on the
attitudes, the perspectives, and the reactions we bring to situations and to
our relationship with other people.”
Archbishop Tutu responded back to this statement
by the Dalai Lama by saying that he believes that joy is actually bigger than
happiness. Happiness is often dependent
on external circumstances, like when we get that job or when we fall in love,
then we’ll be happy. It is a reaction to
the world around us and how we respond to what is given to us, but joy, he says,
is available to us right now, from within.
It is not externally given by internally found. Joy comes to us as a gift from God.
The fourth line in the 300 year old hymn, Joy to
the World, says; “Let every heart prepare Him room.”
Have you come to this Advent season with hope?
Hope for a better today? Hope for a better tomorrow? Hope for a better fulfillment of joy in your
life?
Then prepare your heart – for JOY is coming! In fact, it is already here. Just look within and see it. The earth courses with it. The heavens and earth shout it from above and
below. Joy is all around us. Look and see.
Wake and Get Dressed!
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