Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy

No, there is not a single Ren & Stimpy reference in here.  Although, if anyone knows where to find that series, shoot me an email.  You know the linky.

Luke 3:7-18; Philippians 4:4-7; Isaiah 12:2-6; Zephaniah 3:14-20

So remember last week when I said I’m glad we stopped the gospel lesson at verse 6?  Well that’s what I get for reading my lectionary wrong.  I fully managed to not notice that our gospel lesson for today is more or less what I preached on last week.  So I’m just not going to talk about it this week, and instead talk about joy.

Why in the world am I talking about joy, you might ask?  I mean it’s getting near to Christmas, there’s a lot of talk about joy around Christmas.  But today is special, because today is what is called “Gaudete Sunday”.  Gaudete Sunday is a rather obscure, incredibly minor day in the course of the church year.  “Gaudete” is a Latin word meaning, “rejoice!”

So you all might be thinking, “That’s great pastor.  Thanks for giving us this little bit of completely meaningless church-trivia.”  Well, I’m just going to give you some more.  Advent originated as a season of fasting before the celebration of Christmas, much like Lent is before Easter.  Advent was much longer, starting forty days before Christmas on November 12.  So, like Lent, they included a day in which some of the restrictions were loosened to encourage the people during their time of repentance and fasting.  This day was the third Sunday in Lent, as near to the middle as they could get.

On this day, the introductory chant was “Rejoice in the Lord always”, our reading from Philippians for today.  When Advent was shortened to four Sundays, and lost its penitential character, Gaudete Sunday lost most of its significance, except that most advent wreaths still have a single rose-colored candle.  The rose candle in the advent wreath our reminder to rejoice in Christ’s coming.  It’s different from the somewhat more somber colors of the rest of the candles, excluding of course the white Christ candle in the middle.

So today we are invited to rejoice, and our readings reflect this.  Let’s look at the prophet Zephaniah.  It’s not exactly a hopeful book, when you really look at it.  The opening prophecy is “I will sweep away everything from the face of the earth, declares the Lord”.  The next two and a half chapters continue that theme of destruction as penalty for sin.  But then we get to the part we read.  “The Lord has taken away your punishment.”  “The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save.”

To the people of Israel in the time Zephaniah was prophesying, this message would not be a big deal.  For the most part they ignored all the warnings anyways, but to a people after the fall of Jerusalem, to know that God will save them would definitely be a reason to rejoice.  They would be in a place where they had experienced the destruction foretold in the first two and a half chapters, and were looking for the deliverance promised in the last half of the last chapter.

But this prophecy in Zephaniah is more than about the restoration of Jerusalem under the supervision of Ezra and Nehemiah.  Some of the prophecies refer to things that haven’t happened yet.  It talks about a lot of things that Jesus fulfilled, and a number of things he will fulfill when he comes again in glory.  It’s a reason for us to rejoice!

The reading from Philippians is all about rejoicing, and why it was the Introit for this Sunday.  The first words are “Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say, rejoice.”  “The Lord is at hand!”  Those words remind me of the hymn, “Rejoice the Lord is King, Your lord and king adore; Rejoice, give thanks, and sing, and triumph evermore: Lift up your heart, lift up your voice; Rejoice, again I say, rejoice!”

That is a fantastic reason to rejoice: the lord is at hand.  Paul tells us not to be anxious about anything.  Don’t be anxious about anything; bring your requests before God!  Don’t be anxious about anything; the peace of God will guard your hearts and minds.  That’s a reason to rejoice.

We chanted today a few verses from Isaiah, and those verses are even more examples of rejoicing in what God is doing.  “Sing praises to the Lord!” it says.  “Shout, and sing for joy, for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel!”

See that’s what Gaudete Sunday is all about, praising God for all he does.  As we take time to look at our lives in Advent and find those places where we need to repent, we remember that God has saved us, and we rejoice in that knowledge.  We look to God for our final salvation, knowing that it is here and yet not here, that Jesus has come and yet will come again.  So I say to you today: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again, I say Rejoice!  The Lord is at hand”