.jpg)
Hope peace joy love
These are the themes of our advent candles. Today we lit the third candle on our advent wreath…the candle of joy, the pink candle
Each season of the church year is associated with a colour… red for Pentecost and palm Sunday, green after Pentecost, white for big celebrations like Easter, Christmas etc, purple for lent and blue for advent.
However, some of you know or perhaps even remember… that Advent used to be purple. Advent and Lent were both considered times of preparation…getting ourselves and the church ready for our Lord’s incarnation or resurrection and so both were symbolized rich, imperial, expensive colours.
And historically the most expensive colour to get was indigo…Tyrian purple…a deep purple/blue used by emperors and kings. So, either blue or purple were used in the medieval church…the important thing was to get the richest, deepest most royal colour you could.
Yet…one other colour is included midway in both the lenten and advent seasons…halfway through both is a single Sunday of pink. A lighter colour, a happier colour, one associated less with discipline and more with Joy.
In both the Sunday in Lent and this Sunday in advent the opening words of the ancient latin service were “REJOICE”. We see that same word starting our second reading today and in the Canticle of Mary which we have been singing throughout Advent, even in the psalm.
“rejoice, always”! Cries Paul in Thessalonians
“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour.”
“Rejoice for the Lord has done great things for us”! Cries the psalmist
The theme here is easy to follow; and in my house with the fire crackling and the tree awash with lights and cookies crumbs on certain faces, it is certainly a time of rejoicing. Yet I don’t think cookies were the cause of Paul’s rejoicing…though perhaps if he had had my fruit cake…
Anyway, what we read of in 1 Thessalonians is not only to rejoice always, but to pray always and give thanks always. This is the will of God for us. To cultivate a Spirit of joy, prayer and gratitude that we may be blameless in spirit, soul and body…to hold fast to what is good and abstain from every evil. To be joyful, prayerful and grateful.
Now this doesn’t mean viewing the world with rose coloured glasses. After all the call of Advent to be awake, aware and vigilant. Throughout advent we have been learning that Christ was incarnate and is going to return because the world is broken, along with many people in this broken world.
Yet despite the headlines we are told it is God’s will that we are joyful, prayerful and grateful, because in spite of this world’s brokenness we have hope. Hope that this is not the way the world is meant to be and hope that the world will not remain this way.
Christ came that we might have life and that abundantly, that we will have life and that eternally, that we will experience wholeness and healing and that applies to the whole earth and all who have dwelt there.
Just as we read in the second part of our Isaiah reading today which contains the prophet’s vision of what the world, saved and redeemed will look like.
“I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my whole being shall exult in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. For as the earth brings forth its shoots, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations.”
We will have much to rejoice about; salvation and righteousness are going to burst forth from the earth like a garden in spring time. Health and wholeness; salvation for all people.
Certainly something to pray for, rejoice in and give thanks for.
However, we are not there yet and though my home’s joy fills me with gratitude and prayers of thanks giving, God certainly knows that this is not as widespread as it should be.
Yet, throughout scripture we read of how God is turning the tide. Mary, in her song of praise upon consenting to carry the Christ, knew that she having been chosen; poor, unwed, soon to be ostracized, was an intentional choice.
“ He has mercy on those who fear him
in every generation.
He has shown the strength of his arm,
he has scattered the proud in their conceit.
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,
and has lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has come to the help of his servant Israel
for he has remembered his promise of mercy,”
The proud, the rich, the mighty and those in positions of power are not to be favoured above all, God is a God of justice, love and compassion. It is not just the “haves’ that are to be filled with joy, but all those in our society and culture that ‘have not’.
It is the hungry, the lowly, that Christ is coming to ensure will be able to rejoice. Those who have been left behind on that struggle to mount the ladder of social success. In our time, in Mary’s time and in Isaiah’s time. Our bible study group is reading Isaiah and one of the comments continually made there is how similar the problems were then to what they are now. Corrupt leadership, people who know what is right and still chose to do wrong, a lack of care for the most vulnerable of society and a streak of selfishness in those who have wealth to accumulate riches for their own enjoyment at the expense of others.
Isaiah is very clear where God stands on this topic and where we ought to stand.
“The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to provide for those who mourn in Zion”
All peoples, all nations are meant to rejoice and be glad. The year of God’s favour, the Jubilee is going to come. Not like a Queen’s jubilee, but God’s year of redemption when all slaves are set free and returned to their families. When all land sold in desperate times would be returned to the original owners. When all debts would be forgiven and all who were imprisoned because they could not repay woud be set free. The slate wiped clean and all people and lands restored to wholeness, all families reunited and able to provide for each other once more. A time when the sins of greed over compassion would be brought to account and everyone, everywhere could rejoice in the joy of the jubilee.
This is what Isaiah hears from God, what he proclaims from God. Rejoice, pray and give thanks because the time of God’s redemption has come near!
Now unfortunately, despite the year of Jubilee being fundamental in scripture, enshrined in Jewish law and clearly meant to be fulfilled, there is no indication that people actually followed it. No indication that such magnificent compassion prevailed over the desire to have more land, more slaves, more power over others. The law was not enough.
Christ had to come in person to teach and to guide…and even then we didn’t quite get it.
We know God’s law, we know Christ’s teaching and yet we still need Christ’s return to save us from ourselves.
Right after Paul tells us to rejoice, to pray and to give thanks we are also reminded to not quench God’s Spirit within us and not to despise the words of the prophets that God has sent to guide us. Wise words indeed. A mutuality of Joy and teaching. The blue of Advent hope, and the purple of Lenten discipline. We need both in this time between Christ’s birth and his coming again.
We are quick to leave behind the discipline and the teaching, for the joy of Advent anticipation, but our advent wreath reminds us that even if we used the purple of penitential discipline, there is space in the midst of it all for joy.
We are to live a life of joy, filling our days with prayer and always being grateful for what we have and what Christ gives, and we are to remember the prophet’s teachings and follow the discipline of compassion; bringing good news, healing, justice and comfort to all in need. So that, when Christ comes again everyone, in all the earth will experience the joy, prayer and gratitude spoken on this Joy-filled advent day.