Advent thoughts in this third week of the season from Isaiah 35:1-6, 10, and James 5: 7-10

‘The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God. Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who are of a fearful heart, “Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God. He will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense. He will come and save you.” Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing with joy. For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert, the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water; And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.’ (NRSV)

‘Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains. You also must be patient. Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near. Beloved, do not grumble against one another, so that you may not be judged. See, the Judge is standing by the doors! As an example of suffering and patience, beloved, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.’ (NRSV)

This week I am going to spend a little time talking about God, and Jesus, and Santa Claus. We confuse these three more than we should, perhaps more than we mean to. I am not going to talk about the historic Saint Nicholas, or traditions from all over the world that involve a variation on that theme. I am also not going to do a deep dive on the history of the commercialization and the transactionality of Christmas. I will be the first to admit that I like to go into the context and the history of a piece of scripture more than the average person so it is tempting, but for this week of advent, the week of joy, I want to stay a little closer to the heart and a little further from the brain. That’s the goal at any rate.

I am guessing that by this point in the season you are pretty much at capacity for putting anything else into your brain or on the calendar, and that this season, this literal season in the northern hemisphere of quieting and dark and rest has turned into a season of frenetic doing, preparing, decorating, competing, buying, visiting, finishing, and expectation for self and others. That sentence was exhausting, how much more the actual doing of it.

This third week of advent we are reading from Isaiah and James to help us think about the experience of this continued waiting for God to be with us, to rescue use, if you will, from the present conditions of darkness, suffering, and oppression. In some ways I think this can be really hard to relate to this time of year where we distract ourselves with artificial light and enthusiasm and excitement. In other ways, if we can pause long enough in the dark to feel our feelings and to open our eyes and hearts to the people around us in their experience, it can start to feel very relatable. But we really have done so much to literally and figuratively hide that darkness, I fear we are numbing ourselves to the discomfort that is necessitated in waiting for something to grow, in not having complete control over the process and the outcome. So we play the holiday pop songs and put twinkling lights on everything we can and convince ourselves that this is the joy that is promised. Joy, however, does not come from a light-up lawn reindeer (fun and a smile sure, but not joy), or the whatever gift the whatever store with whatever list told you must be had this year.

You already know this, you feel this, we all know deep down that you cannot manufacture or sell or package that joy that comes from experiencing the redemptive presence of God. And you have to know where you are, in the dark or the light, and who you are at any given moment for good and bad, if you want to make space for that redemption in your life.

I know I said I wasn’t going to do context this week, but I can’t resist because I think it will really help us in teasing out the problem we create in this modern, commercialized holiday season. The portion of Isaiah this week comes from the period where the people were in exile in Babylon. The last two weeks we read portions that were pre-exilic warnings about problems in individual and communal behavior. Now we are reading words of comfort from the exile, promising that though it is bad it will not stay bad forever. The book of James, the other piece we read this week, is written sometime in 45-50 CE, about seven hundred years after Isaiah, so just after the life of Jesus. At the time the Jesus movement is still a primarily Jewish sect suffering from an oppressive Roman state and persecution for following this alternative path. The contextual point that I think is important to take is understanding that these are writings of comfort and guidance to groups that are in deep, dark suffering. One has lost everything, one is struggling to understand what happens next with their leader gone and no idea when he is coming back. Both are desperately looking for God’s redemption.

So now we find ourselves back in twenty-first century America and the third week of advent, the week of joy. And despite all of the music and the lights and the packages, I actually think that like our friends from thousands of years ago, we are also longing for redemption that will bring us into joy.

I think we know that something is not right in the system, even for those of us for whom day-to-day life is really pretty nice. I think this because I see how we have taken a holiday that just a century before was still celebrated exclusively by Jesus followers as a remembrance of that promise of redemption brought into the world, and we have turned that into a months long endeavor to decorate and buy our way into some illusory happiness we call joy. We are individually and collectively longing for something and instead of trusting that God is at work, we have taken control and manufactured a massive system of distraction. We start playing the music in late October or early November, the lists of what you have to buy to ensure “their” happiness come out in the fall, tins of decorated cookies and candy, and blow up Santa’s show up months before the first hint of winter. The astronomical mark of the season has barely had a moment to be dark before we throw so many lights up you can barely see the stars. Why wait with wonder when you can have it all right now?

Advent is about waiting, patiently, with faith in the midst of a time that is hard. It is not a ‘countdown to Christmas.’ Sometimes waiting happens and you don’t know what you are waiting for, but you trust because you have seen God at work in the world before.

Despite the fact that my mother raised me to be Jewish, as a child she always bought me an Advent calendar. I would have one little piece of chocolate each day, one little taste sweetness that encouraged the trust of something bigger, better coming. At some point Advent calendars turned into that ‘countdown to Christmas,’ and now of course they are just another thing to buy with bottles wine, or jewelry, or dog treats, anything you can imagine really. We’ve lost the point. I do sort of appreciate the inclusivity this offers, I think all of us, Jesus followers and everyone else, have moved far from the importance of understanding patient waiting that builds trust and faith, and ultimately allows us to build the habits that make us ready to see and hear God at work, to experience the true joy that comes by being redeemed, not distracted, from the darkness.

James tells us, “Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains.You also must be patient,” James 5:7-8. Just a decade before this Jesus was walking around, opening the eyes of the blind, healing the wounded, letting the speechless sing for joy. He was killed, he rose, and he said ‘do my work while you patiently wait for me to be back.’ James is speaking to a community who may very well have known this man, they are waiting, but they are getting a little antsy because things are bad and they need help, now. But James reminds them, reminds us, that is not how it works, you don’t order the earth to yield its crop, you wait, you trust in the seasons, you do the work you can do and you understand the work you can’t do, that you just have to allow to happen.

In the midst of our darkness, in the midst of times that can feel hopeless, we are told to trust that the wilderness will be glad again. We are asked to trust that we will see glory of the Lord. And again, this week, we are told what we need to do while we are waiting, how we reveal that goodness and glory, how we taste that little bit of sweetness even as we wait for the bigger piece. We need to support each other, strengthen each other, be there to help one another; ‘strengthen the weak hands and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who are of a fearful heart, “Be strong, do not fear!”‘ Help each other in the hard times, be patient for joy is coming.

I said before that joy is not the icicle lights or the blow up snowman or the gift under the tree, those things aren’t necessarily bad but they are entertainment and they are a distraction. They are not where you find joy. Joy, friends, is when you experience something you did not have a hand in creating that calls out to the deep truth of being loved, and speaks to the you that God knows in your soul. It is that feeling of water breaking forth in the wilderness, and burning sand turning into a nourishing pool. Joy is in receiving this, and joy is in giving this by helping someone who is stuck in fear to be patient, to trust that what God is doing is not done yet. When we celebrate Christmas we celebrate the faith that God is here working with us, walking with us when we are in those dark places, and bringing us through to real light.

Go and buy the glittery reindeer, I have nothing against it, it will certainly make someone smile. But don’t confuse the glitter with joy, and don’t think you can bypass the hard stuff by playing “All I Want for Christmas” over and over starting after Labor Day. Strengthen your heart, wait patiently, uplift those who have fallen, reach out your hand if that is you, know that there is joy growing, and that moments of glory are near.

God bless you today and everyday.