it's not the cash that's got you feeling spent
the day-to-day is like a whirlwind
It is now the third week of Advent. The season draws short. Christmas approaches.
…Are you ready? Is the tree up? What about the lights? Have you got all your presents? And are they wrapped?
If there was ever a year to assume all this was already done, this would be it. This year folks have been decorating earlier than usual. Amanda and I were no exception. Things have been so gloomy this year, we actually began setting up before Thanksgiving.
But what about all the other stuff? The stuff that really matters. Have you made arrangements with your family for Christmas this year?
Saturday Night Live came out with a skit about parents losing it when their adult children told them they wouldn’t be coming home for Christmas. And the satirical newspaper, The Onion, beat them to the punch with the headline, “Mom Completely Understands That Coming To Thanksgiving Is Risky And That You Don’t Love Her Anymore.”
These are the hard things for which we never feel prepared. Aren’t they?
And this isn’t to say anything of your own soul. How is it with you? How has this Advent been? Is it holy?
The truth is, on the third week of Advent in any year, it’s always a safe bet to assume that Advent isn’t going exactly the way you want. But this isn’t any year. Is it? This is the dumpster fire of 2020. At this point, we’d kill for what we would have considered a second-rate Advent any other year.
…Well, the third week of Advent every year is “Gaudete (gow-DET-eh) Sunday.” Latin for rejoice. The thought being, at this point, you’re three-fourths of the way through. Almost there, but not quite. So why not take a moment to refresh and celebrate?
It’s a good impulse. The only thing is, it’s hard to feel much like rejoicing this year. Isn’t it?
This is undoubtedly how the people who first heard Isaiah’s prophecy must have felt, too. After seventy-plus years of life in exile, they were finally able to go back home. Only what they returned to wasn’t what they expected. The city lay in waste and the temple in ruins.
As they tried to take it all in, the prophet showed up and told them to rejoice.
…Rejoice?!? How could they rejoice in a year like that?
As ridiculous as the prophet’s timing may have been, it’s what the prophet tells the people to rejoice about that’s really so shocking.
All those ruins, says the prophet, are really the raw materials for God’s best blessings! And so is that site of devastation. Those tatters are really ground zero for God’s best work!
That, ultimately, is what makes for a joyous third Sunday of Advent! Or any other day of the year for that matter. The promise that Jesus comes to give the garland of his redemption to those who sit in the ashes of their dashed hopes! That he comes to comfort with the tenderness of his mercy those who mourn!
Which means if that’s you in one way or another, and who isn’t that this year, then the shambles of your Advent is really the manger and trough Jesus is born into come Christmas!
Jesus is right at home in all this! Where you see nothing more than a shabby December, Jesus sees the makings for a truly holy Christmas!
…Many years later, for his first sermon, Jesus will read this passage and declare that in him, it is finally and fully fulfilled. And when you look at Jesus’ life you see this is precisely how he operates. All the way from the cradle to the cemetery!
We’re good at speaking of how at Golgotha, Jesus transformed the curse of death into the gateway of life eternal. But that’s not the only place Jesus brings the power of his transformation to bear!
He turns meals with outcasts into feasts of love! And at his very birth, he transforms a crowded inn into the nativity of joy to the world! He makes that lowly trough into the place where the hopes and fears of all the years are met in him that night!
The message for you this Advent then isn’t get ready. It’s be prepared. In fact, rejoice! Rejoice because these meager days are really the manger where Jesus is born! And this trough is really the throne of Jesus’s mercy-seat!
This is how YOU are prepared for Christmas this Advent. In the last way you expect. But this unexpected work is how the long-expected Jesus comes every time!
Who expected the cross? Who expected a young, unwed woman? Who expected shepherds? And who expected the manger? By this unexpected work, though, Jesus’ words are proved true! Scripture is fulfilled! And fulfilled for you and the manger of your Advent, too!
May this promise be the mantle of praise for you in the days ahead. May it replace that faint spirit so you may sing, “Hark, the Glad Sound!” And what’s more, may its words prove true for you! Because they are! Jesus has made your heart his throne. And your voice his song.
Not ready for all that? Good!
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