A Time for Joy

MEMO for Those Who Preach

by

Dec. 15, 2019 – Third Sunday in Advent – Isaiah 35:1-10; Ps.146; Matthew 11:2-11

 “The eyes of the blind shall be opened, the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap for joy and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy…a high way shall be there 

And it is called the holy way.”

 Words like homecoming, anticipation, freedom, newness were alive and well in the words of Isaiah. The joy of freedom for the oppressed people is not a new theme.  John the Baptist had a following. He saw in Jesus the day of hope and freedom.  John was too much for Herod so he threw him into jail. John and Jesus are cousins.  And they came at life in what looks like radically different ways. 

I sometimes have thought of two modern saints, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr., who defined social revolution for whatever age or time in which we live. John, like Malcolm, has had enough! Revolution now — no more compromise with evil.

King, tired of waiting, nonetheless took the nonviolent stance.  He knew that love was the only true way to victory.  King never gave in to those who counseled, “Just wait, it takes time.” No, he saw waiting for the right time as the only way to win. Social revolutions of our time each have something of those two ways.  

So we find John in prison, raising the question with Jesus’ disciples, “Is Cousin Jesus for real?  What is he waiting for?”

He sends his disciples to question Jesus.  They ask, “Are you the one who is to come or shall we look for another?” 

Jesus answers, “Go and tell John what you hear and see”: 

“We saw a blind woman staring at her hand,

first the palm and then the back,

over and over again,

twisting it like a diamond in the sun,

weeping all the time and saying,

‘I can see through the tears,

I can see through the tears!’

We saw a lame man

bouncing his granddaughter

On his knee;

We saw a leper

kiss her husband;

We saw a deaf boy

Snap his fingers next to his ear

and  jump!

We saw a dead girl

wake and stretch;

The poor we saw

were not poor!

– John Shea Starlight, Cross Roads New York p. 180

If the Church of Jesus Christ is truly alive, we will find vestiges of both forms of social revolution within the community.  There are movements that would destroy what it is that makes us who we are. I keep reading about some of the “young pastors” wishing to break church up and build the one true Methodism.  

These days I keep the hymn “The Church’s One Foundation” close by my desk, especially Verse 3, because the world sees us oppressed by schisms, by heresies,  but I know after struggling with the civil rights revolution of the 1960s, “the night of weeping (may yet) be the morn of song.”

The lectionary tradition has usually named the third Sunday in Advent a time for Joy.  I think it feels like knowing a great secret and you are just unable to keep it any longer, nor can you speak of unspeakable joy.   

We are called to be harbingers of hope. We hope and we work for its coming.  And in a world that is too serious, we must keep our sense of humor alive. So on this third Sunday, light a rose candle, sing “Joy to the World,” hug a kid, and let the people in on the secret:  Christ is alive!  

The Rev. Bill Cotton of Des Moines is a retired clergy member of the Iowa Annual Conference. Together with friends and colleagues, he produces the weekly sermon resource, MEMO for Those Who Preach, from which this post is republished with the author's permission.