Western Hills United Methodist Church, El Paso Texas

I saw it once, during the Christmas season as I was leaving a care facility.  In the entry area, he was seated and tied into his wheelchair.  She had unfolded a folding char and seated in front of him, his tray on her lap, being sure he was eating.  Their faces told a story of many years of looking into the eyes of each other, of caring for and about one another, of giving that kind of service to one another.  She was so attentive to him she even wiped the corners of his mouth where the crumbs gathered.  I smiled as I strolled by and she spoke.  “He enjoys eating with the sun on his face – me too,” as she returned my smile.  My one thought took me back many years, trying to imagine the church, the altar and the vows which, once made, had also reflected a choice.  She had chosen all the way back then, to be doing what she was doing now.  Love is a choice.  Love is a choice we make, often out of a feeling.  However, love that is not a decision and a commitment in tandem with the feeling only lasts as long as the feeling.  It may be infatuation that leads us into romance, but it is our choice that leads us into a lifetime commitment.

This week, we light the candle on our Advent wreath that reminds us of Love.  Even though we only talk about it this week, the whole season really does that.  The whole season has us making lists and checking twice, since our commitment to love one another is a choice to shop and buy and wrap and watch as eyes pop, jaws drop, and hearts stop over the consideration we gave to a gift.  We want to communicate love as clearly as one older women communicated that day in a side area of a care facility.  If we want to do that so much, we can just imagine how desperate a God who is love wanted to communicate that too.  God did so, not in feeling but in a choice. That choice of course, was the choice made in Jesus Christ, the most supreme act of love we would ever know.  If the season is about anything, it must be about love – not just a feeling, but a choice to act on what we know and respond to what we feel.

See you soon in the place where the lover of our soul meets us, courts us, and loves us.  May that love make our eyes pop, our jaws drop and our hearts stop as we welcome Him in, again.

It is not a word that gets a great deal of use in our language most days.  Perhaps we don’t often utilize Joy simply because we don’t know a great deal about how it should be used.  It may be because we think it has some meaning of which we are not entirely sure, like for instance the word gay.  Joy is a church word, and understanding its meaning can be complex.  In the original language of the New Testament, Joy derives from the same root word that gives us the word grace.  For me, there is always a clue in that.

The Greek reveals Joy and Grace as relational words.  To experience both or either, one is in relationship with God.  To be joyous is to be in right relationship with God and in God’s perfect will for our lives.  I think that is why we sometimes hear people who have deep walks with God say, “This present circumstance makes me unhappy, but it has not robbed my joy.”  Joy is an internal experience whose outward expression may not be merriment or even what our culture describes as happy.  Joy is an internal word that reveals a sense of inner peace, satisfaction and consolation, primarily because we are confident in the One who is the source of grace, peace and joy.  Joy does not depend on an outward event or happening as happiness does.  Joy depends on that relationship we have with God.  Everything may not always turn out alright or even to suit us, but we can experience an inner reality of rightness with God.

This week in worship, we will light the third candle of Advent.  It is the candle meant to remind us of the Joy of the season – “peace on earth and good will to all” – is a relational statement that says all is right between God and us.  Not all is right with the world, but for those who follow God, there is Joy.  You will notice this week we will light the pink candle of the Advent wreath.  Church tradition holds that the season of Advent was not always a time for celebration as it is now.  It was as somber a time as Lent, calling persons to the same self-examination before God each week as in Lent.   As the celebration of Jesus’ birth grew closer, Christians strove to move closer to God through repentance and prayer.

Sometime around the year 1200, the Pope determined that the third week would be a week of celebration to lift a bit of the somber mood of the season.  Tradition holds that he called for a feast to celebrate the season, and during the feast, distributed a pink rose to every female in attendance.  From that, we have the pink candle, and the season became a celebration of Jesus, even as much as a period of personal preparation and receptivity to God in Jesus Christ.

This week is a week that commences with a reminder that we are in a season of Joy. Joy as a result of God issuing to us the gift of Jesus, to make us all right with him, and in the hopes that we would help God make all right with the world.  It seems to me, we have an inexhaustible and exhausting responsibility.  Joy is not only a word used little outside church, it is not a pervasive reality either.  People are living Joy-less lives each day wondering if their life matters.  God declared they mattered in a stable 2,000 years ago, and that is a Joy that deserves to be shared with the Joyless.

See you soon in the place where we find our rightness with Him, and know the Joy that only that rightness can bring.

Pastor Mark