Sunday, December 17, 2023… Third Sunday in Advent
“On Earth As It Is In Heaven”
Psalm 126:1-6; Isaiah 61:1-4; 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24; John 1:6-8, 19-28
Divine Service IV with Holy Communion
Hymns: #350 “Come, Thou Precious Ransom, Come”; #342 “What Hope! An Eden Prophesied”; #412 “The People That in Darkness Sat”
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace, mercy, and peace to you, from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus.
“On earth as it is in heaven.” How far away this world seems to be from that blessed ideal. The world seems to be much closer to hell than to heaven sometimes; that much we can see. This is a future promise, though, and a work in progress – as all of us are. But the more like heaven we can become, the more the world around us will get a glimpse of what heaven is like. May our Lord help us all to be a little more heavenly, as the time of Christ’s coming draws near.
Did you know that the five candles on our Advent wreath all have a very specific meaning? The candle for the first Sunday of Advent, is the candle of hope. The candle for the second Sunday is the candle of peace. The third candle, the pink candle that we lit today, is the candle of joy. The fourth candle, that we’ll light next week, is the candle of love. And the white candle in the center is the Christ Candle, that we’ll light on Christmas Eve and throughout the Christmas season, to welcome the coming of our Savior.
Today we light the joy candle; and God knows, this world needs more joy in it. Joy can be so hard to find; there’s certainly not much to be joyful about in watching the news. And the devil hates joy and joyfulness; he has no sense of humor at all. He doesn’t want us to laugh or sing or be happy, and he loves to throw cold water on anything that looks like it might be happy, uplifting, or fun. If the devil had his way, there’d be no hope, or peace, or love, or joy, anywhere in this world at all.
But you and I know that just isn’t God’s will for us. Our God is love; He’s a God of joyful, exuberant, overflowing happiness, who wants to share His joy with us, and wants us to be happy. “Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” we pray in that ancient prayer -- and Heaven is a joyful place. And for there to be joy here on earth, “as it is in heaven,” the work of the devil – that old sourpuss – just has to be undone. Advent, and Christmas, is the story about how God’s joyful will for us is being done, and will be done, despite everything the devil is doing to try and stop it. Satan keeps trying to “poof” out the fire of faith and hope and love in us, and God just keeps on using us to light those candles.
In our reading from Isaiah, the prophet foretells the coming of the Savior, the hope of all the world. (Jesus later applies these joyful words to Himself in Luke’s Gospel). When the Savior comes, says Isaiah, He’ll be filled with the joyful Holy Spirit, and He’ll come bringing Good News for poor people, people with so little in their lives to be joyful or happy about. He’ll come to heal the brokenhearted souls, and bring freedom to those whose lives are held captive by sadness, and release the prisoners of sin from the darkness that binds them.
The Savior will come to proclaim the Lord’s favor, which is just another way of telling us, “God isn’t mad at you.” “The Son of Man came not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him,” Jesus said. “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,” says St. Paul. The Savior will come to comfort the mourning and give them hope, and to sound a joy-note of happiness amid all the grief this world hands us. The Savior will come to give us back our joy; to make beautiful things come up from the ashes, to turn mourning into gladness, to turn hopelessness and despair into songs of joyful praise. The Savior will come, says Isaiah, to “rebuild the ancient ruins;” that is, to restore this world that’s been robbed of its joy by the brokenness of sin to the heaven on earth it was always meant to be.
When Jesus came into the world, He walked into a world where joy was hard to find. The world Jesus was born into was ruled by the mighty Roman Empire. Roman rule was called the Pax Romana, “the peace of Rome,” but the Roman version of peace wasn’t so peaceful at all. What Roman peace really meant was: We’re sending our legions, our soldiers, our war machine, to your borders, to take your country. Resist, and all of you will die; but if you cooperate, surrender, and do as we say, then you get to live. Pay whatever tribute we demand, give up your wealth and all your treasures, give us your sons to serve in our legions, and then you’ll have “peace.” Although peace without freedom is a joyless peace, and isn’t really peace at all.
John the Baptist was sent by God into a broken, troubled world, to tell the world that the Son of God had come at last, to bring back the joy that had been stolen from it by the fall into sin. “He came as a witness to testify concerning that Light,” our Gospel says, “so that through Him all men might believe.” “Look!” says John, “The Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” The One who’s come to give you life – and abundant life, a joyful life, life to the full. A joyless life, after all, isn’t much worth living.
Jesus, if you’ve read His words carefully, wasn’t dour or sour or a wet blanket. He wouldn’t have stood in a corner at a wedding, with His arms crossed, disapproving of the goings on; He’d have joined in the fun and the dancing. Jesus was happy, He had a sense of humor, He even told jokes. His parables and stories were lively and fun. He was the Light of the world, the joy candle, the counterpoint to all the gloom and darkness. That’s why those sour-faced, judgmental Pharisees hated Him so much.
Our Gospel says that when John the Baptist stood up to preach, “the Jews of Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him who he was.” Prophets and would-be messiahs seem to have been quite common in Israel in those days, a new one popping up every week, claiming they had all the answers or that they were “the One.”
(Things aren’t much different in the world today). So when the Pharisees heard about John, they sent out the usual delegation to investigate -- the “debunkers committee,” the joy killers, the “cold water bucket brigade” -- to ask him: “And just who are you supposed to be?” John “did not fail to confess,” our Gospel says, “but confessed freely, ‘I am not the Christ.’” (When Jesus appeared, and they asked Him who He was, He said, “I AM.” John says here, “I am not.”)
So they asked him, “Who are you, then? Are you Elijah?” And he answered, “No.” Prophet Elijah was supposed to appear before the coming of Christ; but John wasn’t that Elijah, or even a reincarnated Elijah. That first Elijah did appear later at the Transfiguration, standing on the mountain with Moses, talking with Jesus. But John the Baptist was the spiritual Elijah, the one sent to announce the coming of the Savior. That’s why he answered, “No, I’m not Elijah,” even though Jesus later called him “the Elijah who was to come.” And “the prophet” is the one promised by Moses in Deuteronomy 18, when the Lord said, “I will raise up a prophet for you from among your own brothers.” “No, that’s not me either,” John said. Finally they said, "Who are you then? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”
John, God bless him, gave them a joyful and honest reply. He wasn’t claiming to have something new, or to have something new and brilliant to say. (Always be careful about a preacher who says he’s come up with some brand-new teaching). John points them back to Isaiah, and to what the prophet had written 700 years before: “I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord’.” John was very specific about who he was claiming to be -- the last prophet before the true Christ, the forerunner, the one sent to announce the coming of the Savior who’d be “God with us” and bring heaven down to earth.
Now some of the Pharisees, who’d been sent with that joy-squashing committee, complained, “Then why do you baptize people, if you’re not the Christ, or Elijah, or the Prophet?” Where do you get your authority? Who do you think you are? The Pharisees said this while they stood at a distance from where John was baptizing, grumping and harumphing and refusing to get in the water. They considered Baptism to be for sinners, a way for the filthy to be washed. They were convinced that they were far too clean and holy to be in need of such a thing. “Who, us? Why would we need to be baptized?” The very idea to them was insulting; they wanted nothing to do with repentance, or forgiveness – or joy.
John tells them, “I only baptize with water, but among you stands One you do not know. He is the One who comes after me, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.” He later adds, “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.” The baptism John was doing called people to repentance. It was a baptism of preparation, a baptism done by decision and choice. It was a baptism designed to break a person’s heart over sin, to prepare that broken heart to receive the Good News of a Savior.
Jesus’ Baptism, which was soon to come, was so much more. Jesus’ Baptism would be connected to His cross and His Resurrection -- into the water to drown and bury and kill all your sins, up from the water to live a new and blessed and Spirit-filled life. Jesus’ Baptism would pour on forgiveness and life – hope and peace and joy and love. It would be a walk through the darkness, a walk through the fire, to the place where everlasting joy comes at last and life lasts forever.
So how do we keep the joy candle lit in our own hearts? How can we keep the devil and the gloom-and-doomers and the joy stealers from squeezing the joy out of our lives? How do we carry out God’s will and God’s purpose for us in this place, and maybe even help the world around us look a little more like heaven? Folks, the answer is, “On purpose.” The traditional Latin name for this Third Sunday in Advent is “Gaudette Sunday.” “Gaudette” means “to rejoice,” and it comes from St. Paul’s words in Philippians 4: “Rejoice in the Lord always; I will say it again: Rejoice!”
In our reading from 1 Thessalonians 5, St. Paul gets very practical about how we can do this rejoicing thing as we live out our lives. (Or maybe it’s impractical and makes no sense at all, depending on how you look at it!) “Be joyful always,” Paul says. Is that possible? Can it even be done? If we’re talking about the laughing, always joking, ridiculously happy kind of joyful, all the time, no matter what, like laughing at a funeral, then it is crazy, no one can do that. But what “be joyful always” really means is keeping joy in your heart and soul in spite of your circumstances. It means having the joy of salvation, the joy of knowing where you’re going, even if your life or the world around you is falling apart. It’s joy that depends not on your circumstances, but on God’s promises.
“Pray continually,” Paul says. I used to think this was impossible, too, when I thought prayer had to be something thought out or formal or written down. But now I understand what our Catechism means when it defines prayer simply as “speaking to God in words and thoughts.” If you catch me talking to myself these days, that’s just me talking to Jesus. Every day is a running conversation with Him. That keeps a person connected to heaven, and heaven connected with him. And that keeps the joy in you alive, no matter what kind of day you may be having.
“Give thanks in all circumstances,” Paul says. I don’t think I have to go into detail about the connection between thankfulness and joy. And “attitude of gratitude” will take you a long way.
“Do not put out the Spirit’s fire,” Paul says, “and do not treat prophecies with contempt.” The Holy Spirit lit a candle in your soul when you were baptized. Heaven opened for you on that day. Heaven came down, and the Spirit was poured in, bringing hope and love and peace and joy to your tender heart. Your mission now is to fan the flame. Come and worship Jesus. Receive Him in the Sacrament. Open your Bible and read His Word, and study His Word with your fellow believers. Open your heart and let Him pour His joyful Spirit into you, and do it every day. Joy isn’t just for Christmas, you know; it’s a blessing for every day of your life.
“Test everything, hold on to the good, and avoid every kind of evil,” says Paul. This one isn’t really all that hard. The devil and the world want to pull you away from joy. The devil wants you to be gloomy and pessimistic and crabby. He wants you to grumble and moan and groan, and for us to grumble and moan and groan at one other, until we’re all miserable and sad and ready to give up. There’s certainly no joy in letting your heart go off in that direction. So test everything! If it’s hopeful and it’s joyful and it points to Christ, and has you looking up to heaven instead of down at your feet, then you’ve found yourself a good and joyful orientation for your life. Hold on to what God says is good. Keep your heart in heaven, and you’ll find yourself joyful, like the good Lord wants you to be. “Ask and you will receive,” Jesus says, “and your joy will be complete.”
May God Himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The One who calls you is faithful and He will do it. Thy will be done, O Lord, on earth as it is in heaven. In Jesus’ name; Amen.