Rejoice Always [Advent 3B - 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24]
The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson
1 Thessalonians 5:16-24
Rejoice Always
Joy. Joy is the theme
of this Third Sunday of the Advent season.
This has long been the case in the Church. On this very Sunday, at the mid-point of this
season of anticipation, each year, the introit of the old Latin mass would break
the penitential silence of western Christendom with the stirring cry of “Guadete,”
rejoice. Joy is the reason we don pink
vestments today (vestments that we call rose-colored), on this third Sunday of Advent. Joy is the reason we light a pink candle
today (we call it rose-colored), on this third Sunday of the Advent
season. Joy is the reason this morning’s
epistle lesson, taken from the end of Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians,
is chosen for this particular Sunday – because it begins with the word that
sets the tone: rejoice!
Rejoice! Christmas is
coming! The angels are about to rouse
the weary shepherds and brighten the dull night sky. Rejoice! Jesus, the joy of loving hearts, is
near.
In thinking about joy this week, it occurred to me that I do
not preach about joy very often at all.
I talk a lot about hope. I talk a
lot about love. I talk a lot about
Jesus. But I do not talk much about joy.
And I think that is because, unlike hope, and unlike love,
joy can be challenging to define. Joy is
difficult to pin down. It is one of
those things we can have and still not truly understand. We wear it deep down in our souls and still it
is hard to explain.
Paul, in our epistle lesson this morning, begins with three
clear imperatives: rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all
circumstances. I would prefer he say, “Rejoice
in the good times; give thanks when you feel like it.” But he is annoyingly inflexible. The only one of his instructions that feels
even remotely doable this year, in 2020, is the prayer thing. Most of us have been praying throughout this
year, throughout this pandemic, “Please God make it stop,” on an endless loop.
Is it possible to be filled with joy in a year of loss and
disappointment? Is it possible to
rejoice when it is grief that keeps floating to the surface? If it is, if it is possible to “rejoice
always,” even in the most difficult of days, joy cannot be happiness. Because, I don’t know about you, but I am not
always happy. I have a great family; I
pastor a great congregation; the Browns are 9-3: and still I am not always
happy. Sometimes I am sad. Sometimes I am angry or frustrated or
sorrowful or heart-broken or annoyed or just plain bored. Sometimes I am unhappy.
But Paul didn’t say, “Always be happy.” He said, “Rejoice always.” And I have read his letter to the Galatians
and so I know Paul was not always happy – at least not with those Galatians. I think this is the difficulty of trying to
talk about joy. I think often, in our
culture, even in the Church, joy and happiness are conflated, confused, used interchangeably
as if they are two words for the same emotion.
And if we think of joy as happiness, “rejoice always” becomes nothing
more than a phony smile we carry through a turbulent world, a platitude we
bandage over our battle scars.
If joy is just a cute word for happy we might as well just
write off Paul right now. Because happy is
frustratingly fickle; it comes and goes.
If joy is to have any abiding value in our lives, it must be more than
just some fleeting emotional response to the surroundings and occasions of our
lives. Paul probably wasn’t very happy
when he wrote to the Philippians, “Rejoice in the Lord always, and again, I
say, rejoice!” from a 1st century prison cell. His circumstances were rough, but he had joy,
rooted deep down in his soul.
This confusion, I think, is what makes expressing our joy so
difficult. Luke Powery says, “Joy is a scandal
because many view it as the way not to
act or be during times of grief and sorrow...[E]mbodiment of joy [though] is
not a sign of weakness or bad judgment or loss of touch with reality, but a
demonstration that one is in touch with reality, in touch with God and God’s
way, God’s life in Christ. Joy reveals
that one knows God even in rough times.”[1]
And that is why Paul can say to a church in Thessalonica that
was busy burying their dead and wiping tears from their eyes: “rejoice always.” And that is why we can stand in the midst of
a trying year, on the precipice of a very unusual Christmas celebration, with
grief in our hearts and a deep longing in our souls, and still have joy. Because we know God, God with us, God love us,
even in rough times – probably especially in the rough times.
I don’t preach about joy often. But today I say to you, in the words of the
apostle, rejoice always. I say this not
because I think every day of your life is going to be easy or nice or happy,
but because I know some days won’t. And
in those rough times, when happiness is elusive, when your smile just won’t
crack, I want you to remember the source of the surprising, scandalous, stable,
sturdy, stubborn joy that is in you, that is in you: you are loved with a love
that will never end and held by a God who will never let go. That is worth rejoicing about. And so, I say to you, one more time, on this
Joyous Advent Sunday: Rejoice always.
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