Joy: Do you have what Advent proclaims?

A sermon preached by Father Dwight D. Duncan, ssc, Rector, St Matthias', Dallas, Texas
15 December 2002 - The Third Sunday of Advent (Year B)

Scripture: I Thessalonians 5:12-28; St John 3:23-30


Since all of you could benefit from it(!), I should preach on the first verse of our Second Reading, where St Paul says: "We beseech you, brethren, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work." But I shan't!

Instead I will use that direction from our apostolic father to ask you to now obey me as I ask you to close your eyes for a moment and turn inward to find how you react to a word I am going to say: Joy.

Did you find gladness for the tastes you have, or have had of joy in your life? Did you find sadness for joy's lack in your life? The sound of the word itself can create a longing in the soul: it is a bright sound, a bell-like sound, singing of something good and wonderful.

Joy. The season of Advent is a season shot through with joy: joy for what God has done in coming to us two millennia ago ... joy for what God will do when his Christ returns to wrap things up ... joy for what God is doing right now to prepare us at that coming to be wrapped in the arms of his Christ and carried into the everlasting joy of heaven.

Joy. Do you have and taste the joy which Advent proclaims? If not, why not? If your answer is "not" or "not as much as I would like", then let me share with you this day two reasons why this may be so. The reasons themselves tell you what to do to rectify the absence or low-presence of joy in your life.

The first reason is confusion: you confuse joy with happiness. Why is this problematic? Well, if you are looking for something, while confusing it with something else, you probably won't be able to recognize it should it smack you in the face. And if you can't recognize it, you can't get it or have it get you.

People used to do that all the time with St Matthias', before this, our beautiful church, was built. I remember waiting long one winter afternoon for a gas serviceman to arrive to fix a leak. The dispatcher had notified us by 4pm that the man was on his way. At 6:30, quite heated, I called for the fourth time, asking where the guy was and when he was going to get here. I was informed that the poor man had been driving back and forth along Forest Lane for two hours but still could not find the church. At that very moment, the dispatcher had him on the phone seeking clarification once more.

I asked, "Where is he?" The dispatcher answered, "At First Interstate Bank just west of Marsh Lane." I directed, "Ask him to look southward across Forest Lane and tell you what he sees." The dispatcher came back: "He says it's probably a telephone office for Southwestern Bell, because there is a bell at the front entrance." I said, "That's us. Tell him to zip over." You see, the dear guy had an image of what a church looked like, and we didn't fit it!

So perhaps you are missing joy because you, like many (including the dictionary), confuse it with happiness. Christianity, however, does not. Happiness, you see, is all about us. It is what we feel when we have life on our own terms, when life is as we want it to be, when we get something we desire and don't have to take something we do not. At the center of happiness is the Big ME.

But at the center of joy is God. The only thing joy has to do with us is that it is that "thing" we have when we and God are truly together, in communion, in sync. St John Baptist identified this for us. "I am not the Christ, we heard him declare in the Gospel a moment ago, but I have been sent before him. He who has the bride is the bridegroom; the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom's voice; therefore this joy of mine is now full." (Jn 3:28-29) John was filled with joy, you see, because his Savior and ours had now appeared on the scene and he and Jesus were together.

The effect of joy in one's life was then shown in John Baptist's life. As increasingly he diminished in the eyes of the people while Jesus enlarged, he was not chagrined. And he gladly remained faithful to what God had ordained him to do even unto a grisly death, because he knew that God was faithful and was fulfilling all he had promised John and John's people that he would do: send us the Savior and save us.

So this is joy: the calm, the peace, the serenity, the "lightness" even which one has -- regardless of circumstances -- because of the conviction you have that God's good providence is working on your behalf. Joy is all about God, God and us together. Joy is the fruit of confidence in him. It is joy which enables the believer to go on in hope when illness strikes or when a loved one dies. It is joy which enables the believer to survive the emotional storms and struggles that disrupt relationships. It is joy which endures in the believer when terrorists strike, planes crash and twin towers fall, when ministers of God sin and when mega-companies lie and cheat the public.

Joy is simply our name for having God in us, because we have given ourselves, truly given ourselves, to him, so that he dwells in us and we in him. Because of this mutual indwelling, there is an ever-present, ever-renewable well-spring of courage and peace, so that even in the midst of tears, one's heart smiles, and one's spirit does not just endure, but grows stronger.

Now, if you have any intelligence at all, then it is that ... it is joy which you will desire, far above happiness. For when darkness descends, happiness will be extinguished, while joy will shine in the dark.

What joy is, however, also identifies a further reason for why it may be absent or low in a life ... a reason other than confusing it with happiness. Since joy is the fruit of companionship with God, anything which obstructs that companionship will impede our being in joy.

What is it that obstructs companionship with God? Sin. And what is Sin? Fundamentally Sin is putting your faith not in God but in yourself, so that you excuse yourself from obeying him in any particular.

In any particular. Let me give you an example of what that means, since all of us -- unless we're committing adultery, murder or embezzling funds! -- easily keep off our radar screens the sins we are choosing to commit, which are cutting us off from God:

Years ago, a parishioner shared with me that he did not tithe and was not about to; there was too much he wanted to do and had to do with his income. Now this person would never have told me he was committing adultery or embezzling funds and knew this was against God's will but was going to do it anyway. Yet he did not hesitate to tell me his decision against tithing, and obviously thought he was completely justified in his decision, in spite of his knowing God's will in this matter. I responded to him, "I hope at your death you have a good reason to offer God for your wilful disobedience of him."

And since sin impedes our reception of joy, it will not surprise you to learn that this person did not have joy. This was always shown up by his reaction when some adversity would strike him; he reacted as if this was something extraordinary, something which should not happen to him, and he would be undone by it.

Sin and joy, you see, cannot coexist in the human heart.

John Baptist knew that. That is why he preached, "Repent. Confess your sins. Make straight the way of the Lord."

Paul the Apostle knew that. That is why he wrote our Christian forebears at Thessalonika these words we heard today: "See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all. Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in all circumstances [Did you hear that? In all circumstances!] For this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you ... hold fast what is good, abstain from every form of evil ... keep your spirit and soul and body sound and blameless." Notice that we are to keep sound and blameless not only our spirits and souls, but also our bodies. What we do with either is not a matter indifferent to God and to our reception of joy.

So if joy seems lacking for you, blame God not. Look to yourself. Confuse it not with happiness, nor expect it if trust in God, lived out in obedience to him in every area of your life, is not your way. But remember this: God created you for eternal joy. And it will be yours, if only you will let him into you, and faithfully place yourself in him.

Back to the SERMONS page