“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say , Rejoice.”

The Reverend Shearon Sykes Williams, Third Sunday of Advent, December 15th, 2024

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord

is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving

let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will

guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.  Philippians 4: 4-7

On this Third Sunday in Advent, there are no more fitting words than “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say , Rejoice.”   Christmas is just two weeks away and we look forward to gathering on Christmas Eve for beautiful worship services, either here or with family and friends elsewhere, to celebrate the Feast of the Nativity, and the coming of Christ to be with us in the flesh.  There is no greater joy than that.  And this afternoon, we will get a sneak preview of Christmas with our Lessons and Carols service, where we will be together with fellow Saint Georgians and with people from the larger community to experience this lovely treasure from our Anglican tradition.  If you didn’t get a chance to see our Minister of Music, Dr. Ben Keseley’s, Dragon Bytes article in video form this past Thursday, I highly recommend watching it when you get home today.  Ben recorded it inside the organ chamber and it’s both educational and funny.  I was especially interested to learn that the first Lessons and Carols service was held in 1880 on Christmas Eve at 10 pm and was intended to keep people “out of the teeming public houses,” a.k.a. rowdy, crowded bars.   

This Third Sunday of Advent is traditionally called Gaudete Sunday.  Gaudete is the Latin word for “rejoice”.  Advent was originally thought of as a “mini Lent” back in the day, and this third Sunday was meant to give people a short break from their penitential practices in order to focus on the joy of anticipating Christmas.   

Today we hear Paul’s words from his Letter to the Philippians, reminding us of the joy that is always available to us, whatever our circumstances.  Paul wrote these words in chains from a dank, cold, unforgiving Roman prison cell.  And they were meant for Christians in Philippi who were not exactly having a jolly time.  There were divisions among the leadership of this house church in Macedonia and there were divisions about whether following Jesus was primarily about grace and love or about the strict adherence to the law.  These internal threats, along with the ever-present external threats to people trying to live a Christian life in a brutal Roman culture, made Paul’s words especially important, and also ironic.  How could Paul talk about “rejoicing” when there wasn’t a lot to be joyful about given the facts on the ground?

In an essay by theologian James Evans, Evans talks about how the Christian apologist C.S. Lewis describes joy using the German concept of “Sehnsucht”, which is translated as “longing” or “yearning”.  Theologian Barbara Holmes picks up on this same idea when she talks about the “common presumption that black church worship practices are characterized by enthusiasm, adoration and praise.”  She points out that what people outside that tradition may not realize is that what is at the heart of the joy in much of the African American worship experience is a “deep longing”,  an unshakeable trust, an unspeakable joy  that defies expression.  

The joy that Paul talks about is rooted and grounded in our faith in Christ, and celebrating ahead of time the realization of God’s promises of justice and peace.  Joy comes from within us and has nothing to do with the specifics of our circumstances.  It expresses the longing and conviction that all things will be made right and that conviction allows us to claim joy in the here and now.  

Oftentimes during this season of Advent, people are feeling at odds with our culture’s emphasis on being festive.  People who are grieving the loss of someone near and dear to them, have an especially hard time.  Our family is grieving right now, after the death of my father-in-law this past Tuesday.  He lived a long, loving and faithful life and yet we feel his death acutely.  We were with him in his last few hours, praying and telling him how much we loved him, until he was finally released into the fullness of God.  When we walked out of his room a little while later, we were met with the sound of a newborn baby crying, and I was struck by the poignancy of that particular moment in time.    This new baby, fresh from God, and my father-in-law, having just returned to God.  Both were longing and yearning for life in its fullness.  My father in law’s joy is now complete, and knowing that is a great comfort, in the midst of our grief.  

We cannot fully live into the  joy that God intends for all of us unless we acknowledge  the things that work against it, namely the anxiety we all experience in its various forms.  Paul tells the Philippians “not to worry about anything”, but rather to pray about everything and give thanks.  If we trust that God will provide for us, if we pray about everything that is burdening us, it helps to alleviate our worries and to be able to claim the joy that God intends for us.  Sometimes it feels as though we are actually being assaulted by the cares and concerns of the world, and that is when it is particularly helpful to remember Paul’s final words of wisdom about “the peace of God which passes all understanding, guarding our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”  There are times when we feel so vulnerable, that it helps to picture Jesus literally standing guard, standing between us and the things that are threatening to rob us of joy and protecting us from harm.   It may be a doubt or a fear, worrying about something in the future, or a regret from the past.

My prayer for all of us this day is that we will rejoice in the Lord always and remember that joy is something to be shared.  Rejoicing in the Lord is a communal enterprise.  We need each other.  We need to put ourselves in spaces where we can connect with the peace that passes all understanding.  Today we gather in the joy of anticipating Christ at Christmas and in the joy of Christ at work in us every day.  

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord

is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving

let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will

guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.