Signs and Truths

It is easy to find stuff to get upset about without even thinking about it too hard. There are always things that seem to be against you. The world rarely seems to turn in your favor. Sometimes it is small, unimportant stuff, and when you think about it, you almost have to laugh in embarrassment that you were so bothered by it. At other times, it is a serious, life-threatening kind of thing, and nearly everyone would understand if you felt oppressed.

Except maybe Jesus. Not that Jesus isn’t sympathetic, not that he isn’t into comforting the afflicted. He does have that “come to me” invitation tucked away somewhere. But there also seems to be this attitude of “get over it” about him. Remember another storm? One at sea this time, the disciples were scared out of their wits, scared for their lives – “Don’t you care that we are going to die?” they screamed at him. Jesus rebuked the storm; Jesus walked on the waves and said, “Where is your faith?” Boom. Get over it. Maybe that sounds harsh to you. It does to me, I admit. But it’s a message I need to hear every now and then, especially on the quiet side of a storm front.

What does this have to do with the Third Sunday of Advent? Good question; thanks for asking. The Third Sunday of Advent is different. The mood shifts a bit. It is pinker, for one thing. More pink? Grammar fails me sometimes. I’m referring to the Advent Wreath. You may have noticed that often there are three different colors of candles there. There’s the white center one of course, the Christ candle, lit on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day as a reminder of the presence of the Christ. But the ring of candles will often have three purple or blue ones and one pink candle in the circle. The pink candle is for the Third Sunday, Gaudete Sunday. Gaudete is Latin for Joy. The pink candle reminds us of joy in the midst of the harried season. This is the call to joy when we’ve been overwhelmed by the prophets telling us to watch out, shouting out warnings aplenty, telling us to duck and cover, the other shoe is about to drop. Yikes.

Joy? Yes, we need a reminder of joy in the midst of it all. In our frenzied preparations, as we gasp at the calendars and realize that Christmas is about to leap out at us and we aren’t yet ready, we need a reminder of joy. Along comes the Third Sunday of Advent to do just that with pink candles and old promises and Jesus saying, “Pay attention.” You remember the old promises: Isaiah, for example:

Ah, now we get it. That’s a promise we can wrap our hopes around. Someday, what is wrong will be made right, what is broken will be made whole, what is scattered will be gathered up again. Thank you, Isaiah, we get it now. We who live in abundance often forget what we lack; we who live with our basic needs satisfied forget what needs still haunt us. In a desert culture, it is easier to long for flowing water. We may not be as dry physically as the first hearers of Isaiah’s proclamation, but our souls are often parched. But we do understand weak hands and feeble knees. We do understand not feeling safe on the roads. We do understand longing for the place of safety. And we do understand longing for a place to sing with joy.

If you are like me, you are a solo singer. I don’t mean accomplished enough to sing a solo. I mean a singer who wants to be sure he is completely alone before he sings! Yet here is Isaiah describing all of us, the ransomed ones, the ones purchased with a price, coming home, singing for joy. Now that’s a storm front you just might want to meet. Someday. It is a nice dream to have. It’s more than a dream, a vision; no, a promise. Or more? Jesus seemed to think so. More than a dream, more than a promise.

More than someday, more than a promise. But what could be more? We can’t claim that all is well, can we? We can’t shut our eyes to all that is wrong in the world, can we? We Christians can’t live wearing rose-colored glasses, trying to convince everyone and ourselves that things are better than they are, can we? No. Of course not. Notice what Jesus tells John’s disciples when they come and ask if it is true, if he is true. John has fallen on hard times; he is in jail, about to lose his head to a capricious king trying to seduce his stepdaughter. Does he really begin to doubt, or is he still trying to teach his followers? Who knows? But you can’t blame him if his faith was beginning to grow a little dim in that dungeon. What was so certain on the banks of the Jordan River now seems like a fading mirage in this desert prison. What was comforting and warming and sustaining then is now flimsy protection in the face of the coming storm. It is understandable. And give him credit, rather than simply giving up, he asks. He sends out one more shaft of hope, trying to pierce the gloom: “Are you he?”

We are never told whether the disciples went back with the response. We don’t get to see how he took the news in that hole of a cell, damp and dank and infested with crawling doubts. I wonder if he began to sing. I wonder if he felt safe on the road he was traveling, even knowing the immediate destination was likely to be painful. I wonder how he received the news.

And what did Jesus say in response to the heartfelt prayer from prison? As usual, he didn’t answer directly. As usual, he asked for input; he asked for connection. As usual, he asked for commitment. “What do you see?” Jesus doesn’t ask us to close our eyes to the realities of the world. We are not, as Christians, asked to live blindly, hunkered down against the storm that rages all around us. No, Jesus says, “Open your eyes.” Open them wide enough to really see, to see truth.

What do you see? Surely, the storm is there; the winds blow, and the rain and the snow and the sleet fall, driving us down, off the road at times, hunkered down, angry, afraid, lost, alone. But is that all? Look again. Look deeper. Look farther or higher. See the blind receive sight, the lame walk, the outcast welcomed home, the broken - broken hearts, broken promises, broken hopes - healed. It happens all the time. I suspect it has happened to you at one time or more. Reconciliation is real. Forgiveness is healing. There are lights in the storm, no matter how hard the wind howls.

That’s how we “get over it.” By lifting our perspective over the immediate storm, we can see more; we can see bigger. Jesus says John stood in the storm. He was strong, and he was prickly, and he was a sign that the storm was not the final answer. And then he says that you can do that too. You can stand in the storm just as John did. You can stand up for right. You can speak truth to power. You can call for repentance. You can do that too. You just need a kingdom perspective. You need to see things as Christ sees them—a higher, longer, more hopeful vision.

Jesus says, “What do you see?’ See the work of the Messiah; see the hands of the Messiah in the hands of the healers of pains physical and spiritual. See the love of the Messiah in a parent’s love, in a teacher’s going above and beyond. See the covenant of the Messiah in the hugs of lovers reunited, in a family reconnected. See the service of the Messiah in the feeding of the hungry and sheltering of the homeless. What do you see?

There are many more examples. Fill in your own. What do you see? And when you see it what does it do for you? What does it do in you? We’re back to Gaudete. We’re back to joy. Joy is not the happiness we feel that grows out of contentment in circumstances. Joy is the confidence, borne out of experience, that we are on the Lord’s highway - and not even we fools can get lost. Joy is that taste of someday that we can have if we pay attention. Joy is hope - not the flimsy hope of wishing for presents at Christmas, but the muscular hope grounded in the reality of experience, if not yours, then his. What do you see?