Advent III – Joy Luke 2:26-55
In the wonderfully reflective book entitled, The Prophet, one can contemplate these words:
The woman questioned the one she called Prophet of God, saying:
“Speak to us now of Joy and Sorrow”. And he answered:
The same well from which you laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears. And how else can it be? The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven? And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed out with knives? When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find that it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful, look again into your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
I want to understand the inseparable relationship between joy and sorrow. I need to understand. In my own moments of despair, I need to understand. How can it be? That in dying we a born to eternal life. . . that my deepest sorrow can be the source of my most profound joy.
The words speak a paradox difficult to grasp. Yes, Eternal life does follow physical death -- that is a statement of faith. But is there even more? Perhaps the paradoxical statement about life and death -- and about joy and sorrow -- whispers to us a secret: that each time even a part of us dies, we experience -- in some sense -- a resurrection, a deepening of spiritual sensitivity that is eternal. And that every time we experience a devastating sorrow, joy may also be present in some inexplicable way.
For some people, sorrow and pain come much too early in life. You may have learned sadness, as I did, at a very young age. By the time I was 8 years old, I had found a place to deposit my fears.
While my Greek School classmates played outside at recess, I would sneak into the church. I would kneel down -- always before the icon of Michael the Archangel, because my grandmother said he had saved my baby brother’s life -- and in the safety of the candlelight, I prayed to a God that I hoped would hear me. Perhaps I was too young to know how to pray . . . far too young to know very much about God and archangels and spiritual kinds of things. But I do know that I was overcome by a kind of innocent faith that still believed in miracles.
There in the quiet stillness, a little girl too young to know very much at all was graced with the intuitive sensitivity to the work of God’s spirit in life. And that’s where I first happened upon the secret of finding joy in the midst of sadness.
When I remember how young I was when I first experienced a sense of God, I also remember how young Mary was when the angel appeared to her. Mary seemed too young to know very much about God and angels and spiritual kinds of things. Even so, right there before her stood an angel with the astonishing announcement: Do not be afraid, Mary you have found favor with God. You will give birth to a son. He will be called the son of the Most High.
How can this be? I am a virgin.
As if what the angel had told the young girl was not enough, there was more: The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. The holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.
Mary found herself immersed in turmoil. She was only 13 or 14 years old, and what happened to her would have bewildered a much older woman. She was greatly troubled by the Angel’s visit. But her response to the angel was the only answer that could have so radically and completely changed the course of all humankind.
Mary’s response also changed her own life -- radically and completely.
What did it mean that the Holy Spirit would come upon her? How could one be overshadowed by the power of the Most High? She must have been confused, afraid. She must have needed someone to talk to. She left town as fast as she could to visit her cousin Elizabeth.
And then, feeling what must have been great fear and insecurity, Mary sang that song of joy that has touched our hearts every year for almost 2000 Christmases . . . the song that is in every Christmas cantata ever written. My soul magnifies the Lord. My spirit rejoices in God my Savior . . .
It is such a glorious expression of joy and faith. Yet, Mary’s life had been shattered. A shadow had been cast on the joy of her engagement. A shadow had been cast on her reputation, her morals! All at once, things were not so clear. Mary’s world became a kind of shadowland.
Soon her baby son was born. Almost immediately, she saw the shadow and sensed the impending sorrow of what was to come. Mary’s future now included an ominous prophecy that she would hear from Simeon: Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel . . . and a sword will pierce through your own soul also.
Mary’s “spirit of Christmases yet to come” showed her a shadowland of life that would characterize her existence and that of her boy. She had good reason to be troubled by the angels’ message and by Simeon’s prophecy. Her son was destined to become the Messiah, the Suffering Savior. And when he died, a part of her would die with him.
No wonder young Mary was troubled.
And no wonder we are troubled by life’s struggles that seem to be shadowlands for us.
Shadowlands -- a Broadway play, later made into a motion picture -- tells the story of C. S. Lewis and his wife, Joy . . .of their intense love for one another . . .and of the shadow that was cast across their life. Shadowlands portrays their struggle with Joy’s cancer. After Joy’s death, Lewis wrote these words: It is incredible how much happiness, how much joy we sometimes had together after all hope was gone.”
The comfort that is at the heart of those words is also at the heart of Advent. The answers to the paradoxes of living by dying, finding peace out of pain, joy in the midst of sorrow, are found in Advent’s gospel . . . a gospel that holds forth the possibility that we can find the purest joy even in the shadowlands of our lives.
To the angel with the troubling news, Mary spoke -- as you and I would probably speak -- with resignation. I am the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be to me according to thy word.
No, Mary did not express an enthusiastic acceptance of her destiny. She did not respond to the angel with an outburst of wholehearted assent to a life as the mother of the Christ! Not yet. Mary’s first response -- understandably -- was just resigned loyalty and faithfulness.
But then, perhaps God does not always require unrestrained enthusiasm. Perhaps in the midst of life’s shadowlands -- plain, simple obedience and faithfulness is enough.
Because happiness is just impossible.
In just over thirty years, an older and wiser Mary will stand weeping at the foot of her son’s cross. The crucible of life will have tried her faith. The Ultimate shadow will be cast over her life.
Surely joy is not required of one in such circumstances of despair. Or is it?
The paradoxical dilemma raises its head again for us. How can we experience joy in sorrow’s shadowlands? How do we find joy in the midst of life’s anguish? How?
I wonder . . . I wonder if Beethoven could have written that glorious music of praise in his Ninth Symphony if he had not endured the dark closing in of deafness?
Perhaps we find the purest and most unblemished joy at the very point of immense sadness.
Maybe Mary found her shadowland joy at her time of greatest despair. We cannot know for sure just when Mary found within herself the ability to sing, “My soul magnifies the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” But she did.
C. S. Lewis spoke an existential truth . . .a truth that he experienced and expressed: “It is incredible how much joy I have had after all hope was gone.”
In our own shadowlands, we have found, again and again, a joy that has always been enough. Sometimes barely enough! But enough to make it through.
Right in the middle of the shadows, there begins a faint whisper of promised relief. Gradually, it grows into a hopeful destiny. Then, just at the right moment, in the fullness of time, when life’s longing for relief can no longer be contained, hope emerges from Mary’s womb -- visible, physical, alive and breathing. JOY in its fullest and most glorious display.
Do I dare say it? If right at this moment, you are filled with profound sadness, do I dare proclaim to you that when a part of you dies, that part of you will be born to eternal life? Do I dare speak to you in the middle of your shadowland of sorrow, and tell you that it is reality that because God is present with you, you will find life after every death and joy after every sorrow?
It is Advent’s message of hope for our broken hearts . . . for you, for me, for Mary. For all the world.
The reality of Emmanuel, God with us, restores the heart’s capacity to experience joy, even in the shadowlands of life.
O God of Winter shadowlands, Advent hope, and Christmas joys,
We have come to sing and to dance,
To feel the warmth of human comfort and the awesomeness of Divine presence.
Here we are. Our hearts have prepared room for you, and we open ourselves to the wonders of your love.
Amen.
(Hymn: “Joy to the World”)
