Advent - Joy

I'm going to go ahead and turn

it over to Greg. Alright. Well,

hey everybody. Uh if I haven't

said it yet, my name is Greg,

one of the pastors here. I

felt like sitting down today.

Um sometimes I feel like when

I'm standing up, I just my body

wants to be more animated than

it needs to be and so, uh I'm

just gonna, I'm gonna sit today.

You're all sitting so I'm just

gonna do a little bit of an

event which is obviously at this

point, 123, joy. Yeah. And

during that, we're we're

reminding of ourselves of all of

these things. We're but we're

also reminding ourselves that

Jesus has arrived. Uh Advent

just means arrival. So, we're

reminding ourselves that he's

arrived but we're also

reminding ourselves that he

will arrive again remembering

that God's people, the

Israelites waited centuries and

years for him to arrive. We

continue to await his return

again as we live in the

meantime, in the now, and the

not yet. And in that meantime,

we need some reminders of what

it is that God is offering and

what he offered. Reminders of

hope, reminders of peace,

reminders of love, joy, light.

A few years ago, uh I said

that I was in line of line of

like on one unattainable thing

after another. I would say like

okay, here, peace and hope,

joy, you know, like it's feels

like you uh to have all of them

all lined up and to

consistently feel all of them

kind of feels like finding

Bigfoot and then finding the

Loch Ness Monster and then

catching Saint Nick putting

Christmas presents underneath

them. It's all elusive because

sometimes we might feel like

they're imaginary. But that

reminds us to look for hope,

peace, joy, love, and light in

a real place. In the story of a

real person. In the infant

arrival of Jesus and to keep

that in mind. Today, we are

reminding ourselves of joy.

Alright, so let's open our

Bibles and read the scriptures

together as we consider joy.

We're going to be in the book

of Luke. It's in the New

Testament. It goes Matthew,

Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans.

If you see any of those, you

know that you're in the right

neighborhood. If you don't have

a Bible, we have physical ones

out in the lobby. You're

welcome to take one home with

you. We have Luke two, six,

through twelve, and we have a

tradition of just giving the

scriptures our full attention

when when we read them and so

you can do that any number of

ways. You can continue to sit

or you can stand with me as you

are able in body or spirit as I

read Luke two starting in verse

six through twelve. Here we go.

While they were there, the time

came for the baby to be born

and she gave birth to her first

born, a son. She wrapped him in

a blanket and said that there

was no guest room available for

them and there were shepherds

living out in the fields nearby

keeping watch over their flocks

at night. Angel of the lord

appeared to them and the glory

of the lord shown around them

and they were terrified but the

angels said to them, do not be

afraid. I bring you good news

that will cause great joy for

all the world for all the

people today in the town of

David, a savior has been born

today. This will be assigned to

you. You will find a baby

wrapped in cloths and lying in

a manger. Let's pray. God of

every tribe, every tongue,

every color, and every nation,

we thank you for the scriptures

that they have persisted

throughout the millennia and

that we get to read them today

and I pray that whatever you

have for us to learn that it

would stick, that it would

become a part of the framework

of our faith, that our faith

would become stronger because

we are in the process. Amen.

Amen. Okay. On our way to joy,

I just want to take a few

minutes to clear up a couple

cultural Christmas

mischaracterizations. Alright,

you with me? First of all, it

says in verse six, while they

were there, the time came for

the baby to be born. In other

words, the idea that Mary and

Joseph were in a rush is not

accurate. Okay, they they

weren't in a rush. Thousands

of old Christmas programs have

had Joseph and Mary in a hurry

to find a place because she's

about to pop. But if you read

it, it's clear they were

already settled in Bethlehem

after their journey while they

were there. Secondly, says in

verse six, they placed him in a

manger because there was no

guest room available for them.

There's two things here. If I

said, close your eyes and

picture where Jesus was born.

Some of you might picture a

cave or a barn, particularly a

cave happens quite often and

why? Well, it's because the

image of Jesus being born in a

cave is another one of those

very popular images from

Christmas programs and the idea

does come from some very old

story that over the centuries

has continued to find its way

into the way that we tell the

story but it doesn't line up or

agree with the way that Luke

tells this story and then we

need to understand that they

were not looking for a hotel.

The problem here is a mixture

of translation and culture.

Okay, more than half of the

Bibles. If you went to a store,

a bookstore and said, hey,

where are your Bibles? And

you're going to hear a

scattering of 10 to 12

different translations. Half of

them that you pick up, this

verse would say there was no

room for them in the inn. And

then half of them would say for

there was no guest room

available to them.

In our modern minds, when we

hear the word in, what do we

think of? Hotel. We think of

the hotel. We think of the

La Quinta Inn. We we think of

a hotel. The the word gives us

the impression that Joseph and

Mary were frantically looking

about trying to get a room at

the Hyatt or the Marriott,

right? But what's the context

here? The context is

Bethlehem, right? They're in

Bethlehem. Why are they there?

They're there because there has

been a census called according

to this story. They're in

Bethlehem, the city of David.

Why is it called David? It's

called the city of David

because it's the first place

that King David was anointed

to become king. It's a very

special place in the history of

the Israelites. His family is a

very special family in the

history of the Israelites and

Joseph, a descendant of King

David is in town with his

promised wife who is pregnant.

The idea that Joseph and his

pregnant bride had no family

in town is just highly

unlikely. So, what does it

mean? What does the word mean

even? Remember, this story is

about a census, right? We're

just being told, we're we're

being told that everyone in

town already has at least one

guest staying with them. That

all the traditional guest rooms

are full. Be like if you came

to my house, if someone came to

my house, I would have two

bedrooms for the kids upstairs,

two bedrooms in the basement

for the kids. We have at times

been like, hey, Wallace and

Adley, why don't you guys bunk

up so that we can give this

room to someone else, okay? But

then, if it was more than that,

it would be like, alright, and

you can sleep on the couch in

the basement and you can can

sleep on the couch in the

living room and then we would

be out of space for guests in

our house but in the first

century, a home in this

house, there would be this

space. Sometimes, it would be

dug down into the ground.

Sometimes, it had its own

entrance and exit in the back

where every night, they bring

in the animals. It's because

most families didn't have a lot

of livestock. They didn't even

have a separate barn and so,

what they would do is to

protect them, to keep them

warm, to keep them from being

attacked by wolves or

anything else. They would

bring their small number of

animals into their home in the

back of their home. This is why

it says that Jesus is placed in

a manger not because they were

born that he was born in a cave

or he was born in a barn because

they were bunking with the

animals in the same house as

everyone else which was

why it says that. I think that

when we dig into the context

of this and we understand the

cultural context of what's

actually being said here that

we add a bit of the joy back

into the story when we know

these things. What do I want?

What do I mean? Because Joseph

and Mary and Jesus weren't

alone in a cave.

Joseph and Mary were most

likely to be born very likely

with extended if not immediate

family the night that Jesus was

born. I think about the joy that

is added when you have family

there for something like a

birth. I think about when Brennan

was born, the joy of my dad

holding my first point, my

first born, the the joy of

getting down to hold Liam, the

joy of Tim, my father-in-law,

driving to Colorado to hold

Wallace, the joy of all of my

children getting to hold

Adleria. We add joy back in the

story when we think about the

context and things and we strip

away all the cultural things

that we've been convinced are

what happening and we see just

a little bit more. They're

there. Now, a lot of these

things are just details that

we've been trying to get

through. We live in the first

century. We live in a reductive

society. We like to reduce a

story down as much as we

possibly can. lose details and

and honestly, here's the

biblical writers did the same

thing to a certain extent in

our men's group on Tuesday

nights, we've been going

through the gospel according to

Mark and almost every week, we

have to go through the

biblical

because we don't understand

unless we dig into it more

because the writers when they

were writing these gospels,

they made a lot of assumptions

about what the readers would

already know. They left a lot

out actually because they

thought that the people reading

it would just know all of these

things naturally for instance

here in the Book of Luke, the

passage that I read that that

they're saying the same thing

here in the Book of Luke, we

see that shepherds are the

first non-family members to get

to meet Jesus.

Maybe when we read that, we

know enough about the Bible to

make the connection that Jesus

would be called the good

shepherd, right? Maybe we know

enough about the Bible to make

the connection that Jesus would

be called the good shepherd.

But when the early Christians

read the Book of Luke,

especially if they had any

connection to Judaism or that

culture, they would have known

immediately how scandalous it

was for shepherds to be the

first ones to meet the Messiah

to meet a new king. Why? Because

shepherds were typically

thought of as outsiders

because they were always dirty.

They worked all hours of the

night and so people assume they

probably weren't following a

whole lot of those religious

laws out there with the sheep.

These guys aren't your model

temple goers. These guys aren't

supposed to be the first people

to get to meet a new king.

There's a perfect example of

this. If you read Matthew's

version of this whole story, he

says, you know, remember, I'm

not going to read the whole

passage, but just hang with me.

Think about when the Magi go to

King Herod and ask him where

the new king has been born. They

go to the current king because

they would have assumed if

anyone knew where the new king

was born, it would be the

current king. The Magi didn't

think to go ask the shepherds

because that's not how the

new king was born. This good

news will be great joy to all

the people. Not just the ones

up here. It's going to be good

news of joy even to the

outsiders because joy is

available to everyone. Joy is

available to everyone because

Jesus is available to everyone.

Now, I could end there. It's a

story of joy joy joy joy joy

joy joy joy joy joy joy joy joy

joy joy joy down in my heart

and button it up right. down in

my heart.

but like I've great and from

Marshall, there's more. There's

still another layer that I want

to point out something that we

missed something that isn't

obvious to us. So, so hang with

me. Okay. So, remember this

story that we're reading that

we're talking about Jesus being

born but it's also part of the

bigger story of Israel. This is

something that we lose when we

think of the gospel and we

think about oh, I'm going to

tell someone about Jesus. We we

do it. We strip Jesus out of

the story of Israel when we

talk to people about him but

when we read this, we have to

remember that this is in the

larger context of something

that had been going on for a

long time. It's the angel

appearing in the night sky.

Those of you who are well read

in your scripture just saying

that is already popping other

things up in your mind and it

would have popped things in the

minds of early readers of this

angels appearing in the night

sky speaking to someone giving

a message from God. It can

remind us of another shepherd

in another field on another

day. It's the night of the

night that Jacob was running

away from home.

Fleeing for his life, fleeing

from his brother because he has

tricked him out of his

blessing. He laid down in a

field with his head on a rock

and he had a dream about angels

in the sky. A lot of people

call it Jacob's ladder. You

know, it's a stairway. It says

that God was there and he spoke

to Jacob and he said, I will

give you and your descendants

the land on which you are

lying. So, think about it.

Jacob has just stolen

something. He's running away.

He's laid his head down on the

ground as a wanderer. He ends

up being a shepherd. And God

says to you, that you will

be blessed through you. Your

descendants will be like the

dust of the earth and you will

spread out to the west, into

the east, to the north, to the

south. Here's this word again,

all peoples on earth will be

blessed through you and your

offspring. This Jacob, this

Jacob is the grandson of

Abraham. The same Jacob that

Isaiah prophesied about that I

mentioned a couple of weeks

ago, the same Jacob that angel

the angel mentioned when

the descendants of Jacob forever, the same Jacob that years later when he finally came home to face

his brother the night before he would see Esau again, afraid of what would happen. The scriptures

say that he wrestled all night with God and in the morning, God changed his name from Jacob to Israel.

And his name became the name for all the people.

The Israelites. From one God encounter to another were meant to be reminded how long they had been

waiting, how long Israel had been waiting for God's promise to them to pay off, how long joy had been

bottled up. I just wonder if like this whole thing, the way that we think about the Christmas story,

maybe you've lost some of the details of your story too. Maybe some of those details need to

be added back to give it a little joy where it belongs. And I wonder if maybe you have joy

bottled up because the promise has been waiting so long. And I want to say that you're not alone.

I feel this way far too often. I feel fine. I'm good. I'm good. Most of the time I feel truly

content, but I hold joy at bay. And when I think of it, the truth is that I do not

want to feel it for very long

because it's like I don't believe that it will last

because it feels like it's something that always goes away.

Like something always goes wrong.

It reminds me of something that Brene Brown wrote. She asks, why do we insist on dress rehearsing

tragedy in moments of deep joy? And she answers, she says, it's because joy is the most vulnerable

emotion we feel. When we feel joy, it is a place of incredible vulnerability. It is beauty and

fragility and deep gratitude and impermanence all wrapped up in one. Beauty, fragility, gratitude,

impermanence. Joy is difficult to fully embrace because our bodies remember the years of waiting.

And we remember the moments that we felt joy leave.

We remember the moments of exile. We remember the years of pain that we felt, and we tell ourselves

that we don't want to feel joy because we don't want to feel it leave again.

We would rather be just okay to just remember joy for a moment than to actually feel it.

There's moments where I come home and my wife is delighted to see me. It's true.

Every once in a while. And she'll just be in a great mood.

And the truth is that sometimes my body does not know what to do with it.

My brain says rejoice with her. I'm not going to be able to do that. I'm not going to be able to

do that. My brain says rejoice with her. Be happy with her. Delight with her and in her. Brace this

moment. Live in it. But the memories that my body has tells me to resist. Give her a hug. Be good.

Be good. Be even. But I think that Jesus, maybe this is Captain Obvious moment, but I think that

Jesus wants us to feel joy. He wants me to feel joy. And I know this because he told me in a dream.

And I want to tell you about that dream. But if you will, if you're willing to, what I want you to

do is I want you to close your eyes and imagine it with me. Put yourself in it.

And you have permission to let God shape it in the way that your imagination needs to.

This was literally a few nights ago.

In my dream I was in a restaurant.

And I intuitively just felt like I knew the owner. I also felt like I knew of the chef.

But when I sat down at the table I knew that the server didn't know me.

I felt like that was because it was a fancy restaurant. Kind of place that cost a lot. Five

stars. The truth is that I was not dressed for the restaurant. So it felt as though the server

assumed that I would want something simple because I was dressed simply. So they suggested

something like a chicken dish. But I knew that this restaurant had my favorite dish on the menu.

Now I'd never had it there before, but that particular dish was the best thing that I had ever

tasted. But that had been at a different restaurant. It felt like it had been years ago.

And it felt as though nothing had ever lived up to it.

Moments later the chef comes to the table herself.

And she puts in front of me a plate that had what now I think was one fried ravioli.

It was maybe the size of a Post-it note. It was brown. It felt crispy in my hand. Like if I

snapped it, it would break, but it was full of something soft and savory. She stood there watching

me as I could see myself holding it in front of me. And I put it to my mouth and I took one bite

from the corner and I ate it. And I was like, oh my gosh, I'm going to die.

I took one bite from the corner. As I chewed and as it dissolved in my mouth, I began to weep.

It lit up all of my emotions. While I was still in my mouth with tears coming down my face,

I knew that I was crying because it was better. It was the best thing that I ever tasted. And I

wasn't just crying because it was good. I was crying because I had stopped believing that I

would ever taste something this good again. They were tears of relief. They were tears of comfort.

They were tears of delight. And I woke up feeling like they were tears of joy.

And like God was telling me that there is still better.

And even now with your eyes closed,

I want to tell you about a word called anamnesis.

On the night that Jesus was betrayed, he said, when you do this, do this in anamnesis of me.

Do this in remembrance of me. But this word remember does not mean to think of something

that happened one time anamnesis means to remember as though happening again.

Means to remember as though happening again. Remember as though present here.

So here in this moment, before we begin the table, before we move to the Eucharist,

if you would just let the Holy Spirit serve you.

To give you the dish you've been waiting for.

To give you the dish you've been waiting for.

To let the joy that you experienced one time somewhere else sometime before

be literally handed to you on a platter.

And then accept the reality that we are the ones that have to decide whether we will take it.

God in this moment, I pray that you would convince our hearts to reach out and take,

to take and to eat. I'm reminded of the prophet that was told to eat of the scroll,

the scrolls that were covered in words of sorrow, but when he ate it, it tasted sweet like honey.

I pray that today that we would reach out, that we would receive, that we would take, that you would

convince even in our bodies though we have memories of the sorrows and memories of the feeling of joy

leaving, that by your stripes we would be healed.

That our knee-jerk reactions and rejections of your joy would be overcome by your work,

by your beauty, that we would take and eat.

That we would never hunger again. I pray these things in the name of Jesus. Amen.