Joy As a Crown - Isaiah 35:1-10 (Advent 3A)

    

        Let me start out this morning with what seems to be an obvious question - we are about two weeks from Christmas - how many of you are FILLED to the BRIM with JOY? Now, we are an authentic community, so let’s be real with one another - is there anyone here who can say they are overflowing with joy that we can come to you to be filled? 

It’s hard not to have your heart be moved by our scripture today - this whole 35th chapter of Isaiah. Even the title makes our ears perk up a little bit - the Joy of the Redeemed. Well, I’d like to be redeemed, and I’ll have some of that joy too, please? I’m pretty sure that’s what we are all doing here. Starting with this scene in the desert, that this land will be GLAD, and rejoice and blossom. Why? Because the Lord is coming. The barren, the weak, the scared, the sick, all will be redeemed. They will be able to wear this joy as a crown. Verse 10, especially the end, is one that I’d like to sear into my memory banks - “They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.” What a beautiful picture that is! 

Let’s also think about the context this is taking place in. So God’s people are released from bondage in Egypt with the help of Moses, then they’re wandering around for years and years. They’ve had a number of good kings, and then a number of bad kings, and things are starting to still be on the downward slide because both of their neighbors Assyria and Babylon have their eyes on conquering the Israelite people. So, in the midst of all of this, Isaiah has a vision, and this is a poem that helps give hope and joy to the people who are sorely in need of some good news. 

If you read the previous chapter too, it gives a different description of a land called Edom. Now, Edom is a different neighbor to the Israelites, and they are prophesied by Isaiah to go from prosperous to destruction. If we read these chapters together, we can get a real sense that God’s judgment on Edom is a direct line to God’s favor to Israel. Given that context, it’s hard to read that. It makes it a little uncomfortable because we would rather rejoice with Israel than to acknowledge that it comes with the sacrifice of Edom’s wickedness. Surely, there must be a way for all to receive deliverance. 

Deliverance can come by doing something new. God is doing a new thing here - and Isaiah is proclaiming that some of these old hopes with the need for new ones. They may have to do things they have never done before, they may have to step out in faith. 

Thinking about our speaker this morning and the people Church World Service serves, it makes me wonder how I got here. It reminded me of a book I recently read called, “Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger” - I featured it in the November newsletter. Anyway - there was a quote in it that may get to the heart of this. The people that are in the Church World Service program, they’re not so different from us. They wake up, get dressed, and have aches and pains. They have hopes and dreams, fears and sorrows, prayers and complaints. But when someone came to them and said, I can help you with a better life. I can help you get some extra income with these chickens, or I could help get you fresh water, or I could help you clean up after that hurricane. And in that next moment, there is an obvious choice. Do you say yes or no? Depending on how stubborn you are, the answer could be no. Your family has been on a certain land for generations, and no one else is coming in here to try and push me and my family off my land. That is kind of a western idea, but I’m sure in the developing world, that idea is unfortunately becoming more common. But to say yes, you open yourself up to a shift in your world. Sure, it could be about a chicken, or a well, or what have you… Or it could be about a relationship. A relationship which can be more than anything you ever dreamed, especially if there is a connection with Christ in the middle. The chickens could create a way for sustainable nutrition or even income through farming. The well could reduce disease and provide clean source of water which is so life giving. We take so much for granted in this country what it’s like having clean water whenever we want it. 

Deliverance can come through water. Water and the spirit, just as it did for Moses, and for Jesus. 

Denise Anderson wrote, “Joy acts as an antidote to despair. Joy is not the same thing as happiness. Happiness may be temporary - fleeting - based on circumstances. Joy needs no particular situation or series of events and no one’s permission to exist. it doesn’t need to be accommodated. It can be present at all times and in all circumstances. Joy helps us stay when we are surrounded by that which might drag us into despair. It sustains us in times such as today when we have far more questions than answers. Claiming (and reclaiming) joy is an act of holy resistance. In the midst of our despair, the Spirit helps us retain our joy”. 

Let me leave you with this. God is coming… Emmanuel will be here. Unlike the other guy, God is not bringing a large sack full of goodies but offering deliverance through new life, liberation from sin and oppression,  and the freedom to live as God intended: in loving relationship with God’s creation. If that’s what this new home looks like after living in the barren desert, how are you preparing for it? How might your Advent preparation look different if there was transformation when the Christ child came? 

We want to crown Jesus king of kings and lord of lords, as the Messiah chorus goes. But what he wanted to crown YOU with joy - joy that does not change for circumstance, is not subject to the whims and fancy of emotion, but is deep within you? Are you willing to say yes to what the road of faith has in store for you? I hope so. We need you to come with us. Will you follow Jesus? 

Amen.