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Sermon - Third Sunday of Advent (C) - 13th December 2009
St Aidan's Anglican Church West Epping 8:30am
Readings: Zephaniah 3:14-20; Philippians 4:4-7; Luke 3:7-18
A traditional Christmas carol begins, “Deck the halls with boughs of holly.” Then there are some “Fa, la, las.” Then the next line goes “Tis the season to be jolly.” And I began to wonder about that. Just how jolly is this season? There’s not a lot to be jolly about. Its much harder this time of year to find parking at the shopping centres. And once you’ve eventually got inside, they are usually full of people. Its harder to browse around the shops, and there is always that last uncle or nephew who is impossible to buy for. You can only give so many socks. So there is not a lot to be jolly about at this time of year. Rather, this season is full of stress and unhappiness. How do we stay happy during this difficult time?
In Holland, there is a university where these things are studied. They conduct happiness research. They try to work out who are the happiest people and what makes them happy. They have mixed results. For example, they found that the poorest people on the planet are also very unhappy. That’s not surprising. But they found the reverse was not true. They surveyed the richest people and discovered they were not the happiest. So wealth is no guarantee of a happy life. Surprisingly, they found that the Dutch were among the happiest people on earth. When you consider what a flat country it is, with grey skies most of the year, there wouldn’t be much to be happy about. Yet their studies have given consistent results.
But research into happiness has also produced some confusing results. For example, in countries that are considered to be quite happy, they also have a high rate of suicide. So, though many people are happy, some still have problems. Among some of the ex-Soviet Union satellite countries, even though they are poor, they still report being quite happy. For those who keep statistics, they have found that a person’s own disposition accounts for almost 50% of factors determining whether a person is happy or not. Some people see the glass as half empty. Some see it as half full. Apparently, your situation in life accounts for only 15% of factors influencing whether you are happy or not.
That reminded me of a man I visited in hospital once who had had both feet amputated. I asked how he was managing. He said he’d faced worse crises in his life and still managed to survive. For example, he had been a prisoner of the Germans for four years. He said if he could survive that he could get through this. He was amazing. And this matches the university results. Researchers have discovered we can do lot to influence our own levels of happiness. We have a lot of freedom to choose how happy we want to be.
I raise this because two of our readings this morning carry with them a command to be happy. From what has been discovered in these studies in happiness we now know it is possible to obey those commands. We can read the command from Philippians where Paul tells us to rejoice and we can reject it by saying “I’m not that type of person. I don’t have much to rejoice about.” But perhaps we should pause, and take seriously this command to be a rejoicing people. It’s not a command that just comes out of the blue. A few years ago there was a song on the radio where the main message was “Don’t worry – be happy.” But there was no good reason given for being happy. But earlier in Philippians Paul tells us of God’s love for us, how that love has been put into action and what the eternal consequences of that love is for us. His point is that we have every good reason to rejoice because of the great hope we have been given. And so, in the light of that hope Paul raises the question of “how should we live?”
One option is to live as if we never received that good news. In the Philippian church there was a problem between two members – “Euodia and Syntyche.” They were at war with each other. But was it wise to live like that considering the great hope they had been given. Imagine you win Lotto and you receive millions of dollars. Is it still appropriate to complain about the cost of petrol, or of groceries? Is it still appropriate to complain that nothing good ever happens to you? It makes no sense. And so, because of the hope the Philippians had been given in Christ, Paul explains how they should live. First, rejoice always. Always rejoicing because they are always the receivers of the gifts of God. Second, he calls on them to be gentle with one another. That is, we copy the behaviour of Jesus in his love for us. His gentleness is an example to us, so that is how we should treat others.
Third, he says we shouldn’t be anxious about anything. It can be hard not to be anxious when there are so many things to worry about. But if we remember who is Lord over all of creation, and if we remember his great love for us then there is less to be anxious about. I think about 99% of the things we worry about never really happen so maybe we don’t have a good reason to worry. Rather, Paul suggests we deal with our anxiety through prayer. That through our prayers and petitions we hand over to God the things we are worried about. But we need to remember that all these instructions come under the command to rejoice and to continue rejoicing. And the reason to rejoice is because of the good news we have received.
But amazingly, that is the same message in our gospel reading. At first glance it might not look like it. It looks like all doom and gloom. There we read of some grim warnings from John the Baptist. In verse 9 we read, “The axe is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.” It sounds like judgment is very close. Or we have verse 17 “His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” Again another frightening picture. Here we have John the Baptist announcing that God’s messiah is coming to Israel. Some how he knew the Messiah was very close.
But at one level, John doesn’t know what he is talking about. He has been given the job of announcing the coming of the Messiah but he really doesn’t know what that will mean for Israel. So he draws on Old Testament language and he is speculating on what that will mean for Israel. For him it means that all those who are going wrong, who are oppressing the weak, will face stiff justice. And all those who are faithful to God will be blessed. This is why Luke can call John’s message the “Good News”. This is why Israel can rejoice in this good news, even though it won’t be good news for everyone. John is describing a day of justice, so it is bad news for those who have profited from exploitation. But it is good news for those who are being exploited. It is bad news for those who do wrong, but good news for those who love justice. It is a picture of God putting the world to rights, and its good news if you are on the side of the right and bad news if you aren’t. In a world where the wrong people seemed to be in power and the good suffered, it is a message of hope that the mess would be sorted out and the good would be rewarded.
In his autobiography, Victor Frankl tells of the last days before the end of the war. He had been in a concentration camp for several years because he was a Jew. In the last few weeks he was moved to a new camp. He knew the American army was not too far away. But the German who ran the camp looked after them. There was little food but this man bought food for the camp from his own purse. Other Jews in the camp feared for this man’s life when the Americans arrived. They wanted to thank him for his generosity. This man hadn’t shared in the cruelty that others had shown them. So they hid him in the forest when the Americans arrived. They explained to the officers how this German had helped them and preserved them till the end of the war. So the Americans agreed to look after him and his life was spared. It could have been a terrible unjust end, but they acted so the story would end with good news. They made sure justice was done.
And this is what we celebrate in this Advent Season. We could be discouraged by what is wrong in this world. Yet we need to remember what is right and the God who is putting this world right. The Christmas story is just the first episode of a long running series, and yet even now we know how the story will end. We may flinch when we read John’s harsh words, yet we live in a world that cries out for justice and is never satisfied. Advent reminds us of the Lord of history, of his first coming, and of his return when he comes with justice, to a new heaven and new earth, because the old things will have passed away.