"How does a weary world rejoice?"

 “How Does a Weary World Rejoice?”

Luke 1:5-22

Sermon by the Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

Nov. 26, 2023

Advent is, perhaps, the strangest season in the Church calendar. The aisles at Target and Walmart have been decked since Halloween. The organized among us have already begun their Christmas shopping. The big, festive tree is twinkling downtown. And there are few things more joy-filled than watching the excitement of a child as they peel open their Advent calendar each morning. 

Advent is, at its most basic, the season of preparation for Christmas. In some churches worship leaders are adamant about not letting any Christmas sneak in (they would be horrified by our pre-Christmas pageant). Traditionally, it’s a somber kind of waiting. A quiet, still time. The texts in the Revised Common Lectionary are mostly full of gloom and doom - heavy on the apocalyptic, in fact. 

Which is to say - it’s a strange season. No wonder it's one of the seasons that the Church has mostly kept to itself. You don’t see many people outside sending Advent cards or cooking up festive Advent dishes. I suppose Advent calendars are the exception - but, hey: behold the power of chocolate. 

Unlike Lent, we’re not necessarily called to a time of fasting or leaning into our spiritual practices. Instead, we’re just called to wait. That’s pretty much what Advent is all about. Just waiting. 

Waiting, of course, happens in all kinds of ways. There’s the impatient waiting at a bus stop or traffic light. There’s the expectant waiting of parents-to-be or longtime-parents waiting for their child to come home during a school break. There’s the very prescribed waiting of precisely 15 minutes for the results of a rapid COVID test. There’s the giddy waiting of, well, Christmas Eve - ears perked up for reindeer hooves on the roof. Waiting can also carry a sense of dread when we know something challenging or very unpleasant is on the horizon. And, of course, there’s urgent waiting like willing the ambulance to come faster or for payday to arrive before the pantry is bare. 

This Advent we are traveling alongside our companions at A Sanctified Art as we explore the theme they’ve created for us: “how does a weary world rejoice?” Who wants to earn a round of applause by naming the hymn that line comes from? _______ That’s right. It’s from O Holy Night, written in the 19th century. The full line is “A thrill of hope - the weary world rejoices.” And so we see these three tied together intimately - hope, weariness, and joy. 

Today’s passage from the first chapter of Luke holds all three of those together. In her book, The First Advent in Palestine, author Kelley Nikondeha paints a picture of Zechariah, the priest. Zechariah lived in a land that had always existed at the crossroads of many cultures and, as such, had almost always been at war. In the time of Zechariah, though, there was peace. But the Pax Romana was a strange kind of peace. It was a silence-filled, surface-level peace that only existed because the Roman Empire ruled vast swaths of land with an iron fist.  

Zechariah, from his vantage point as a priest, saw beneath the veneer of the Pax Romana. He saw the inequality, the desperation, the fear that lurked just below the surface. He saw that most people outside the capital and outside the 1% didn’t feel much peace at all. And it was his place to straddle these contradictory worlds - traveling each year from his home among average people to the capital to rub shoulders with the elite.

Nikondeha explains:

In his priestly role, Zechariah served his village most days by teaching the Law, the Prophets, and other sacred writings. He offered counsel and comfort. But week to week, he also needed to find other work to supplement the small stipend he received from the temple.He likely farmed—planting, pruning, harvesting, and even laboring at the threshing floor and oil press in hard years. His aging body probably struggled to work enough to earn enough. A son’s help would have been such a blessing in this unforgiving landscape. From Zechariah’s vantage point, a chasm existed between the people in his village and the temple elites. Every time he traveled to Jerusalem for his annual week of service, he witnessed the disparity: the ornate clothes, the well-appointed homes inside the city walls, the easy access to power. [1] 

And so, Advent begins with this paradox and complexity in the background. And with a story of waiting. Zechariah spent his time waiting in silence for his son to be born. And his wife, Elizabeth, waited with another pregnant woman, her cousin Mary. 

In this story we see those three strands of our Advent braid woven together: hope, weariness, joy. All of those things can be present in our waiting, can’t they? Sometimes even at the same time. 

Lisle Gwynn Garrity, one of the founders of A Sanctified Art has this to say about the ways these emotions can co-mingle. 

I distinctly remember the first time I laughed after my grandmother died. I was standing in my kitchen when joy interrupted my mourning like a loud dinner guest. Almost immediately, I felt ashamed. This is no time for joy, I thought. As I processed my emotional dissonance, I wondered why I felt so uncomfortable by joy’s intrusion. When did I decide that joy didn’t belong with my grief? Who told me that joy is selfish? Wouldn’t my grandmother love to hear the sound of my laughter? I’ve decided that joy is a companion emotion. Almost always, it comes alongside other feelings: excitement, sadness, exhaustion, relief, apprehension. It’s also a transformative emotion; joy changes you. It can shift your perspective. It can bring warmth to those around you. It will certainly lighten your load. And so, this Advent season, if you ever find yourself thinking, ‘this is no time for joy,’ then I hope you’ll reconsider. I hope you’ll allow joy to be your surprise guest. [2] 

“Joy is a companion emotion. Almost always it comes along other feelings.” Isn’t that a beautiful observation? I wonder what it might look like to practice noticing where joy and other emotions co-mingle this Advent season?

(pause)

Of course, sometimes Joy can be downright impossible to find. And that, too, is okay. The Rev. Anna Strickland, also a part of the Sanctified Art team shares this intimate look at how difficult in can be to find joy in some seasons of our lives:

My first pregnancy was due just days before Christmas. I imagined giving birth amidst the singing of ‘Joy to the World,’ but nine weeks into the pregnancy—the Wednesday after Mother’s Day—I miscarried. I spent the long Texas summer mourning the loss. By the time December finally came, I was four months pregnant with a daughter who would be born on Easter. As I prepared the nursery that winter, my joy was interrupted by a wave of grief for the child I never met, the child who would have been arriving in days, not months. In the midst of what everyone saw as a joyous season, for me there was this hidden pain I felt I needed to tuck away. My grief felt so unearned, but so did my joy. So if you are weary this season, if you feel like joy is out of reach, undeserved, or fleeting, if your pain is tucked away in the closet with the Christmas presents, I hope you’ll find comfort sitting with Mary, Zechariah, and the shepherds as angels bring their greetings of ‘Do not fear.’  [2] 

Amidst the deep pain in our lives, joy can sometimes feel a bridge too far. I wonder, if that’s the case for you this year, what it would be like to earnestly seek comfort during Advent? And how can we support you in that seeking?

(pause)

The story of this Advent question, “how does a weary world rejoice?” has its origin in a pandemic poem. The Rev. Sarah Are Speed, another founder of Sanctified Art, shares this story:

On December 24th, 2021, Omicron was wreaking havoc on New York City. The lines for COVID tests were wrapping around city blocks. Officials were urging people to double-mask. Hospitals were overflowing, and every hour, I received text messages from people saying, ‘I tested positive. I needed someone to know.’ As a pastor in the heart of Midtown, I was washed with fear, anxiety, and grief when I realized that my church would be one of the few Presbyterian churches offering in-person worship that Christmas Eve. Would I be safe? Would people come? Would it feel like Christmas? Once again, COVID was stealing our rituals. Once again, the city was sick. Once again, joy felt out of reach. So I sat down at my computer and wrote a poem titled, ‘How Does a Weary World Rejoice?’ It was an effort to sift through the pain of that day, to still my scattered mind, and to put some words on paper that might serve as breadcrumbs on the way to joy. Two years later, and I’m still asking myself that same question. Fortunately, I have found that our sacred texts provide some answers. How does a weary world rejoice? Day by day, and with God’s help.  [2] 

As we begin this season of Advent waiting - as we seek to braid together hope, weariness, and joy, let’s begin this strange season by receiving the gift of the poem that Rev. Speed wrote on that COVID-filled Christmas Eve. 

“How Does A Weary World Rejoice?”

I think delayed Christmas cards count-

the ones with the haphazard stamps,

mailed three weeks late.

I think the way you get down on all fours 

to be close to your dog 

and your cousin’s baby counts; 

it’s a holy routine. 

I think the way you stretch your body awake 

and breathe deeply when you rise counts;

that’s Yahweh in your lungs. 

I think the extra second you spent 

looking at the sky last night 

and not being afraid to dance counts.

So does giving up your seat on the subway

for someone’s grandfather,

helping her carry the stoller up the stairs,

and running to catch the man who 

dropped his bag in the crosswalk. 

Lighting candles when the sun disappears,

laughing so hard others begin to stare,

and pausing to look at trees every once in a while to say 

“Good job with that one, God”

all definitely counts;

as do mumbled prayers 

and children’s prayers 

and every measure of music. 

How does a weary world rejoice?

I would guess

soul by soul and day by day. 

But if you ask me, 

I bet most all of it counts.   [3] 

NOTES:

[1]  Nikondeha, Kelley. The First Advent in Palestine: Reversals, Resistance, and the Ongoing Complexity of Hope (p. 36). Broadleaf Books. Kindle Edition. 

[2] Sanctified Art theme materials, http://sanctifiedart.org

[3] https://www.writingthegood.com/post/177-how-does-a-weary-world-rejoice