How Does a Weary World Rejoice? We acknowledge our weariness. (Advent series, week 1)
In the way that the Christian church marks time, Advent is the beginning of a new year. At the beginning of each new church year, there are four Sundays set aside to lead us to Bethlehem, where a confused young couple will welcome a new baby who is our Emmanuel, God with us.
We begin Advent here at Faith a week earlier than the traditional calendar this year – so if you are a traditionalist and are confused, bear with me. We are doing this so that we can really savor each week of preparation without rushing to Christmas….without crunching the fourth Sunday of Advent and Christmas Eve into the same worship services on December 24. It’s a weird year. But hey…we’ve had a few weird years in a row now, so I find myself asking, what is normal and traditional these days?
This year in Advent, we are exploring what it means for a weary world to REJOICE. Let’s face it - the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas can feel like a season of imposed happiness, celebration, consumption, levity, abundance, and action. But in reality, there is a lot of other stuff under the surface – overwhelm, scarcity, fear, grief, anger, weariness. Yes, we live in a weary world.
There is work to do if indeed a weary world is to rejoice.
To rejoice is to show great joy.
In her book Atlas of the Heart, author and social work educator Brené Brown defines joy as “an intense feeling of deep spiritual connection, pleasure, and appreciation.” She cites work by researcher Matthew Kuan Johnson that suggest that “people find experiences of joy difficult to articulate.” He suggests that joy is so complicated, so layered, so complex that language is too limited to fully describe the experience of joy.
Brown’s research reveals a spiral between gratitude and joy in which gratitude predicts future experiences of joy and joy predicts future experiences of gratitude…cycling over and over, drawing us into greater and deeper experiences of joy and thanksgiving.
As I reflect on this, I am aware that my practice of gratitude began in a very dark space in my life. Seventeen years ago, in the midst of a major life upheaval, I disciplined myself to name 5 things each day for which I was grateful… I feel like I can look at my life experience and affirm Brown’s research – indeed, it was the spiral between gratitude and joy that lifted me out of a dark place.
I don’t want to leave you with the impression that we are striving for a dizzying spiral of constant positive emotion - dizzy with only gratitude and joy. Because I kind of think that gratitude necessarily comes from a place of awareness of things at ARE NOT perfect.
Reference the weary world in which we find ourselves today.
Marked by war.
Marked by poverty.
Marked by health crises.
Marked by frail human bodies and spirits.
A weary world rejoicing is a world that finds itself returning to joy or finding joy again. A weary world rejoicing presupposes that we have to go some emotional distance from where we are at times to reconnect with joy that we have some prior experience with. To rejoice is to reconnect with a deep feeling of spiritual connection.
And so…in these four weeks of Advent, we are going to explore the nativity story told in Luke’s gospel. We’re going to remember the characters whose lives were affected by the promised coming of the Messiah. We are going to look at their weariness to understand their joy – and perhaps find some of our own along the way.
Luke’s first chapter begins by setting important context. And as Janice has prepared us so well, we know that every text has a vital context.
We are introduced to Zechariah, a priest in the line of Abijah…”in the days of King Herod.”
In the days of King Herod, the geographic region of Palestine was occupied by Rome. While this was an historic age known as the Pax Romana because of an unprecedented season without wars, the reality was that Rome held power through a network of client kings and regional governors who oppressed historic inhabitants of the land with heavy taxes and an economy that robbed families of land holdings.
Peace for Rome did not mean peaceful and easy lives for those living under its occupation.
Within the geographic region, there were different religious, tribal, and ethnic identities – the Jewish people were one group. Within the Jewish community, there was a hierarchical religious infrastructure. We know from the text that Zechariah was a priest – in the line of Abijah – one of 24 orders laid out during King David’s rule. Above him in the religious pecking order were other elite religious leaders – and those leaders were scrambling to stay in the good graces of local Roman authorities. King Herod had a way of appointing religious leaders who were aligned with his interests and worldview. When the deck was shuffled up the hierarchy, it likely made things complicated for priests like Zechariah further down the ranks.
Zechariah’s priestly duties would have included caring for his local community and teaching about the law and the sacred writings. He would travel to Jerusalem twice a year to spend one week fulfilling the Temple duties for his particular priestly line. There he would see the luxury that other priests above him in the hierarchy enjoyed – the way they feasted on the rich foods offered, they ornately attired vestments they wore.
And then he would return to his local community – one where there was hunger and hardship and foreclosure and ruin. He would minister to the pain of the local people, and in order to keep bread on his own table, he would likely labor alongside them in the olive groves or the threshing room.
In Luke’s gospel, Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth are described and righteous and blameless. Their names offer some clues for us – Zechariah is a name meaning God remembers and Elizabeth means God’s promise.
But they have not had children – Elizabeth is described as barren.
So in a culture where having a family is seen as a blessing received in return for righteousness, there is something painfully missing in the couple’s life. It must have weighed on them as they aged – left without an heir, left without a child to take care of them in their old age, left to wonder why God had not blessed them with a child of their own.
Zechariah has been chosen by casting lots – by a game of chance if you will – to serve in a special role during his week at the Temple. Priests were entered into this game of chance because they had not served in this way before – so this was likely a once in a lifetime opportunity to serve this way.
In this chosen role, he would enter the sanctuary and either clean the ash from burned incense or place new incense on the altar – a commanded ritual undertaken by the chosen priests on behalf of the people who were gathered outside praying on that day.
So Zechariah is in the temple, in his chosen role, praying and prostrating himself, going about the duties he is honored with on that particular day when an angel appears before him and says:
“Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will name him John…”
Now…for just a moment, let’s put ourselves in Zechariah’s shoes. It is a big day. I suspect the inner sanctuary is hazy and fragrant from the incense that has burned there over centuries. The work is ritualistic and special and once in a lifetime, so there is probably some pressure to do it all right. Perhaps we can assume that when Zechariah prostrated himself in prayer, he lamented that he had no son of his own.
Can you imagine the anxiety. The grief. The fear. The pent-up frustration. The weariness.
Zechariah’s very first response to the angel is, “How can I know that this will happen?”
…because you see, he had seen years of disappointment…
He probably wasn’t really expecting God to show up and show off after so many years. Like Abraham, he’d probably grown a little impatient…a little weary of being righteous without the blessing of a child of his own.
In return for his doubt, or perhaps for his skepticism (it’s hard to read tone in the text) the angel Gabriel renders him speechless “until the day these things occur.”
Finished with his ritual duty prayers at the altar, Zechariah was supposed step out on to the porch to pronounce the traditional blessing on those who gathered to pray:
May the Lord bless you and keep you.
The Lord make his fact to shine upon you and be gracious unto you.
The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.
And everyone outside below the porch would expect him to do that.
They awaited that blessing.
It was what always happened.
But on the porch, looking out over the people, Zechariah was speechless.
And when his service ended, he returned home to Elizabeth.
To his village.
To his life.
He arrived silently.
Unable to speak as he waited to see if there really would be a baby at last.
I wonder if Zechariah’s weariness shaped his response to the angel Gabriel.
I wonder how Zechariah felt returning to Elizabeth.
I wonder what Zechariah saw or heard or felt differently while unable to speak.
I wonder how silence changed Zechariah’s life as he waited.
Today, as we ponder how a weary world might rejoice, let’s acknowledge our weariness.
Let’s pay attention to how our weariness shapes our response to God’s action in our midst.
Maybe we need a season of silence while we watch and wait.
Restore us, O Lord God of hosts;
let your face shine, that we may be saved.
May it be so.
Amen.
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