"JOY IS IN YOU!"

“Raindrops and roses and whiskers on kittens, bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens, bright paper packages tied up with string, these are few of my favorite things!”  Whenever I hear that song, my memory goes back to when I was a child the excitement and anticipation in my heart on Christmas Eve and Santa Claus would be coming to bring me presents.  As a family we opened our gifts on Christmas Day and I was SO happy!  With my toy typewriter, Play Dough Machine and Barbie Doll-- [I don’t think my parents had a clue then], I was set for a life of incredible happiness!!!  Now the song “My Favorite Things” speaks to our childhood wish lists, Christmas treasures and things that make us feel good!  Some of us maybe even wrote to Santa keeping our fingers crossed that he didn’t see our little kid mean streak or hear our evil thoughts when our parents scolded us!

Which brings me to another old time favorite.  “You better watch out; you better not cry, Better not pout; I’m telling you why:  Santa Claus is comin’ to town, He’s making a list and checking it twice; Gonna find out who’s naughty and nice:  Santa Claus is comin’ to town.”  Yeah, I don’t know about you, but I think my parents had it pretty easy in the early years of my life.  Put the fear of “Santa” in me -- and I’d become the perfect angle child!

So here we have the “Childhood” package:  incredible never-ending happiness in getting our gifts and good old Santa telling us what is about to come into our little lives!  And then Reality hits!  Do you know what reality I’m speaking about?  We grew up!   What a bummer!  So now what do we have to look forward to? And if we had the time, It would be interesting to know how many of you here today actually still have those awesome gifts of childhood that you just knew would bring you life-long happiness.  And if you by some chance still have your Barbie doll, Ken doll, drum set and so on, are those things still making your life happy – happy – happy!  Probably NOT!

So what do we have to look forward to now?  Well, here enters our thread barren, dusty, oily haired John The Baptist who unlike Santa with the bright red filled to capacity suit and jolly laugh, comes bearing NOT THINGS, but something else.  John The Baptist comes bearing a testimonial of the anticipation of the Light that is soon to enter into all of humankind.

John, my man where are the things?  Doesn’t he watch TV?  The ads are endless of the promises of happiness if we just bought this or that or traveled to some exotic or fun-filled place!

Why John, we ask in this 21^st century, where are your reindeer, where is your sack filled with goodies and where is the old, HO -HO - HO?!  Don’t you know John, over here is someone whose partner is battling cancer and over here is someone whose parents just disowned them because they spoke the truth about God’s gift of life as a gay person.  Don’t you know John, there are some people who are missing past memories and find it difficult looking to a new year.  Don’t you know John, some of us have financial fears.  Some of us are feeling stressed.  There is someone over there that is longing for someone to come into his or her life to love and build a relationship.  And John, you are just bringing the news of light?  Someone you call, Lord?  We need our “happiness.”

And in addition to John speaking, we hear the prophet Isaiah saying something similar:  “God has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberation to you (and by the way, that is US), who are experiencing captivity of judgment, fear and loneliness.  John is proclaiming comfort to each and every one of you who are grieving the lose of a partner, friend or family member, of a job or the trust of co-workers.

And you who are speaking to us from Isaiah and you John the Baptizer, tell us more about this One who is soon to enter into our lives?   Tell us more of what we have to look forward to.

You know, our THINGS don’t seem to keep the happiness going.  Our things break, wear out, get stolen and loose their luster.

“And the light will break forth into the darkness of our lives.”

God becomes one of us.  God enters into this world with all it’s messiness and fears as a small baby whose voice will be a cry from the manger and then as an adult, the cry we will hear on the cross.  But in that cry there will be unending JOY for us.

You ask, “How can there be JOY in this cry?  Because the cry is real – it has substance – it is life.  This child is called Jesus who will show again as he does over and over and over again every year and during the year, that happiness in things fade, but JOY lasts forever.  The JOY Jesus is speaking about is found in relationships, like our relationship that comes with our God who gave us life.  The JOY of our relationship with Jesus who brings us salvation and makes right what we as humans have sometimes botched up.  The JOY of our relationship with each other, such as the person who opens their home to others who have no one because of being disowned.  The JOY of relationship with each other as found in the person who sits and listens to the same story of heartache and makes the person feel like they are telling it for the first time.  The JOY of relationship with each other as found in the person who embraces the one who feels alone and for the person who has an unselfish giving heart. 

When my father died, my heart felt empty and so very sad and yet at his funeral, there were so many people present that in the midst of my tears there was this sense of JOY that people actually cared and I wasn’t alone.

Joy is not in things.  Happiness might be found in things for a time, but joy is not in things.  Joy is in US!  It is Jesus who lives inside of our hearts that offers the light of hope to another person that brings the potential for unending JOY.  If I were to ask you to remember a time when someone touched YOUR life and made you laugh or gave you the opportunity to hope again or sat with you and offered you tissue after tissue as you cried heart wrenching tears or that you found forgiveness in your heart for someone else or experienced God’s forgiveness for yourself, I would suspect you could pull that memory out and relive it like it just happened.

That relational love and compassion is the JOY I’m speaking about.  This is the JOY the voice from Isaiah is speaking about.  This is the JOY dusty John The Baptist is speaking about in the anticipation of Jesus once again reentering into each of our lives, bringing hope and giving us new life in forgiveness.  Jesus – Emanuel – God with us, who will come into our lives, is whom we are anticipating during Advent.  Jesus is about relationships, gathering us together.  Santa has his place in our lives with the Christmas trees presents and lights.  Raindrops and roses and my favorite things have their place in our lives and they can make us happy -- for a time.  But if it is true that what you want in your life is never-ending JOY, then lift your head, open your heart, tweak your ears and wipe your eyes, for JOY is once again entering into each of your lives.  Emanuel – God with us – Jesus the Christ. Joy is not in things, JOY IS IN YOU!

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