Sermon for the Third Sunday of Advent, December 17, 2023

Isaiah 61:1-4,8-11+Canticle 15+1 Thessalonians 5:16-24+John 1:6-8.19-28

Tim and I enjoyed a weekend of music last week, starting with a Friday night date to see "Maestro," the story of Leonard Bernstein with an emphasis on his relationship with his wife, Felicia Montealegre. It also, incidentally, includes a scene in which our own Martin Andersen plays viola as part of the 1943 New York Philharmonic in a concert that launched Bernstein's career into the stratosphere. Then on Sunday, we returned to the city to see a few of our own musicians - Josh, Aiko, Julius, and Keith - in a concert of the Glass Menagerie Chorus which featured one of Bernstein's loveliest compositions, the Chichester Psalms.

Composed in 1965 for a commission from the dean of Chichester Cathedral, Bernstein weaves portions of psalms together, sung in Hebrew but with a contemporary feel about them. Probably the most familiar of these settings is the 23rd Psalm. Bernstein starts this with the sweet voice of a child soprano, later joined by others in a lyric and gentle rendering of "The Lord is My Shepherd." But then the lower choral voices intrude with a harsh and menacing Psalm 2, "Why do the nations rage?" As the lyric higher voices return, even as the thundering of the lower voices continues, Bernstein's score notes tell those higher voices to be "blissfully unaware of the threat" that terrorizes them.

"Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances," Paul writes to the Thessalonians (1 Thessalonians 5:16).

"There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light," we just read in John's gospel (John 1:6).

And the prophet Isaiah says to us:

        The spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
  because the Lord has anointed me; 

        he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
  to bind up the brokenhearted, 

        to proclaim liberty to the captives,
  and release to the prisoners; 

        to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.. (Isaiah 61:1-2)

At the time each of these passages were written, it was as if those terrorizing voices encircled these writers speaking of peace and the promise of God's provision, whether the people were in exile or living with the threat of persecution or under the boot of an empire. While it may be difficult to see or hear through the fear the people felt, God had not abandoned them. God's promises were true, and messengers were sent to tell them so, whether Isaiah of Paul or John.    

The voices of these messengers rings down through the centuries even still. On this Gaudete Sunday, as the 3rd Sunday of Advent is called, this Rejoice Sunday, we might look around and be hard pressed to find reasons to rejoice. Wars rage, for sure, both in Ukraine and Gaza and the West Bank. People fleeing terror in their own countries encounter terror of another kind when they try to enter this one. Our public discourse has gone absolutely off the rails as we seem to have lost the ability to understand nuanced positions on everything from higher education to reproductive health care to climate change. There is a constant cacophony raging on the airwaves and social media, making it feel as if we are both helpless to stop it and hopeless at what it all portends for us.

But the voice of the prophets pierces the noise. "The Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring up..." (Isaiah 61:11).

Last week, we were introduced to John the Baptizer at the beginning of Mark's gospel. Given that Mark's introductory material is so sparse, we jump to the gospel of John today, where the baptizing one makes an entrance in the middle of the prologue. Several weeks ago, we heard the Pharisees challenging Jesus's authority, basically asking him just who did he think he was clearing out the money-changers and teaching in the temple. John has a similar question put to him here: Who are you? Are you Elijah? Are you a prophet? No? Then why are you baptizing? John doesn't argue with them or even answer their questions with a question, like Jesus did. When he says, "I baptize with water," he says it as if water is the most unthreatening, innocuous substance in the world. What are y'all so worked up about? This is just water, man. Wait until the one you do not yet know gets going. He's going to baptize with something far more potent than this.

John is announcing good news, even if they don't understand it, wrapped up as they are in protecting themselves and their traditions. They are trapped in fear, which is where a lot of people find themselves these days. Maybe we can't be "blissfully unaware" as Bernstein suggests, but we can hold onto hope and joy. The late Irish poet Seamus Heaney said that "Hope is not optimism, which expects things to turn out well, but something rooted in the conviction that there is good worth working for."[1]

"Hold fast to what is good," is the way Paul put it. "The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do this" (1 Thessalonians 5:21,24).

On this day when that rose candle indicates that it is a day to rejoice, all evidence to the contrary, we can defy the storms that may swirl around us with the sure knowledge that God is faithful, and, along with Leonard Bernstein, "make music more beautifully, more intensely, more devotedly than ever before .”[2]

[1] https://irelandseye.ie/remembering-seamus-heaney-with-some-of-his-most-famous-quotes

[2] https://leonardbernstein.com/about/humanitarian/an-artists-response-to-violence