Joy, Unexpected

Transcripts are AI-generated and may not be 100% accurate.

Debbie: Hi everyone. Hard to believe that, like Maggie said, one week from tonight, we will be gathered in this space for Christmas Eve. I don’t know about you guys, but I'm not quite ready for that. But here we are and we are in the middle of Advent and I've been doing a lot of thinking about past Christmases, sort of those moments that have been meaningful. In the Christmas of 2020. It was covid. First time in about two decades that I hadn't been working on a Christmas eve 'cause we couldn't have a Christmas service because of covid. And that night, my family, we gathered together and we decided to do something a little new. We decided that we would all walk some of the streets of South Minneapolis. It was dusk. We thought, oh, let's, let's look at the Christmas lights together. It'd be so beautiful. And it was one of those, um, moments that you couldn't really plan, but it was snowy. The lights were gorgeous. The kids, we only had three grandkids at that time. And the kids as we walk, would roll in the snow. They would, it was so funny. They were eating the snow too while they were at it. But it was one of those beautiful holy moments, a real moment of delight. 

But to add to that, what even made the story just a little bit more joyous, a little more fun, was um, that night we decided—first time ever—we're gonna do takeout for our Christmas Eve dinner. And so my husband Steve had his phone with them because we were waiting a for a call from Famous Dave's Barbecue. They were gonna be delivering at any moment. So we were all waiting for that. And Steve knew he'd have to run back to our house to meet the delivery person. 

So little context, which is important to the story. Steve also has an Uncle Dave, uncle Dave in Chicago. Never once has he had a phone conversation over the years of our marriage, but we would see Uncle Dave at the family reunions every five or six years. But Uncle Dave had had bout of covid that fall, ended up in the hospital, almost died. But unbeknownst to us because he was so grateful that he was alive and living, he was calling all of his nieces and nephews just to like celebrate life.

So here we are, we're on this walk and the phone rings and Steve looks at everyone and goes, Hey, it's gotta be famous Dave's. And he picks up the phone, we hear him say, well, yes, hello Uncle Dave. And he puts the phone down. He goes, oh my gosh, this is the best customer service ever. Dave is calling me from Famous Dave’s. True story. He really believed it. And a few minutes later at the I hear him talking, he's like, oh, uncle Dave. True story you guys. But it was truly one of those Christmas eves that is a wonderful, joyful memory for our family. One you couldn't have planned. 

But, um, we are an advent and we've been doing this series called Watch for the Light. We've talked about hope, we've talked about peace. Tonight we're talking about joy. And one of the things I wanted to say was, every time that Matt preaches, he always starts his sermons off with “who you are is more important than what you do even if what you do gets more intention than who you are.” And I love that. And I was thinking about that and didn't realize until, oh, someone at one of our women at the table gatherings, um, said, one of the things I appreciate is the teamwork of Debbie and Matt. 'cause Matt always reminds us that who we are is more important. And you always remind us of the both/and of life. And I went, ah, I'm gonna say that tonight. Because you know what, it's really, um, pertinent to what we're talking about, that we always hold that both/and together. That when we hold joy, we're often also holding sorrow. 

So we're in this series called Watch for the Light. Um, we're talking about joy and I wanted to take a moment, take a piece from Matt's sermon last week. 'cause I've loved it so much because isn't that what advent's about is just pausing for a moment, just paying attention for a moment. So I'm gonna take just 30 seconds and if you're comfortable, shut your eyes. And I'd love for you all to think about a moment of joy, a time you've experienced joy, what that felt like, what it looked like. So just take a moment for that. [piano music]

Thank you. We're talking about an advent kind of joy tonight. A joy that's different. And regardless of what's happening in our lives, joy can, and it does show up somehow, some way it shows up in the most unlikely situations. So we're in the gospel of Luke. If you remember a few weeks ago when Matt was talking about hope, he told us a little bit about Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth. Elderly, dealt with years of infertility. And outta the blue, an angel comes to Zechariah and says, good news, you're gonna bear a son. And Elizabeth gets pregnant and they end up being the parents of John the Baptist. 

Well, we're moving on a little bit further in the story. And that same angel comes to Elizabeth's cousin Mary, good news to this young unwed mother Mary, who was engaged to Joseph and says, you will conceive a son and he will be called Jesus. And so Mary gets that news and she heads out for a visit with cousin Elizabeth. Here we are in the book of Luke: 

At that time, Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea where she entered Zechariah's home and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. And in a loud voice, she exclaimed, blessed are you among women and blessed is the child that you bear. But why am I so favored that the mother of my Lord should come to me? And as soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord will fulfill his promises to her. 

So here we have Elizabeth that I'm kind of assuming is still grappling with this miraculous pregnancy. And she gets a visit, kind of could assume it's a surprise visit. There weren't a lot of ways to communicate then that you were taking a road trip. But she gets a surprised visit from her unmarried cousin, pregnant and unmarried, who had just learned of her own miraculous pregnancy. And I think about what they must have experienced as disbelief and uncertainty and maybe even fear. Imagine those circumstances. An elderly woman like Elizabeth getting ready to give birth an unwed woman like young woman like Mary, who has just been told that she will have a baby. 

And knowing that in the culture back then, that the minute Joseph would've said, Hey, I'm not gonna, I'm gonna break this engagement. She would've been shunned. She would've been excommunicated from community. Imagine those circumstances for those women, yet the baby and Elizabeth's womb leapt with joy at the sound of Mary's voice. But here's the thing, it wasn't the circumstances that caused the joy or the reaction of the unborn baby. The reaction was caused by the presence of God. And despite experiencing what must have seemed impossible, despite the complicated circumstances of Mary's pregnancy, they both were filled with the surprising, um, presence of joy. And that my friends, is the work of the Holy Spirit. 

The story, what it does is it reminds us that joy is not the absence of fear or disbelief or uncertainty or sorrow. That joy exists despite all the reasons that it absolutely shouldn't. And what I love is that Elizabeth's joy is not a joy that escapes the reality of life, but it actually embraces it. And here's what I love about joy. Joy is so often unexpected. It's unplanned. It's often, um, uninvited it, it's often mysterious. And I love that about joy. And the thing about joy is, is that it is wired into who we are. We are created to be beings that experience joy. I think sometimes we just need to watch for it. [Video of Debbie’s husband Steve throwing a ball to their grandson and him giggling hysterically] 

It is that joy. It is that joy that is wired deep inside of each and every one of us. And it certainly doesn't take much sometimes to experience that kind of joy. Here's what Kate Bowler has to say about joy. Kate Bowler is a professor, a podcaster, an author, and she says this from her book, The Season of Waiting: 

“Here and now at the intersection of all that has gone before and all that is yet to come. I would like to say to you that there is something for which you were made it. It is the thing that seems to make you forget yourself. Even as you become more and more alive in it, something rises up in you and you get an inkling that maybe just maybe, this is why you were born. It's the oxygen that makes it possible to keep going. That is joy. You're fortified by it because you are a being that was made to metabolize joy.”

There is a rightness in joy. Joy comes in relationships and through experiences, through our stories that are woven together in this beautiful, beautiful way. And I think it's in the melding of our own spirit with the spirit of God in us that brings us that inner joy that expands and stretches our hearts and our souls. And in some ways it seems really simple and in other ways it seems mysterious. But it is a joy. It's a joy that is about the experience of God. It's about God's faithfulness. It's about God's presence in our life. 

You know, I think the important thing about joy, and it's just like hope. It's just like peace. It isn't about the circumstances always. Because if it was, and Matt and I have talked about this, we wouldn't be experiencing any of those things very often because guess what? Life is hard. There's a lot of crummy things going on in our world and a lot of people that are hurting and are discouraged and are sick and are grieving joy, ultimately isn't about our circumstances. 

And I couldn't give this message without talking about Lynn Giovannelli. And for a very good reason. Because a part of who she was was participating in joy. There wasn't a time that I met with Lynn that we didn't talk about joy. And in the last few months of her life, when her body was failing and we were having long, hard, holy conversations about life and death and eternal life and what's next and how do we do this now, there wasn't a time that she didn't say to me, “I experience joy every day.” Days before she died she said that to me. 

And for the months leading up to her death, one of the things that she and I would do, I'd bring my little round speaker, we'd play the music that we'd love to listen to some of it for her service tomorrow will be celebrating her life tomorrow over at Christ Presbyterian Church. But she'd love to listen to worship music. Sometimes we'd sing it to each other. And then when she could no longer sing, we just listened to it. And days before she died, we were playing one of her favorite worship songs and she could no longer talk. So with her eyes, she typed out on her computer screen, “raise my arm” and her caregiver Susan was sitting next to her. I was on one side, she was in the other. She raised her arm in the air like this. and we listened to these words (Living Hope by Phil Wickham): 

Who could imagine so great a mercy?

What heart could fathom such boundless grace?

The God of ages stepped down from glory

To wear my sin and bear my shame

The cross has spoken, I am forgiven

The king of kings calls me His own

Beautiful savior, I'm yours forever

Jesus Christ, my living hope

Hallelujah, praise the one who set me free

Hallelujah, death has lost its grip on me

You have broken every chain

There's salvation in your name

Jesus Christ, my living hope

With arms raised, all three of us, and tears streaming down our face. We experienced a joy in that moment that didn't have anything to do with Lynnie’s circumstances. It had everything to do with the experience of God. Somehow, some way joy happens, even in the most unlikely circumstances. 

I love the candle reading. I love the part where they said God of delight remind us that our purpose in life is not to produce, but to participate in joy. So I leave you with very simple, a simple question tonight:where might you participate in joy? 'cause no matter what is going on in your lives, joy can break in. It will break in. And joy is a sign of the presence and the love of God. The reminder that God is still working, he's still making good on his promises. And so whatever your story, whatever your season, joy is yours for the taking. And in the words of Lynn Giovannelli, you can take that to the bank. 

I'm gonna close in honor of Lynn with a Kate Bowler blessing: 

Blessed are we who wait with bated breath. who wait for something new to be born–for new hope or new joy or new life. 

Blessed are we whose patience grows thinner by the day. we who are tired of the world as it is—in all of its heartache and loss and hopelessness. We who want more. More hope. More joy. More life

Blessed are we who sit here, to wait at the still point between desire and expectation. we who are making room for more of You, oh God, this advent.

Surprise us with joy in the midst of the mundane, abundance in the midst of so much scarcity, presence in the midst of the Christmas chaos. 

We have quieted our souls to listen, to wait for you, o God, for your Word-Made-Flesh is life to us. Amen.