Reflection for the Third Sunday of Advent

“Rejoice always,

pray without ceasing,

give thanks in all circumstances;

this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”

Amen.

This Sunday the children and youth of our congregations will be working together to present their Christmas pageant. This year’s pageant tells the Christmas story through the eyes of a candymaker, telling a mythological story of how the candy cane came about: the white candy to remind us of Christ’s purity, the stripes to remind of how he suffered, the cane shape to remind us of the Good Shepherd, and the hardness to remind us that Christ is our Rock. These children have been working hard to prepare to present this pageant. They have practiced on Sunday afternoons, and are ready to share what they have learned.

As our Advent season passes the halfway point, what have we learned? What have we heard, seen, encountered? What have these two-plus weeks taught us about waiting, about looking forward, about what is to come?

In our readings for Advent we hear the call of John the Baptist, we hear Isaiah’s promises about the coming Messiah. We hear promise and hope and expectation.

From Paul, our second reading, which is quoted above, we hear more about how to prepare, and it is all simple, beautiful stuff.

Rejoice, always.

Rejoicing isn’t always easy. It isn’t always easy to take the breath, the time, in the midst of “to do” lists and shopping and cleaning and preparing. It isn’t always easy to stop and rejoice. And yet, that’s not what we’re being asked. Rejoice, always. Not, “stop and rejoice,” but “rejoice, always.” In all you do, be joyful. Again, not always easy, but not something we have to see as disconnected from everything else we do.

Pray without ceasing.

Hear again the continual nature of this call. “Pray without ceasing,” Paul urges us. In all we do, during all we do, in the midst and breath and moments of all we do, pray.

Give thanks in all circumstances.

Another one that we can easily come up with excuses for not doing, and yet isn’t so difficult after all. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Not so difficult.

This is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

It is the will of God that we be in relationship with God. After all, that’s what rejoicing, praying, and giving thanks all have in common. God just wants to love us, that we may love God, and love each other.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.