Hadley Kifner
“A Weary World Rejoices”
December 1, 2024
Isaiah 9:2-7
PREPARATION FOR THE READING
Blessed Thanksgiving Sunday to you…
…And Happy New Year!
Today is Dec. 1 and the first day of Advent.
“According to the church calendar,
the first day of Advent is the first day of the new year.”
While the world orients itself around calendar years (January to December),
or fiscal years (July to June),
or academic years (August to June),
the church keeps time according to the liturgical year.
The liturgical year is a cycle of seasons and holy days that structure
the worship and life of the Christian community.
It commemorates the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ
and the events of salvation history.
Today, we kick off the new year with a sermon series for Advent.
For the next four weeks, we will re-imagine
the familiar events of Jesus’ life,
pay attention to God’s continued pattern
of entering into our time and history,
and be drawn into the embrace
of God’s incarnational love.”
We will do this together by exploring lyrics from
the Christmas hymn, “O Holy Night,” each Sunday.
Today, the words of the prophet Isaiah serve as the foundation,
as we wonder:“How does a weary world rejoice?”
It all starts with a child born, a son given.
PRAYER FOR ILLUMINATION
Please pray with me:
God of truth and wisdom,
as we listen for your living Word,
Send your spirit to teach us your way,
and lead us in the path
of your steadfast love and faithfulness.
Help us see the light of your love
shining in the darkness.
Amen.
READING OF SCRIPTURE
Hear now the Word of God
from the book of Isaiah,
the ninth chapter, verses two through seven:
The people walking in darkness
have seen a great light;
on those living
in the land of deep darkness
a light has dawned.
You have enlarged the nation and increased their joy;
they rejoice before you
as people rejoice at the harvest,
as warriors rejoice
when dividing the plunder.
For as in the day of Midian’s defeat,
you have shattered
the yoke that burdens them,
the bar across their shoulders,
the rod of their oppressor.
Every warrior’s boot used in battle
and every garment rolled in blood
will be destined for burning,
will be fuel for the fire.
For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government
will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor,
Mighty God,
Everlasting Father,
Prince of Peace.
Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end.
He will reign on David’s throne
and over his kingdom,
establishing and upholding it
with justice and righteousness
from that time on and forever.
The zeal of the LORD Almighty
will accomplish this.
This is the Word of God,
for the people of God.
Thanks be to God.
SERMON
One of my mother’s oldest friends is a potter.
Growing up, we would see her twice a year –
And when we did, she would hand over a large cardboard box
filled with her latest creations.
Beneath layers of tissue paper, wrapped in yesterday’s news,
we would discover funky mugs
and colorful plates
and little collage-like plaques that could be hung on a wall.
Made out of clay, fired, then painted,
these wild, bright, fresh creations
were imperfect and delightful.
I remember one mug in particular –
painted with yellow and white vertical stripes,
a border of vivid flowers in rich colors around the sipping rim,
and then around the bottom,
written in black loopy script, was the phrase:
The joy of the Lord is my strength.
As a child, I remember wondering what the joy of the Lord looked like…
The images of God in my head were ones of seriousness and wisdom.
Prayerful devotion, or humble compassion.
But a joyful Lord…
I couldn’t quite picture the Lord doing a cartwheel,
or squealing with glee,
Or belting out a good song while driving with the car windows down,
Or eating an ice cream cone on the pier with friends…
What would the joy of the Lord look like?
And how could that joy be strength?
That mug traveled with me to college
and a summer job in Martha’s Vineyard;
to New York City when I worked as an editorial assistant in midtown;
to an apartment in Glen Lennox during grad school,
and the first little brick house Drew and I bought after we were married.
It has held milky coffee and orange juice in the morning,
and smooth whiskey and sleepy-time tea in the evening.
During times of grief or challenge,
when I have felt discouraged,
yearned for happiness,
or prayed for peace
that funky mug has been a sort of embodied hope,
a mantra, a silent prayer.
Yet, if I am honest,
the phrase scripted on it – though grounding and inspirational –
continues to baffle me.
I still struggle to imagine a Lord full of joy.
(pause) Can you?
How could the Lord be joyful when people are unkind to each other?
When wars carry on,
and greed seems to win out over generosity?
When desert places and crooked places
are more bountiful than straight paths
and streams of still waters?
How could the Lord be joyful
when children are hungry
and mothers are left to give birth in the cold
and men are given or denied respect based on their race?
When violence is normalized in places of worship and centers of learning?
When political leaders rule from ego and arrogance rather than justice and righteousness?
When the seas rage and the skies rumble?
How could the Lord be joyful?
And how could people who walk
in the darkness of such a world rejoice?
(pause) This is neither a modern nor novel question.
For centuries, the people of God have been weary.
For generations, they – we – have hoped for a savior –
someone who might be described as a wonderful counselor, a prince of peace.
Our text for today from the prophet Isaiah was written
approximately 2,764 years ago.
The political context in Judah and Israel
during Isaiah’s lifetime was marked by
significant turmoil and upheaval.
Social and moral injustices were prevalent.
The wealthy exploited the poor
and the powerful took advantage of the vulnerable.
Refugees were turned away at the borderlands,
left destitute and marginalized.
Nations grappled with issues of power,
sovereignty, and security,
breeding uncertainty, unrest, and violence.
Judges and rulers accepted bribes and perverted justice,
ignoring inequality and focusing on self-preservation.
(Am I explaining the year 740 BCE, or the year 2024?)
It was in this context
that Isaiah wrote about a people walking in darkness
seeing a great light.
It was in this context
that he prophesied a child will be born, a son will be given –
and that this birth, this son, will lead to the establishment of justice and righteousness from that time on and forever.
Isaiah voiced hope,
offering a vision of future when the oppressed would be liberated
and all would be unburdened.
He even says, this birth will increase their joy;
Those who have seen a great light will rejoice.
You know this:
walking in darkness,
feeling weariness,
looking for the light
is a common human experience.
And it is not only global and political issues
that leave us feeling stumbling, lost.
It is also the darkness within our lives and ourselves.
We walk around with broken hearts
And tired spirits.
Our parents suffer,
Our children struggle,
Our neighbors are not safe.
Depression and divorce and diagnosis
dim our joy.
Financial struggle and professional stress
And ailing bodies and anxious minds
Try to snuff it out.
Friends, I tell you the truth
and though it may sound discouraging,
I am hopeful it will be at least normalizing
if not relieving:
We are no more weary,
no further from rejoicing,
than Isaiah and his generation were…
(pause)
Here is the great Gospel news, the mystery and miracle of Advent:
God’s people have always found a way
to sit with the messiness of life
while still holding on to the promise of what’s to come.” .
The people of God have always walked in darkness…
And Yet…
YET…
We have seen a great light.
With the birth of Christ, that great light breaking in,
we have seen mercy and humility,
justice and righteousness,
love and grace;
We have been shown that
life overcoming death
And light overcoming darkness
is possible.
In Isaiah’s time, and ours,
the people of God have a vision of a righteous reign
of the coming king who is already at work in the world.
We look out at a world today
that is no less corrupt, cruel, or confusing than the world then,
AND we see God at work in it.
The birth of Jesus – Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace –
does not simply bring a promise of positivity –
it brings an incarnational truth, an embodiment of light.
It helps us see that our bodies and actions matter.
The way we live matters.
We are part of the birth of a new reign of righteousness and peace.
Theologian Linda Lee Clader sums it up this way:
“The child whose birth we speak of,
this incarnation,
is not a picture-perfect event
that makes everything okay;
it is a mystery of God present in a real human child,
welcomed into the world
with all of its agonies and ambiguities
and challenges and joys.”
In other words,
the light does not do away with the darkness –
the darkness will always be there –
the light overcomes the darkness.
Here is another part of the mystery and miracle of Advent:
We see the light,
We follow the light,
We become the light.
Jesus would have us neither look anxiously ahead
nor close our eyes and hope for time to pass.
Rather, Jesus directs our gaze to those around us,
to those nearby, and particularly to those in need,
for Jesus’ presence is revealed each time
we reach out to each other
in mercy, respect, and kindness.”
In this way,
the imprint of God’s future alive in our heartfelt imagination
is part of our identity as Christians.
And THIS is the joy of the Lord!
This is our strength!
“As weary as God must be,
God still has enough hope for the world
to enter into it again.
As weary as we are,
God still entrusts us with bringing forth Christ’s birth.”
This is worth rejoicing over!
(pause)
We have talked a great deal
of weariness and darkness.
We cannot end our conversation today
Without talking a bit more about joy.
“In 2015, Archbishop Desmond Tutu traveled to Dharamsala, India,
to celebrate the Dali Lama’s 80th birthday.
During the celebration,
they engaged in one of the most important conversations of their lives,
asking each other:
How can we find joy, despite the suffering that is intrinsically bound to life?
These two Nobel prize winners—
one, the spiritual leader of the Tibetan people,
the other, the leading spokesperson for the rights of black South Africans
who drew national attention to the horrors of apartheid—
spent a week together, simply conversing,
trading stories, and attending to the issue
of finding joy in the context of our contemporary world.
Finding truth in many different fields,
from psychology to theology
to their own storied personal experiences,
these two men agreed that people experience joy not as a fleeting emotion,
but as an enduring part of their lives.”
Joy comes from participating in the human story
in a positive way, they concluded,
becoming aware of reality,
having compassion for others,
and acting on that compassion through generosity.
This understanding of joy
runs parallel to the understanding
of what it means to be a child of God,
to walk in the light,
to follow the way of Christ.
When we open ourselves up to the truth
that faith is less about controlling the future
and more about recognizing God’s justice and holiness in the present,
we experience the thrill of hope –
Hope that no matter how weary we are,
No matter how dark the world is,
THERE IS ALWAYS LIGHT.
Even more,
there will be a time when
peace on earth and shalom for all
becomes a reality.
(pause) In a few moments, we will meet at the table.
We have been invited to a sampling
of a love so extravagant that it shapes who we are
and how we live and, in turn,
we pray, changes the world.
When you come up for the bread, the cup,
pay attention, take notice.
How does it feel to be welcomed, fed, blessed?
What might it feel like if everyone, everywhere,
experienced that kind of welcome, nourishment, and blessing?
What might if feel like if we lived our lives
as if the whole world was one big table?
(pause) Might it feel like a weary world rejoicing…?