Joyful Always

Joyful Always

Rev. Dr. Tom Sorenson, Pastor

December 17, 2017

Scripture: 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

One week from tomorrow is Christmas Day. Once again we will celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ with joy in our hearts. As I was working on this sermon I wanted to say here “celebrating Christmas is easy,” but then I remembered that celebrating Christmas isn’t always easy for everyone. There are some things that can make Christmas hard. Many of them, sadly, are of our own doing. We turn Christmas into the busiest retail season of the year. We so overemphasize giving gifts that many of us spend the time before Christmas spending a great deal of time fretting about giving gifts. We worry: Have I waited too long so that silly toy little Suzie simply must have has sold out? Will Uncle Fred like the shirt I bought him? What in heaven’s name can I buy for my wife that she’ll just love? Won’t the older grandchildren just take anything I give them back to the store for a refund so they can buy themselves something they really want? Do I have to buy something for my boss, or my employees, and if so, what? Will that package get to Uncle Fritz in Germany or nephew Sam on a Navy ship out in the middle of the ocean somewhere on time? The number of things to worry about that we come up with at Christmastime is almost endless.

But there are more serious things that make Christmas hard for some folks too. Christmas is often very difficult for people who are experiencing it for the first time after the death of a loved one. Many of us have been there. One of us, Elsie, is there today. Christmas can be hard for anyone who is alone and lonely remembering happier Christmases past. Sometimes loved ones are unavoidably distant, as when they are serving in the military like Joey Carter is this Christmas season. So no, Christmas isn’t always easy.

But what Christmas is really about isn’t hard, is it? I mean, celebrating the birth of Jesus comes easily for us Christians, doesn’t it? Sure it does. We love to hear the Bible’s stories of Jesus’ birth, especially in the one in Luke with Jesus born in a stable and laid in a manger—a feeding trough for livestock—and the shepherds coming to town to adore him. Maybe we don’t so much love to hear Matthew’s story of King Herod killing all the young children in and around Bethlehem in a futile effort to kill off this new King of the Jews, but then we usually just leave that story out of our Christmas celebrations. For many, perhaps most, of us hearing the Christmas stories brings back the warmest memories of Christmases past. We sing the old carols we know and love so well. There’s nothing hard about that, is there?

We love to celebrate Jesus’ birth. I mean, what’s not to celebrate? Once again, however, as there so often is with me, there’s a “but” here. We love to celebrate Jesus’ birth, but his birth of course is hardly all there is to him. When we focus on Jesus’ birth we tend to overlook just who this baby became when he grew up and what the adult Jesus means for us. When we do pay attention to the adult part of his life and his teachings as they are recorded in the Gospels of the New Testament we find that being a Christian isn’t always as easy as it seems to be on Christmas day. For as an adult this Jesus makes demands on us. He preached the love of God made real in the world and called it the kingdom of God. He taught us the kingdom life and showed it to us in how he lived his own life. Then he says follow me. Live like me. If necessary die like me. Say what? Die like me? Yes, that can be part of the life of faith too. Following this adult Jesus isn’t nearly as easy as celebrating his birth is.

There are other passages in the Bible besides the Gospels that can kind of bring us up short too. We just heard one from Paul’s first letter to the church in Thessaloníki. In that letter back to the Christian church he had founded Paul writes: “Be joyful always; pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” 1 Thessalonians 5:16 There’s a lot to say about this passage. I’ll just say a little bit about it here. First, notice that Paul says “give thanks in all circumstances” not give thanks for all circumstances. Paul knew full well that there are difficult circumstances in all of our lives that it wouldn’t make much sense to give thanks for. But he calls us to give thanks “in” all circumstances. He calls us to find in whatever the circumstances of our lives are something to be thankful for. Perhaps it’s just for the gift of life itself, or for the love of family and friends. And of course we can always give thanks for the love of God. He says “pray continuously.” Some other translations have that line as “pray without ceasing.” There is a tradition in Russian Orthodox Christianity of people, usually monks, striving to do precisely that. They will silently recite a prayer that goes “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner” over and over and over every waking moment. How many of us are prepared to do that? Not me. I’m pretty sure not you.

Then there’s the one Paul opens with here. “Be joyful always” What? Joyful always? Is he kidding? How can we be joyful always? It would be a whole lot easier for me to pray without ceasing than for me to be joyful always. I mean, just look at the world! What a mess! Rampant incompetence and bad policy in government. War, famine, oppression, climate change, homelessness, etc, etc, etc. We’re supposed to be joyful in the face of all that? Then at your own life. Is everything in it cause for joy? Maybe, but if that’s true you’re one of the lucky few. It’s not true in my life. I don’t think it ever has been. We’re supposed to be joyful when loved ones become terminally ill or we do ourselves? We’re supposed to be joyful when we can’t pay the rent or the mortgage and face homelessness? We’re supposed to be joyful when our children or grandchildren struggle in life can’t seem ever to straighten things out? I mean, give me a break. Joyful always? I don’t think so.

I don’t think so, but Paul apparently did; and he didn’t exactly have it easy. He was forever being set upon by mobs made angry by his teaching and being thrown in jail for causing public disorder. He had conflict with some of the Christians back in Jerusalem that must have kept him up at night. Our tradition says he was eventually arrested and executed in Rome. Whether that really happened or not he must have spent most of his adult life being aware that it could. And he tells us to be joyful always? Really?

Well, yes. Really. Now I’ll never say being joyful is always easy, but I do believe that there is a way we Christians can do it. And one week from tomorrow we’ll again celebrate the great event that makes it possible. We will celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, that baby whose birth it is so easy to celebrate who became the adult it can be so hard to follow. But at his birth we feel nothing but joy, or at least that’s all I feel at his birth. One of my favorite Christmas carols is “Joy to the World.” It begins “Joy to the world, the Lord is come.” Jesus coming into the world is a cause of great joy. Luke’s angel say to the shepherds “I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.” Luke 2:10-11 Good news of great joy. That’s what the birth of Jesus is. The angel said so, and we know in our own experience that it is true. Christmas is a time of great joy. Even when the circumstances of our life are hard we can give joyful thanks that God came to us as one of us at Christmas, came to bring us peace and salvation, ame to show us God’s unconditional love in a way we can get, in a human life.

We feel joy at the birth of Jesus at Christmas, but let me ask you something. Why can’t we feel that joy always? I mean, it’s not like Jesus is born, then goes away. He doesn’t. He never goes away. That’s what the risen Christ tells us at the end of the Gospel of Matthew. His last words to his disciples are “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Matthew 28:20b See, that’s how I think it can be possible for us Christians to be joyful always. Not because the circumstances of our lives are always a cause for joy. We all know they aren’t. Not that, but because in whatever our circumstances are we can know that Jesus Christ is with us. Because he suffered and died on the cross we can know that he knows what we feel when we suffer. He’s been there, and worse. He didn’t scorn our pain or our mortality. He entered fully into them and overcame them—for himself and for us.

So joyful always? Well, yes. It’s not easy. Our pain, physical, emotional, and spiritual, is often real enough. But folks, it really makes a difference when we know that Jesus Christ is with us in whatever pain we must face in life. It really makes a difference when we know that he is there holding us up, cradling us in the palm of his hand, and reassuring us that whatever happens to us we are safe. Not safe in a worldly sense perhaps, but save in a much deeper, more powerful, more important sense. Save with Christ. Safe with God. Eternally, cosmically, spiritually safe. That is the knowledge that makes it possible to obey Paul’s command to be joyful always. Joyful in the deep, peaceful knowledge that neither death nor life no anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord, to quote my favorite lines from Paul.

So one week from tonight as we hold our Christmas Eve service, and one week tomorrow as you celebrate Christmas however you celebrate Christmas, be joyful. Feel the joy that comes from seeing God come to us as one of us. Feel the joy of Christmas, they remind yourself that that joy can be with you always. No matter what. God came to us at Christmas to show us that God loves each and every one of us no matter what. May that joy be ours not just at Christmas but every day of our lives. Amen.