SERMON
NOTES

Perhaps there is no joy greater than that of a mother holding her newborn child. For Elizabeth, the joy must have been especially overwhelming. She was experiencing a miracle that healed a lifetime of hurt, pain, disrespect, and shame. And it was only the beginning of the miracles she would witness in her lifetime. What would you and I give to know such joy? To see the scars and shame of our life washed away so dramatically? Maybe we may not see it happen through such an apparent miracle, but the joy Elizabeth experienced is available to us. This is the joy brought into our world and available to us now by Jesus, Immanuel – God with us.

A thanksgiving song/psalm of David for recovery from a serious illness:
4 Sing praises to the Lord, O you his faithful ones, and give thanks to his holy name.
5 For his anger is but for a moment; his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning. (Psalm 3:4-5; NRSV)

• Weeping may linger for the night…
  • The pain that brings weeping
    • The consequences of our personal mistakes and sin that bring personal damage, remorse, and regret
    • The pain of being intentionally or accidentally wronged that leaves us betrayed, distrustful, and sometimes filled with shame
    • The pain that we endure through the fault of no one, but is the result of unforeseen circumstances or what no one can control
  • Elizabeth (and Zechariah) belonged to the last category. They were childless, through no fault of their own
  • Childlessness in those days carried its own painfulness: (a) The ache of never being able to hold a child of your own. (b) The practicality of not having an heir to carry the family’s name and receive the inheritance. (c) The shame that was associated with being cursed of God – the childlessness was presumed as God’s  active prevention of children for the mother [Examples: Sarah, Abraham’s wife; Hannah, Elkanah’s wife; Rachel, Jacob’s wife (initially at least, until Jacob’s first 10 sons were born to his other wives)]
  • Weeping through such nights can be long…and lonely
• 
  

The Questions that the weeper often asks are:
Does God really know and care about what I’m going through?
How long does this “night” have to last? (This was a question that the Psalmist often asked)
The longer the night, the smaller my hope gets. What could the light, if it ever came, ever give that would dispel all traces of the darkness that sticks to me?

• …but Joy comes in the morning
  • God chooses “the foolish things of the world to shame the wise…the weak things of the world to shame the strong...the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are” (1 Corinthians 1:27-28)
  • Just when everyone thought it was too late for them to have a child, God promised Zechariah and Elizabeth that they would (Luke 1:13). A promise that God kept (Luke 1:57)
  • Personal disbelief does not stop the workings of God, especially when that disbelief becomes the avenue through which God deepens our faith. Zechariah’s faith is confirmed when he gives his newborn son the name “John,” the name the angel gave him. [See also the desperate father who begged of Jesus, “Help my unbelief,” Mark 9:23-25; Thomas, whose doubting faith that Jesus gently nurtured, John 20:24-29)
  • There is joy that accompanies John’s being born: first in his mother’s womb at the hearing of Mary’s voice (Luke 1:44), then the joy at his birth shared by both his elderly parents and neighbors and relatives (Luke 1:57-58)
  • But the biggest joy is when we know that the morning that comes after the night of weeping is more than a personal miracle. God was doing something infinitely more, accomplishing something significantly larger in his “story.” John’s birth and ministry heralded the coming of the Messiah – the real reason for JOY
  • JOY happens when we know that, through the night and darkness, God is preparing his gift of grace. And the nature of grace is that he gives it when we least expect it, when we do not deserve it. It is God who “floods” us with himself – IF we allow him, filling us up, and overflows out of us to others. Joy is when Jesus becomes infectious in us!

REMEMBER?
Grace floods in
                                    Peace fills up
                                                  Joy flows out

That is why Paul, writing from a prison to a church in Macedonia (i.e. Philippians), can use the word “joy” or its derivative “rejoice” close to 20 times!
Advent is a waiting, yes, but a looking forward with hope, love, and JOY at what God is about to do because he is now with us.
The reason for JOY is Jesus. That is why we sing “Joy to the world, the Lord is come.
What is your reason for JOY this Christmas season?