Sermon for the Third Sunday of Advent, 2013
The Rev’d. Lauren Lyon – St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, Kansas City, Missouri
Zephaniah 3.14-20
Philipians 4.4-7
Luke 3.7-18
At tonight’s service of Advent Lessons and Carols, the first reading is the story of Adam and Eve. Stories like it were created because people frequently ask themselves and each other why life is as it is. The story of Adam and Eve offers an explanation for why life is difficult, why we suffer and struggle. It exemplifies the ability of human beings to damage what is beautiful, simple and complete. Adam and Eve crave the loss of their own innocence and in bringing it about they ensure that loss and its attendant sorrow will a certainty for all humanity. Adults who feel that sorrow do what they can to delay the loss of their children’s innocence, but it always comes too soon.
The third Sunday of Advent by long tradition is a day of rejoicing and celebration. In a season of preparation and waiting, sometimes observed by self-denial intended to sweeten the indulgences of the Christmas feast, the third Sunday of Advent is a brief pause. Our candle for this Sunday is rose colored instead of purple, festive rather than sedate. But on this Sunday, something has gone terribly wrong. What was beautiful, simple and full of promise has been broken. The Old Testament lesson appointed for the Eucharist on the third Sunday of Advent is the song of joy from the book of the prophet Zephaniah. It begins with the words Sing aloud, O daughter Zion; shout, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter Jerusalem!
How do we rejoice in the midst of sorrow and fear?
More than a week ago, Sam Candler, the Dean of the Cathedral in Atlanta published an essay on the web site Episcopal Café http://www.episcopalcafe.com/daily/music/advent_a_holy_and_a_broken_hal.php . His choice of topic has turned out to be prescient. His essay begins with a reference to Leonard Cohen’s song “Hallelujah” which may be most familiar as performed by Jeff Buckley or Rufus Wainright. Candler quotes one of the stanzas: there’s a blaze of light in every word, it doesn’t matter which you heard, the holy or the broken Hallelujah. He notes that even in Advent and at Christmas things are or become broken. He notes that Christmas toys will be broken and describes such events as “startling introductions for children to the way the rest of their lives will be.” Candler envisions a gentler and more merciful loss of innocence than the dreadful reality of this past Friday. But he is right; something in our lives is always broken, even in seasons of rejoicing. We have people among us who may be so overwhelmed by the parts of their lives that have been lost and broken that they cannot find a way to rejoice in a season of celebration. We carry them with us in prayer and with compassion until the time they are able to sing the broken hallelujah. When we are able to do that and let it move us through the pain and fear and sorrow we find holiness and peace in the life we live in time and space.
That journey from fear and sorrow to joy and hope is what Advent prepares us for. We await the telling of that story in which a man and woman travel to a distant and unknown place, endure a birth under the most difficult of circumstances and together, look into the face of the child that has been born to them, with all its innocence and promise. His death would be the broken hallelujah that made humanity whole and holy again.
May God give us the grace to see the promise of Advent in all that is and will be broken in the seasons of our sorrow and the seasons of our rejoicing; may God bring comfort to those who mourn and healing to those whose innocence has been lost too soon. May there be abundant peace from heaven and life for us and for all.
Amen. Hallelujah.
