By the Rev’d Hilary Willett
Season: Third Sunday of Advent (Gaudete Sunday)
Readings: Zephaniah 3:14-17 | Philippians 4:4-7 | Luke 3:7–18
“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.”
This really is the sum-up for today. We have lit the third candle of advent, the pink-coloured candle for joy. Does anyone know the official name for today?
…
Those of you who have been on Facebook recently have the cheat sheet.
Gaudete Sunday! Gaudete literally means “rejoice.” In some churches, they go even further than simply lighting a pink candle; they also wear pink vestments (more formally known as “rose”). So, alongside purple, green, red, and white, some churches also have rose. Kinda fun.
There’s actually one other time when rose is used. Does anyone know the answer to this one?
… (When is the other time we use the liturgical colour purple or violet?)
Lent. And on the fourth Sunday of Lent, we light a rose candle again. This Sunday has a different name, but I’ll give it to you this time. Laetare Sunday. Laetare Sunday also means… “rejoice”!
So, in addition to the sermon today, you also have some fun bits of trivia. Good right?
Rejoicing is a part of our liturgical calendar. Alongside feast days and ordinary times, we have specific moments that are dedicated to rejoicing. This is interesting because I would have thought that rejoicing is quite similar to some of our feast days. For example, we will celebrate Christmas very soon with the liturgical colour white. So why do we need a very specific reminder about “rejoicing,” so distinct that it has its own colour? Won’t we be rejoicing in a couple of weeks?
I think that the answer is rather complex.
When I was a child, I thought of joy as a kind of very extreme happiness or excitement. I grew up in a Pentecostal church, and the services were full of excitement. Remember the verse at the end of our Luke reading, where Jesus is described as “baptising people in the spirit”? Those kinds of verses were used a lot in my church. We focused a lot on “spiritual baptisms” or the Holy Spirit being “poured out.” It was spontaneous, fun, very exciting.
For a long time, I believed that joy was a bit like this. A big, exciting party. But, after a while, I started to notice a few things in church. The first was that I started to “need” exciting worship. It wasn’t enough to turn up for God. I wanted God to turn up for me in a dramatic, engaging way. The second was that we never talked about pain. Sadness was a lack of faith, anger was a lack of humility, and hurt was a lack of gratefulness or forgiveness. This very happy, very exciting world was, in many ways, a rose-tinted world.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t actually think that the kind of church I grew up with is inherently problematic. It’s just a different way of worshipping God. Every church has its journey to travel on with its own foibles, including us.
But I think that the reason I talk about the church I grew up in is because I think it can provide a good example of what we often think rejoicing is all about. Exuberant happiness and nothing else. A kind of happiness that is always dramatic, always increasing, always thrilling. This is what it means to rejoice.
But, while I think there is a place for that kind of happiness, particularly at Christmas time, I do think that the kind of rejoicing spoken of in Gaudete Sunday is meant to be a little different. Gaudete isn’t at the end of our preparation, reflection, struggle, or penitence. It’s a part of it. This, in my opinion, is why we have a separate day. It’s not the celebration of Christmas. It’s a reminder to rejoice in the middle of struggle.
One of the reasons I started attending other churches was that I had started to realise how important it is for churches to talk about more than just happiness. As theologian James H. Evans writes, “Happiness is something that is pursued, and happiness is tied up in the pursuit. But joy is something else altogether.”[1] I think I was beginning to understand that while happiness has its place, it is not the whole of life. I needed a place for my struggles, too. I needed a way to talk about gladness that was rooted deep, less based on experiential moments of excitement and more constant. Around this time, I read C. S. Lewis’ book, Surprised by Joy.[2] Lewis didn’t describe joy as mere happiness. Rather, he described “joy” as a kind of intense “longing” for God.[3] This wasn’t just a longing for experiences, a pursuit for a pleasant feeling, but a longing for God in God’s self. I found that this kind of “joy” resonated with me. I had not felt “joy” as much as I had experienced happiness, but I could pull out a few examples.
Interestingly, my experiences of joy were most vivid when I was least seeking my own pleasure. They often occurred when I genuinely wanted to know God more. Or when I realised something about myself that needed healing. Or when I saw God in another person. Or when I witnessed some small moment of grace. Occasionally, I even felt joy in the awareness that in the midst of a deeply troubling situation, God was still present. In each of these moments, it was like I was just a bystander to a much bigger reality unfolding. And in the beauty of that moment, I found myself longing for God.
But this can’t be joy, right? How can rejoicing sit in amongst the ordinary like this, sometimes even in the midst of pain? Yet, this is exactly what our readings speak of. Zephaniah writes of singing aloud in the midst of tribulation. Just a few verses before our readings, Zephaniah has been listing the ways in which Israel is corrupt.[4] In Paul’s first epistle to the Philippians, he calls for rejoicing. However, at the time of Paul’s writing, the church of Philippi was facing persecution, problematic teaching, and conflict between members of the church.[5] Finally, in Luke, John the Baptist proclaims the “good news.” But he does so by calling for repentance from corruption.[6] Joy in these contexts is not just happiness. All of our readings demonstrate longing for God in the midst of the ordinary and the struggling.
This is why I love the liturgical wisdom of our advent rhythms. In the midst of our liturgical season for reflection, toil, and penitence, we also have the rose-coloured candle for “joy.” Joy, our longing for God, is not what happens at the end of our struggle. It happens during. While we are preparing and struggling, our joy and longing for God remains.
Last week, Lucy talked about “being the peace.” But I would like to suggest that another piece in this journey of struggle, of working for the good of the realm of God, is to cultivate our longing for God. All too easily, our toil and work can become the point. The reminder of Gaudete Sunday, the Sunday for “rejoicing,” is that longing for God must be in our midst. Joy, true joy, is not a rose-tinted reality. It sustains and empowers our work. It is in our advent wreath, a liturgical reminder to “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.” Amen.
[1] James H. Evans, “Theological Perspective,” in Feasting on the Word: Year C, Volume 1: Advent through Transfiguration, Kindle, vol. 1 (Louisville: Westminister John Knox, 2009), 159.
[2] C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy (New York: First Mariner Books, 2012).
[3] Evans, “Theological Perspective,” 162.
[4] Jennifer Ryan Ayres, “Theological Perspective,” in Feasting on the Word: Year C, Volume 1: Advent through Transfiguration, Kindle, vol. 1 (Louisville: Westminister John Knox, 2009), 132.
[5] Allen Hilton, “Theological Perspective,” in Feasting on the Word: Year C, Volume 1: Advent through Transfiguration, Kindle, vol. 1 (Louisville: Westminister John Knox, 2009), 166.
[6] Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, “Theological Perspective,” in Feasting on the Word: Year C, Volume 1: Advent through Transfiguration, Kindle, vol. 1 (Louisville: Westminister John Knox, 2009), 177.
Photo Attribution: Pumpkin Stock photos by Vecteezy