December 13, 2020 – Third Sunday of Advent

God’s love is for all… share it out loud!

To be honest with you, my sermons are beginning to feel like a bit of a broken record. So let’s get this out of the way at the outset: the pandemic continues, it affects us greatly, and it has changed our celebration of Advent and Christmas.

Now let’s dive into that: the pandemic is greatly affecting the mental health of every age group. As Christians who hold on to hope even in the darkest, shadowed valleys… where can WE point in order to help people find the anchor and security that they need? And if they anchor themselves, will they find comfort and strength, peace and joy?

The news of the coming Christ Child talks far more about the life that there is beyond the things that so many are tempted to hold on to or to go buy. So I wonder… are relationships, not things, among the greatest gifts we can receive? Right now, I can pick up a phone and call a friend from college, but it can be difficult for me to go out and pick up a new Christmas tree. So, to me, the gift of relationships with family and friends is super important right now. But what if even more important than that is the gift of being loved and our relationship with God?

We are all struggling… and when we find glimmers of light that support us and lift us up, these are extraordinary gifts in our world right now. One of the places that we can find this light is in our relationship with God. In fact, not only can we find this light, but we can create it to illuminate our darkness! When we spend time with God — through worship, through prayer, through just being present — we find that it has an innate ability to re-balance our lives and to give them meaning and purpose.

And rather than go out and purchase all those gifts in a world where it is potentially problematic to be out with the masses, what if we rejoice in what it is that we already have instead of what we hope to get? As we rejoice and share our thanks, we indeed have the privilege and the responsibility to share God’s goodness with those around us who may have so much less.

Today’s readings make it clear that we are not passengers or bystanders when it comes to God’s mission in the world. Christ came FOR us, to work WITH us and THROUGH us. Isaiah tells us that we are “to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn” (61:1-3).

The Scottish Church has a hymn entitled “Hope is a candle”, and the lyrics are quite apropos for this season of expectancy, but even more as we ponder how to share Christ’s light with our hurting world. As we celebrate this Sunday where we are reminded to rejoice, I’d like to share some of the lyrics from verses 1 and 3 with you now:

Hope is a candle once lit by the prophets
Never consumed though it burns through the years
Dim in the daylight of power and privilege
When they are gone hope will shine on

Love is a candle whose light makes a circle
Where every face is the face of a friend
Widen the circle by sharing and giving
God’s Holy dare love everywhere

Friends, as we draw closer to our celebration of the Nativity of our Savior, how can we spread the light in these times that are so dark for so many in our communities and in the far wider world around us? Can we expand our vision to light up the world in every corner, for all of God’s children? Knowing that God goes before us and behind us, and is always above us, how can we share in the vision that God has for our community, our nation, and our world to include all, but most especially those who are outcast, downtrodden, marginalized, and oppressed? God’s love is for all – let us share it out loud!