"The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing…..and the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away."
There is the inevitable question when driving with small children: "Are we there yet?" Over and over again on car trips the question will be asked, with maddening frequency: "are we there yet?" My answer to the kids as that question came was, "Yes!" They would look at me puzzled given that we were usually still on the highway, and say: "Then, how come we are still driving?" "Because we are looking for a parking spot," was the reply. This became the game we played for years with varying answers. In a much more serious vein, we might say the same thing about our journey as God's people. It is the paradox we live-knowing the destination and in some respects having already arrived; yet at the same time still driving around looking for the parking place.
The prophet speaks of that this morning with those beautiful words of the desert's blossoming; a time when the people of the Lord will be redeemed, and all will be restored. Isaiah gives these words as comfort to the people of Israel as they live through their time of exile, not sure that there will be a next day, let alone a day of restoration. We hear this promise today in the context of the third Sunday of Advent, traditionally celebrated as the Sunday of joy. Yet we hear them also in the context of our own settings of loss and unease.
Biblical scholar, Walter Brueggeman talks of the movement God's people are often called to make from orientation, through disorientation to finally a new orientation or a reorientation. The people of Israel when through this movement several times in their history. The early church knew that movement. Jesus with them, traveling, teaching-orientation. Crucifixion-disorientation. Resurrection-a profound reorientation.
We know such movement in our own lives, and we worship today acknowledging that all is not as well as we would like it. And in this time of year there are times when we feel out of step with the happy Christmas tunes that are played, that tell of perfect Christmas gatherings. For the losses and disorienting times of life weigh on us. There are moments when we wonder how to celebrate in the context of loss. And so, on this third Sunday of Advent, we bring to our preparations the realities of loss and disorientation to God-to acknowledge the very real burdens of such that we carry, and that get in the way of celebrating the birth of God. We bring them to give meaning to the losses and to reshape them in the promises of God's love and care. In doing so, we find there is indeed room in our lives for the joy of celebrating God-with-us.
Charlene Fairchild tells the story of celebrating her first Christmas after the death of her mother. Last year our first Christmas decoration was a mustard seed. A lowly mustard seed. Taped on a sheet of white paper to the center of our mantelpiece. It was a sign and a symbol of the fragile and tiny hope I had of celebrating Christmas. The hope was fragile and tiny because I did not "feel" like Christmas last year. How could I sing the Lord's song in the strange land of Grief? It was the first Sunday in Advent and my husband and I were having our usual leisurely coffee brunch after all the duties of the morning and the noon hour. Two church services and the important weekly phone calls to my father and other family members were behind us for another week. My husband, rather gingerly, brought up the subject of Christmas knowing that I was immersed in the full bloom of grief. Mom had died on Labor Day and this was the first Christmas to be marked without her. I did not feel like Christmas. Despite my fog of misery, I knew that I was being somewhat self-absorbed in my pain. Life was going on all about me but, for the life of me, I couldn't figure out how I was going to get through this time. Everybody busy and happy and having parties and family gatherings. I shrank inside. The thought of smiling and pretending joy was beyond pain for me. What was I going to do? I remembered the reading from Romans that morning, "The night is far gone, the day is near…let us put on the armor of light…put on the Lord Jesus Christ." The season of celebrating his birth and looking for his coming again was upon me and I was being called to participate. But it was beyond me to rejoice. As I said these things to my husband, he reminded me that God is able even if I was not. He mentioned the parable of the mustard seed to me. God could take that little mustard seed and make of it something worthy. God could take that tiny seed of faith and grow it into a kingdom of hope. I felt as if I had been touched. I got up and rifled through our spices. Yes! My bottle of mustard seeds. I got one out and grabbed a piece of paper from the pad by our phone and taped that mustard seed to the center. I returned to the dining room, waving the paper triumphantly. "I've got it!" I CAN celebrate this year. My husband said, "Here, let's put it up on the mantel. It'll be our first Christmas decoration. Up it went. Every time I looked at it, I was reminded of the hope it symbolized and the faith it embodied. I couldn't do it on my own. But God could. And God did! The mustard seed became a powerful witness in our house last year. Many people asked about it, and it became a growing joy to share what it meant. The mustard seed again graces our mantelpiece to symbolize light in the darkness, hope in the face of grief and despair, and faith in the promises of God. (Charlene Elizabeth Fairchild, A Mustard Seed Christmas http://www.spirit-net.ca/charlene/mustardseed.html)
As we gather this morning, we bring the disorientations of our year…our losses, our pain…our sense that our lives are not all that we wanted or expected them to be. We acknowledge that we haven't quite arrived, and are still looking for a parking place. But we do so trusting in the promises of God, that there will be a time of restoration, and new life. We gather in the safety of this blessed congregation knowing that we are surrounded by the love and care of God's people. People who have our back when we need to know someone will catch us when we fall, people who will keep us through our nights of darkness and pain. People who will nurture us when only the tiniest seed of hope is left in our hearts. And together we will continue to make room for God's birth in the world knowing the time will come when: "The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing…..and the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away."