Today is “pink candle” Sunday. That’s actually my personal title for
this Sunday. The technical name for this Sunday is Gaudete which is a Latin
word that means, “rejoice.”
Notice that the pink candle
stands out from the other candles in the Advent wreath. Many people ask why we
use a pink candle on this Sunday of the Advent season. And no, it’s not because
we always forget to order enough blue candles.
The blue advent candles around the Advent
Wreath remind us to patiently wait for Christmas by repenting of our sins and
reflecting on what it means to be God’s people. The pink candle for this third
Sunday of Advent is a bright color and it reminds us to rejoice even though we
are still waiting for Christmas to come.
When the Prophet Isaiah offered a word of
joy to the people of Judah hundreds of years before the birth of Christ, he was
offering them a Gaudete moment. He knew that they were at a very low point
along their journey as God’s people. They had been forced from their homes and
were living in a foreign land. There was no joy to be found.
Have you noticed that the nightly news on
the major networks seem to always end their broadcast with a “feel good” story
for the remaining five minutes? The first twenty-five minutes of the program
tell us about everything that is wrong in the world that day, but it’s those last
couple of minutes that remind us that there was actually some good happening
somewhere in the world. Even the Nightly News knows the importance of having a
Gaudete moment during their broadcast.
In our Old Testament reading for this Pink
Candle Sunday, the Prophet Isaiah reminds us that not all is lost as we travel
this long path of Advent. There is joy-filled news along the journey! And the
good news is that God hasn’t forgotten us.
God will restore Judah. The desert
wilderness that produces only enough grass to support a few sheep will burst
into bloom. People who are discouraged because they are in exile will be
delivered. Those who are in despair will have their hope restored. And all of
these wonderful things will cause people to rejoice and praise God. The final
verse of our scripture passage uses words like “everlasting joy,” “”joy,” and
“gladness.”
Even
though Isaiah was referring to the future, his words are also meant to help the
people experience joy in their present moment. Like the people of Judah, we too
are called to be filled with joy in knowing that God’s promises will soon be
fulfilled. Sometimes we only focus on the bad news even though God is offering
words of great joy to us in the present moment.
Notice that even though the people of
Judah are experiencing tough days, Isaiah wants them to know that there is joy
in the Lord. It’s the joy of the Lord that gets us through the tough days. We
can have that joy even now.
Mitch
Mitchell is helping to spread the joy of Christmas in his church and community.
It’s a great story of what it means to keep Christmas real by serving others.
Let’s watch it.
(Show Video)
I want to be a person of joy like Mitch
Mitchell from the video. Today is a day to remember that we can have that joy,
too. We can have this same joy to help us through our tough days. I’m sure that
there are many of us here today who need this pink candle Sunday!
When John the Baptist was in prison, he
sent word to the disciples to ask Jesus if he truly was the promised Messiah or
if they should be looking for someone else. You can appreciate why John the
Baptist was having these doubts. He didn’t expect to be in prison but there he
was. It was a very tough time for him. He must have been very discouraged, kind
of like the people of Judah when they were in exile hundreds of years before
him.
When we’re experiencing those tough days,
I think we ask that same question as well. “Are
you really the one, Jesus? I’ve tried to follow you and I’ve tried to do what
you’ve wanted me to do, but things aren’t looking very promising right now
Jesus, and I just need to know. Are you really the one?”
If you’ve experienced any kind of
discouragement in life, this question is understandable. We’re taught that God
will provide for our needs and answer our prayers but what if things don’t go
the way we were hoping? What if there doesn’t appear to be any clear purpose in
what is happening in our lives? It’s a fair question to ask if Jesus is really
the one or if we should be looking for someone else.
But notice how Jesus responds to John’s
question. We would expect Jesus to answer with yes or no but Jesus gives a much
more convincing answer than a simple yes or no. Jesus says, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the
blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf
hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.”
The disciples and John had seen Jesus do
all of these wonderful things or at least they had heard about Jesus doing
these things. All of these signs of God’s kingdom breaking into our space and
time were confirmation that Jesus really is the true Messiah. Bible scholar,
Tom Wright refers to these unexplainable moments as signposts that point us to
God.
This Sunday of Joy before Christmas Day Joy
is a day for us to be open to those signposts and know that there is a God who
is working for good in the world. Sometimes, God calls us to be like Isaiah or
like the disciples in helping people to see those signposts along life’s
journey.
Last year, I attended a leadership
conference in Kansas City. A woman who appeared to be in her late 20s sat in
the seat next to me. She told me that she worked for H&R Block in
Connecticut and flew to Kansas City for a tax seminar. Out of curiosity, she
asked me why I had been in Kansas City.
So I told her about the leadership
conference I attended. I told her some of the ways that the host church has
been making a difference in the city. As I shared a few of the outreach
ministries with her, she would respond to me by saying, “Really? Really? This church is doing all of those good things? I
didn’t know churches did things like that.”
One of the ministries I shared with
her was how this church in Kansas City partners with one of the elementary
schools in the inner city and provides mattresses for families who can’t afford
beds for their children. This young woman looked at me in disbelief and said, “You’re telling me that the people of this
church are buying beds for these families?”
And I said, “Yeah, that’s
right.” And I told her how this school’s
test scores have significantly increased because this church has been reaching
out to the families of these children through these ministries.
She said to me, “Do churches really do things like this?” And so I told her about
our church. I said, “I’m a pastor of a church in a county seat town in Ohio that does a lot
of similar things in the community.” I told her about our Community Kitchen
lunch ministry that serves three lunches every week year throughout the year. I
also told her about our Second Saturday outreach ministry where we make
blankets for hospice patients and provide wood to help people heat their homes.
She said, “Your church does stuff like that?”
And then I shared how we believe that Jesus wants to work through us
to bring transformation to our community and world. I asked her if she attended
any church back home.
She said that she gave up on church a long
time ago because she didn’t get anything out of it and she didn’t think
churches were really doing anything. She said her most recent church experience
was about a year before our conversation when her little niece had become ill
and died and she attended the funeral.
She said that the death of her niece was the
most difficult thing she had ever faced and how it left her with a heavy heart.
But then something very mysterious happened soon after the funeral. A day or
two after the funeral, as she was thinking about her niece and if there was a
heaven or not, a great big bright and vivid rainbow appeared in the sky that
day. It was in that moment that she felt that maybe there is a God.
Well, good thing she sat next to a preacher
because I took it from there. I said, ‘I believe there’s a God who sent Jesus to
comfort us especially when we have heavy hearts. But he also wants us to make a
difference in the world.” I gave her
a book about the life of Jesus that I received at the leadership conference and
encouraged her to find an active church that would help her to continue to grow
in her faith.
Sometimes, all we need is a signpost or
two that point us to God’s love and how God is transforming our community and
world through ordinary people like you and me. Sometimes, during our long
journey all we need to do is remind ourselves of the joy that God is offering
to us in that very moment.
It’s joy that gets us through the tough
days. Happy pink candle Sunday!
