We Light The Shepherd’s Candle
Joy Comes in the Morning – Ps. 30:5
The first word of the entrance hymn today is “Rejoice!” A promise fulfilled is always a cause of great joy. This particular promise, brought to birth in Bethlehem, takes all creation to a new level of consciousness. God is born in time, born in the earth, born of human flesh. The joy is in our veins; the Christmas Carol pulsates in our emotions. O Israel, you have shown us that mystery unfolds in the waiting time.
Joy Comes in the Morning
Against the background of purple and in the uncertainty of waiting hours we need to refocus… What are we waiting for? The promise was given by the prophets and the waiting began. The Third Sunday of Advent proclaims to all the world what is going on. The Word was made flesh! It is little wonder that this information continues to light up the family tree, the street corner, the dark alley… it brings us out in our millions to give, to receive, to love and to rejoice. We simply cannot stop celebrating Christmas. It is the greatest love story ever told and love stories have the eternal reach. As the Christmas carols fill the stillness in 2020 it’s a rare person who does not experience the tear of connection as we behold the heart of God, the promise of undying love, fulfilled in our common home.
Emmanuel, God is with us
The angels announced the News to the world! Getting essential Announcements right is always important and this one came forth to us as News of Great Joy. The declaration reflected the essence of the evolving relationship and in a stable in Bethlehem a Saviour was given to us. Let Heaven and Nature Sing. The prophet Isaiah had already spoken of what we could expect. The News of Great Joy is the kind of news that liberates and restores, that ends lockdowns and sustains us in suffering. It is the News, that gives, like God and forgives, like God. In his person the child of Bethlehem proclaims release to all the world. At the time of this first announcement life was difficult for the majority and alienation was commonplace for many people. It sounds too familiar… and the news of a Saviour, someone to lift us up and open our locked doors, was as great as news can get. The joy we feel at Christmas calls us to the highest level of human kindness.
Joy to the World
It has been a difficult year and for many people the topic of Joy is distant. A cruel virus has taken from us our loved ones, our livelihoods and has invaded our hope. Where does joy fit into this? And then we turn to Bethlehem and before our eyes a radiant dawn covers the earth with love and in our sorrow the child holds us together. In the strangest of ways COVID-19 is unveiling the joy that is in us… Now we know like never before, perhaps, that we have a sustaining power within our beings, a breath that will never be smothered. It must be joy.
Joy comes in the Morning
For hundreds of years the Christian family has marked its calendar with Advent time in anticipation of Joy for all humanity. The Jewish people had waited for hundreds of years in their time of darkness, confusion and longing. Into this space God entered, to be with us, to sign the relationship in the earth, to be like us in the flesh, to reveal the love that would bring joy to all people. It is little wonder, thousands of years later, that the landscape fills with light and the carols ring out the News and the children tell the Story of a God who found identity with us.
On the Third Sunday of Advent we light the pink candle on the Advent Wreath. It is referred to as the Shepherd’s Candle. This particular association of Advent joy with the shepherds is a moment to ponder. At last the people, left behind, had a soulmate on their side. The shepherds ran with haste when the news broke. A Saviour for all the world had taken his place in the swaddling clothes of the displaced and the marginalized. In the early hours of the breaking news there was a movement on the hillside and in the East a new direction was opening in the movement of the star to a cattle shed. It was a tidal wave of joy bringing the world to its knees. The animals drew near and the people gathered. As we light the Shepherd’s Candle in 2020 we taste the Joy that stills the storm and defeats the darkness. We are wrapped in love. Christmas cannot be silenced because Christmas is pure joy.
Joy comes in the Morning
We are nearing Bethlehem . The ravages of a global pandemic have wearied us and intensified our fear but now we feel again the stirring in the earth , the still silent presence of joy is turning the soil. It is deep in the soul, engrained in our genetic code. We hasten our steps. The News is spreading; it is like the great stillness of reassurance and love, sent to everyone, everywhere. We know it is more than a passing pleasure as our hearts respond to the person we have longed for, to the comfort of presence, to the transfiguration of loneliness. Our Joy in this relationship is greater than anything we have ever known and so we call it lasting joy. We sing with the angels in the harmony of this night when all dreams are realized and all lockdowns are ended.
The Hopes and Fears of all the Years are met in Thee tonight
Though the fig tree should not blossom and there be no fruit on the vines. Though the yield of the olive should fail…Yet I will exult in the Lord, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation” (Hab. 3:17-18).
Joy comes in the Morning
