I’ve been speaking about joy and light lately, not only because it’s Advent, not only because I feel the need for these blessings in my own life, but because darkness and sorrow have been at work in the world, powerfully, over this year now drawing toward its welcome end.  I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say this has been a dark, sad year.  Yes, there were bright moments and flashes of joy—births, birthdays, anniversaries, achievements—all these by the grace of God.  We could have used more brightness, though.  In Jesus Christ, we’re never cut off from God, but we’ve found ourselves feeling cut off from others—family, friends, neighbors, church.  Look around this space today: tell me who you’ve missed seeing, these past nine months.  All we have been through, together—to various degrees, it has all left each of us feeling dispirited.

          Dispirited, we come with a depth of need for a bright spirit of joy.  God assures us He has sent that Spirit and is sending it, through His Word.  Isaiah tells of the one who comes “to proclaim good news to the poor” (61:1).  He comes anointed with the Spirit.  Anoint is not a word we use often.  Unless you’re coming from a Pentecostal background, anointing is not a concept we’re used to except maybe in one sense.  We anoint wounds for healing, to help reduce the pain, as when we spray Bactine on a scraped knee, or gently wash a cut and apply Neosporin.  Anointing is for healing, for blessing.  Anointing is by touch.  God has touched the anointed one of whom Isaiah sings; in the touch of the anointed one is the touch of God.  Christ comes to touch our wounds with healing from God.

          This anointed one has a special message for the poor.  You and I may think of the poor as families living on less than $26,000 a year.  Maybe some of you have done it.  Could you do it, now?  Try $500 a year, as in the Congo, Mozambique, or Madagascar.  A lack of things.  Not much clothing.  Not much, in the way of housing.  Not much food at home.  That’s poor.  Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 5:3).  I don’t say Isaiah doesn’t include those who lack material means; I do think he has in view the poor in spirit.  Who are they?  They are the ones, with little or with much, who are not self-exalted.  They are the meek, a word I do not like, a word God is teaching me to love.  The old carol tells us about those poor in spirit, these meek ones: “where meek souls will receive him still, the dear Christ enters in.” 

          The soul that will receive Jesus is the meek soul.  Souls that are not meek do not receive Jesus, do not invite him to enter in.  Souls that are not meek are self-exalting.  Me.  My.  Mine.  My intelligence.  My virtue.  My skills.  My achievements.  My things.  My life.  God exalts those who exalt God, blesses those who bless God: the poor in spirit, whose pride and joy is God, rather than themselves, or some other idol of this broken world.  In this world, only the poor in spirit could hear the Good News as good.  To the rest, with much or with little, all this Jesus talk is just ridiculous, lies, outdated thought control.

          Everyone is wounded.  The poor in spirit are rich in knowing where to turn for help, for healing.  God sends the anointed one “to bind up the brokenhearted” (61:1).  He comes for comfort, to splint the fracture, apply the medicine of God’s love, God’s grace to our hurts.  He tends our woundedness.  Maybe you’ve seen some gruesome wounds.  Life inflicts them.  Maybe you also know the ugliest wounds of all, the hardest to heal, are the inner wounds, to the mind, the heart, the soul.  If you know where you can go, to whom you can go, for real help, true healing, you are blessed.  Not everyone does. 

          Friends, good friends, people in my extended family are sure they don’t need God.  They don’t want God.  What a bore!  What a chore!  God doesn’t matter to them; they have no interest in getting to know Him.  Most are just supremely indifferent.  Some are downright hostile about it.  They have wounds.  We all do.  Some of them have tried to plaster their wounds with drugs, others have tried to paint them with sexual sin.  Some have fallen back on food.  Some never really found a remedy; just the refuge of anger, scorn, satisfaction in their superior intelligence, superior wisdom.  One or two seem to have made the wound into their god, serving the wound, making offerings to it, sacrifices.  All these people I care about look free, from the outside: all are locked in the prison they have fashioned for themselves.

          The anointed one comes “to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners” (61:1).  Comfort, comfort my people, says our God.  What had us bound no longer has to have power over us; we don’t have to live in chains, anymore.  In the darkest part of the year we celebrate a season of light.  Little Bethlehem is not so different from this big world of ours: “yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting light.”  That light is here.  That light is in you.  That light is a gift meant to be given.

          Our freedom is release from darkness.  The lovely lights we see around us at this time of year are, at heart, reminders of this need for, this love of light: the light of truth that we know comes by grace from love—the love that God has for us and has given to us.  For those who have come to know God, these lights have the added meaning of reminding us that we are free, now.  God’s light has set us free.  By that light we have seen Jesus Christ and know him for who he is.  We’ve received and welcomed the best gift anyone could ever get.

          Jesus is always there.  We don’t see him, though sometimes we do.  We don’t hear him, though we do, sometimes.  How we long to feel him!  What is it like, to feel Jesus?  Comfort.  Hope.  Faith.  Our wounds don’t always make themselves felt; we don’t dwell on them, yet they have had their effect and taken their toll.  Jesus was sent “to comfort all who mourn and provide for those who grieve” (61:2-3).  There’s work to be done, life to be lived.  We are busy with the business of life; some are busy to stay busy, because they fear the idle hours, the quiet hours when thoughts come back, as though they won’t so easily be silenced, as though they would say what they’ve come to say.  Ghosts of accusation.  Ghosts of sorrow.  Ghosts of loss.  All that can’t be gotten back, can’t be taken back.  That part of the heart that echoes loudly, too emptily with a name, a word, an act or the failure to act.  Sorrowing, grieving, mourning—the absence of joy.  If it goes on too long, without help, it can become the absence of hope, the absence of purpose.

         Jesus came to shine in the darkness, to guide us out of prison, to assure us that to take his hand is to hold onto hope and to have purpose, a secure future of purpose and joy.  With challenges, reversals and stumbling, as we know.  What trip have you ever taken that didn’t have at least one setback, even if kind of silly and small?

          Jesus blows away, washes away the ashes of our grief—ashes of our old, ruined dreams.  He gives us a crown, brilliant with victory, dazzling with richness.  He helps us to our feet—sometimes we don’t want to get up!  Sometimes we say we just want to lay in the ashes, we just want to die, there, die with our dead dreams, die of our hurts.  Jesus helps us up, lifts us, looks us in the eye; the anointed one pours upon us the oil of his joy—joy which is deeper than happiness, the happiness that comes and goes, which is a thin substitute for the joy God gives in Jesus: the peace of hope, the strength of faith, the glory of life eternal in the presence of God.  Light that penetrates every darkness.  God’s light is power in the darkness.

          Ashes, mourning, despair—that’s been 2020, hasn’t it!  It’s just crushed some people, cut them off from family, friends, from hope and peace.  Earthly powers, doubtless from the most humane motives, have not always helped improve this despair, this mourning: these ashes that were our lives, our dreams and hopes.  No virus, no restrictions or shutdowns, can keep out the light of God.  Look to God’s light, and He will guide your way.  Reach out for God’s love, and He will not let go of you.

          Darkness does not define us.  Faith defines us; faith is light.  By faith we step out of the darkness; in faith we take root in God, in grace, in covenant promise.  In Christ, we become “oaks of righteousness [. . .] a planting of The LORD for the display of His splendor” (61:3).  That’s just what we are, here, like a grove, an orchard, a vineyard, tended, given the light, air, rich soil, abundant water, given the faithful attention we need to grow, to thrive, to show others there is a God, a glorious, loving, merciful God who wants us to join with Him in His joy.  God will not force anyone to come.  Have you been at a party only to encounter someone looking, acting, and talking like he or she would rather be anywhere else, doing anything else?  If they don’t want to be in God’s light, in God’s joy, God isn’t going to force them.  He doesn’t lock people in for the celebration.  They are the ones who lock themselves out, as is their preference; they like that better.

          We are celebrating, beloved, always celebrating, not just now, not just at Christmas, but every day, because God has us, holds us.  Our celebration looks a little strange to those on the outside, and it can even feel a little strange to us, because we’re still getting used to how God celebrates.  This celebration has a purpose: here, it’s for rebuilding, restoring, and renewing.  God is at work in us, among us, to rebuild our lives, restore our hope, and renew our relationship with God.  Through the work God is doing in us, among us, our relationships with one another are also being rebuilt; our relationships with all our fellow human beings are being restored.  God is at work among us, here, actively at work on a place where people want to come, to know the Spirit, to have the truth, and to be lifted above every storm and every sorrow by the peace of Christ.  Such strength in this hope, such joy in this peace, such glory in this faith.

          Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever!  Amen.