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Home Page
The Rector's Welcome
Worship
Sermons
Music & the Organ
Newsletter
Schedule & Events
History
Programs & Ministries
Tour the Building
Links
Map & Directions
Monthly Calendar
Home Page
The Rector's Welcome
Worship
Sermons
Music & the Organ
Newsletter
Schedule & Events
History
Programs & Ministries
Tour the Building
Links
Map & Directions
Monthly Calendar
Fr. J. D. Ousley
24/25 December 2005Is. 9“The Joy of the Messiah”
In the Name of God: Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. Amen.
Today, it is impossible for me not to recall a former member of our church who died suddenly a couple of months ago.
His name was Harvey Kelley. Most years, Harvey would be dressed in a tuxedo and serving as one of the ushers who greeted worshipers at the door on Christmas Eve.
300 people attended his funeral here; those of us who came to the reception afterwards shared many happy memories of our friend.
For Harvey was one of those fairly rare people who could embrace the simple things of life. One of my favorite memories of him involves seeing him walking down the sidewalk on one of the first hot days of summer.
On this occasion, too, Harvey was well-dressed — decked out in a crisp summer suit and wearing a boater hat. I walked up to him to say "hello," but before I could get a word out, he exclaimed, "I'm going out to buy an ice cream cone!"
Seeing this tall, robust, distinguished man, his face radiating glee at the prospect of an ice cream cone–seeing him, I couldn't help smiling, myself. For this was a man who knew how to find joy.
The word, "joy" occurs numerous times in the traditional observances of Christmas."
In the Christmas story, the angel who appears to the shepherds in the fields tells them that they shouldn't be afraid. The angel brings them "good news of a great joy which shall be to all people."
And, of course, that "joy for all people" has been celebrated in Christmas carols such as "Joy to the World."
Yet while we often hear the word, "joy," we may not always be clear what the word actually means. People like different things: as an old saying vividly puts it, "One man's meat is another man's poison." The steak one person loves is abhorrent to someone who is a vegetarian. Your neighbor may devote all her spare time to competitive running, while you are happiest pursuing sports on your television.
Even in religion, there are different kinds of joy. Think of the vast differences in the Christmas cards that you received this year: some of the cards may have classical art; some used modern art; some were electronic; some enclosed letters with detailed accounts of the person's recent life.
So what is joy? What is this gift that the Messiah brings to the world?
C. S. Lewis, the Oxford Don, now celebrated as the author of Narnia stories, once wrote an account of his adult conversion to Christianity; he entitled the book, Surprised by Joy. Lewis felt that joy had to be "sharply distinguished from Happiness and from Pleasure."
For one thing, Lewis wrote, joy "is never in our power." Joy must come to us from an external source; Christians see joy coming through the loving grace of God.
Joy also, Lewis writes, "Must have a 'stab,' a 'pang' to it, joy must come as a response," to what Lewis calls, "inconsolable longing."
Here, it seems to me, is a clue to understanding the special joy we think so much about at Christmas time. The Messiah brings joy to the world because the world longs for him. The world may not know it needs Christ, but that inconsolable need is still there.
When, as an adult, Jesus had begun his ministry, he remarked that he wanted the disciples' joy to be "full." And when we talk today about being "filled with joy," we're not just using a figure of speech.
For isn't the opposite of joy one of the worst kinds of suffering called, "emptiness?" Isn't the opposite of joy, "emptiness?" When our hearts and souls ache with a longing that must be filled?
Happily, though, just as there are many kinds of Christmas cards and many ways to say "Merry Christmas" — so there are many ways for the joy of Christ to fill our hearts.
When my friend, Harvey Kelley delighted in satisfying his hunger for an ice cream cone, I knew that he wasn't just filling his stomach. He was satisfying his longing for the simple blessings of life here on earth, his longing for the joys of life "incarnate."
And don't you find that to be true for you? Sometimes, you satisfy a superficial longing and a deeper nerve is touched.
The French talk of "joie de vivre" — the "joy of living," the joy that permeates and transcends individual pleasures.
Now the Messiah adds a mystical touch to the joy of living. For the Messiah helps us to fill our deepest needs.
So if you feel that in some way you're missing out on joy, maybe that's because you haven't discovered what you are really longing for. And maybe the Messiah can satisfy that longing.
You may find, for example, that while you have tended to certain wants, others have been neglected. Think of the carol, "Joy to the World." In one of its stanzas, it says "Let Heaven and Nature sing ..."
When we recognize God's presence on earth, the spiritual and the material are in perfect harmony. When spirit takes human form, Heaven above and Nature below sing with joy.
But favor one over the other, and the harmony between the physical and the spiritual disappears. We know that if we eat badly, eventually, our mental functions will be diminished. But our needs can be more subtle.
Relationships, for example, literally need "the Word made flesh." Couples need to talk — to "communicate" as therapists say. By their words, their love becomes incarnate.
Yet whatever our needs, whatever the emptiness that sometimes gnaws at our souls, the most important thing to remember is the lesson the shepherds learned on that first Christmas Eve: joy "is never in our power."
So if you feel that in some way, you are missing out on something, and you haven't identified what you're longing for, maybe you should ask what the Messiah could bring to you.
Maybe you'll need to make a journey to the Manger. You'll know when you get there that you've come to the right place.
And now unto that same God Father, Son, and Holy Spirit be ascribed as is most justly due all might, majesty, power, dominion and praise, now and forever, Amen.