“O come, O Dayspring, come and cheer;
O Sun of justice, now draw near
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death’s dark shadows put to flight
Rejoice, Rejoice Emmanuel shall come to you O Israel”
~
Evangelical Lutheran Worship #257
Dear Sisters and Brothers
in Christ,
The word “rejoice” seems
so inappropriate right now, almost to the point of being vulgar. How in the world can we possibly rejoice in
the face of last week’s terror attack on six and seven year olds in a
Connecticut elementary school? On the
human level, our hearts break for those in that school whose last moments must have
been filled with unspeakable fear. As parents
who entrust our children to schools every day, the thought of one of our own
children never coming home from school again: never being in the safe embrace
of our arms again: never having the opportunity to blossom into adulthood,
fills what’s left of our aching hearts with unfathomable fear.
In our heads, we ask the
questions, “Would banning military grade assault weapons or improving our
mental health system or taking on an entertainment industry addicted to R-rated
violence have prevented what happened in Newtown last week?” Maybe:
Maybe not. We’ll never know.
In our hearts, we cry out
to God the torturous and unanswerable questions. How could this happen to those whom Jesus
takes into his arms and promises the deed to the Kingdom of Heaven? Why did something like this happen? When will this kind of violence go away? When will my heart stop breaking and the
tears stop flowing?
“Rejoice, Rejoice
Emmanuel shall come to you O Israel”
Perhaps this season of
Advent has something audacious to tell us when faced with the juxtaposition of the
word “rejoice” with what happened last week.
Though the world around us defines joy as a happy feeling brought about
by favorable conditions, as Christians we know better. We know that joy runs deeper and wider than
that. Though at times joy can feel like
happiness, there is another side to joy:
A defiant side: A defiant side
that has its origins in the presence of God or as John describes it, “the light
of the world, the light no darkness [or bullets] can overcome.”
And yet rage and tears remain
despite the good news of light overcoming darkness. But maybe that’s okay. Anger and tears reveal that you have a heart: Having a heart means it can break. And if a heart breaks, it does so because it loves. And love is the ultimate act of defiance which
in turn gives birth to joy. In the midst
of tears, love openly rebels against hatred and vengeance. Love resists the world non-violently. Love embraces those who ache. Love kills not with bullets but with kindness. Love embodies forgiveness and brings about
healing.
We don’t know when healing
will come or what it will look like. We
have no idea when the tears will stop flowing.
But in just a few short days we will hear how God has drawn near in the
flesh and blood of a newborn baby and how in the birth of that child, love is
born anew and death’s dark shadows are put to flight.
So maybe the defiant words of the psalmist say it best
after all. “Weeping may lodge for the
night, but shouts of joy will come in the morning”.
Peace and
love in this season of pain and joy,
Pastors Doug
and Joanne
