Advent 3 -- Year A -- December 15, 2013
Text: Isaiah 35:1-10; Psalm 146:4-9; James 5:7-10; Matthew 11:2-11
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In the Name of God: The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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Today we lit the third candle of Advent --
the Candle of Joy.
As we wait for the Second Coming of our Lord,
we remind ourselves of the promise he gave --
in Him we will find the true and everlasting joy.
The prophet Isaiah says, "Everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;
they shall obtain joy and gladness,
and sorrow and sighing shall flee away."
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Joy?
That word is nice to the ear.
Yet to many people
December is the saddest time of the year.
The joyful songs of Christmas
and the festivities around them
can worsen their pains and sorrows.
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Isaiah 35 was spoken to a people in exile.
The words of Isaiah,
speaking of the promise of joy,
could have been nonsense to those who heard him in those days.
It was in the 6th century before Christ.
They were like those languishing in the labor camps
in Vietnam or North Korea.
They were like those with tattered clothing,
hungry, tired and frightened,
under the hands of the brutal enemies.
Joy?
Nonsense!
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What spoken in church can be nonsense to today's many people.
The more advanced we are in technology,
the more withdrawn we find ourselves.
Recently I found myself more comfortable with sending text messages than with making phone calls.
Young people of our time don't think much about coming to
worship or being part of a community of faith.
Loneliness and boredom are serious problems of our time.
You've just got a new video game for your birthday.
You tried to beat the enemies in the game,
enjoying the shootings and destroying you do on the screen.
Joy seems overwhelming in there, between you and your thumbs on the buttons.
It's the joy of winning that you crave.
But that kind of joy subsides in no time.
You then look for a new game to excite you.
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What about the person who came along to walk beside you,
trying to claim the center of your heart?
What a joy!
All in a sudden, things once dead became alive again.
This must be the one who would take your loneliness away.
But soon it became apparent that it was not really so.
You might have become even lonelier than not having the person around.
Joy?
Can there be joy on earth?
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Isaiah the prophet must have been of age when he wrote for the Jews in exile.
Isaiah was among those who suffered.
They were taken away from their homeland.
Their army was destroyed,
The Babylonians slaughtered his son before his eyes,
put out the eyes of him, bound him in fetters and took him to Babylon (2 Kings 25).
The same atrocity was done to many of the Jews of Isaiah's time, not only to King Zedekiah.
Would the Jews in exile listen to Isaiah's message?
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Isaiah was a man of vision.
Isaiah knew in his heart that God was watching.
The people in exile could not see and could not believe,
but Isaiah saw the Lord's coming.
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When the LORD comes, said Isaiah,
things will be transformed.
Even nature transforms when He comes.
"The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad,
the desert shall rejoice and blossom..."
The Lord will redeem His people from exile,
and will bring them home to Zion.
The weak will receive strength,
the fearful courage,
and the feeble firmness.
Isaiah said that there would be signs
of the Lord's coming,
and one must be attentive to the signs.
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This morning we read from the Gospel of Matthew
the question John the Baptist had for Jesus.
From prison, John asked,
"Are you the one who is to come,
or are we to wait for another?"
Jesus answered saying,
"Have you not seen the signs?"
- The lame walk,
- The blind receive their sight,
- The dead are raised
- The poor have good news brought to them.
"Have you not seen the signs"?
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Sometimes we choose despair
and think that our lives are all hopeless.
That is a terrible choice!
Holding on to hopeless thoughts is definitively wrong.
Perhaps we have had negative thoughts about our lives,
relationships, or even about the viability of our church?
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We don't want to miss the signs of God's presence.
Those signs are all around us, great and small --
the Angel Tree gifts to the needy Westlawn children,
the thank you note of a homeless man on our guest book for the hypothermia shelter,
the pictures of the free dental clinic,
the food making at the Bailey's Crossroads Shelter,
the pets that live quietly in our homes,
children who run about,
the hands that prepare food for the dinner table,
the light of morning at the moment we wake up from sleep and find ourselves alive...
There are so many things that we can be thankful for.
There are so many things that the Lord has given to bring joy to us.
Knowing that we are not alone is a great joy.
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We are like the people who heard Isaiah sing.
We are like John the Baptist asking Jesus from the prison.
All we have to do is to listen.
All we have to do is to pray that God open our eyes,
so that we may see.
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Our Lord Jesus is coming to us.
The One who embraced suffering and death
did not die for ever.
He is coming to liberate us,
to save us from sin
and lead us on the journey through the wilderness
toward our real home.
When He comes, he want transformation to happen.
When He comes, he claims the center of our hearts as his own.
The real joy he offers does not come without demands.
And the other thing is that He can do nothing about the choices we make.
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"By virtue of Christ's cross
joy has come to the whole world." (BCP, page 281)
Amen.
- Christmas Flowers. Would you like to offer flowers at Christmas, I in memory of someone or in thanksgiving for a blessing? Please make a $12 check payable to St. Patrick's Altar Guild. You may fill out the form, which is included in the Sunday service bulletin, or send and email to 
- Sign Up Online to help with the Hypothermia Shelter Program. We now need a volunteer to open church door on the evening of Saturday, December 28, for the homeless who will stay overnight in the church. The volunteer will come at 8:00 PM and stay for about 10 minutes following their arrival. Please let Fr. Tinh know if you can help. 
- Last week Tinh+ announced his plan to retire. After letting the Vestry know of Bishop Shannon's blessing on his plan, Tinh+ sent a letter to the congregation. Bishop Gulick and Lindsay Ryland, the Transition Ministry Director of the Diocese of Virginia, will come to meet with the our vestry, and the search process will soon begin. The service of Sunday, June 29, 2014 will conclude Tinh's twenty-two years of ministry at Saint Patrick's. In his letter, Tinh said of the years as "the best part of my life." 
- On every Sunday we need volunteers to serve for our coffee hour. Please sign up to help! The sign-up sheet is in the kitchen. Everyone is invited to stay after church for a time to visit with our friends and catch up on what has been going on in each others' lives. 
- Westlawn Angels' Tree 2013. - This year, Saint Patrick's delivered Christmas gifts to fourteen needy families of Westlawn Elementary School. The total value of the gifts is over $900.00. Many thanks to the members of our church for their generosity, and to Winnie Lebo and other volunteers for making this happen. 
- A memorial service for our Katie Grosse, 103, will be held at Saint Patrick's on Saturday, December 28th, at 11 AM. Your prayers and presence are requested. There will be a reception following the service. Please bring food if you can.