St. John's Episcopal Church Montclair
Season 2024
Mary's Ancestors | December 22, 2024
Preparing for Joy | December 15, 2024
by The Rev. Carrie Cabush
In this season of Advent we prepare for God to do a new and miraculous thing. To come to earth in human form. To walk, and talk, and live among us. To choose to become vulnerable as a newborn baby in order to show us true love. As much as the story of Christmas is about God doing a new thing, it is also about God building on all that God has done before. It is about God’s love story to humankind, recalling the times that God showed up in unexpected places, through unexpected people, to draw us ever closer. Take the story of Mary. A young, unassuming woman who stands on the shoulders of the women who came before her.
I'm convinced that joy is a spiritual practice, that joy is essential to experiencing life at its fullest, to living as God always intended us to live. Researcher Matthew Kuan Johnson says that when we experience joy, we become more fully ourselves. In the early days, advent was really taught and seen as a penitential season where we prepare for the coming of Christ by confessing our sins. But the church also realized that we need to prepare our hearts for the joy of Christmas, too. We need to prepare for joy because all too often we experience what Brené Brown calls foreboding joy. For instead of leaning into joy, we wait for that other shoe to drop. We brace ourselves for the moment that it'll all unravel. But at Christians, we know that there is true joy to be had, a joy that we do not need to protect ourselves from or brace ourselves for, a joy that becomes apparent in the disarming arrival of God as human flesh on Christmas.
The Irish tell the story of a man who arrives at the gates of heaven and asks to be let in. St. Peter says, “Of course, just show us your scars.” The man responds, “I have no scars.” To which St. Peter says, “What a pity. Was there nothing worth fighting for?”