HOMILY: Rejoice in the Lord! – December 29th, 2019
Readings: Philippians 4:4-7, John 1:19-28
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit; one God. Amen.
As we come to the end of another calendar year, we approach this time with words of thanksgiving for all that we have and have endured, and also of expectation as we rejoice for what is yet to come. We look at the past twelve months and we realize that most of us have much to be thankful for: we rejoice for our successes and triumphs; we rejoice for our health and wellbeing; we rejoice for our family and friends; and we rejoice that Christ is in our midst, where He is and ever shall be. For all these things we give thanksgiving and praise, prayer and supplication always, for we remember that all things come from the Father.
“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.”
These are the words of Saint Paul in our Epistle reading this morning, and regrettably we recognize that it is not always easy to rejoice, for not all moments seem pleasant to those that endure them; to those that endure loss; to those that endure suffering; to those that endure heartache and hardship; to those that endure the darkness because it seems as though the light has left them. Yet, even in times such as these we can find reasons to rejoice; for, in our sufferings we find strength; in our pain we find the power to endure; in the loss of all things we are freed from the world; in the loss of life we rejoice in hope, and look for an age yet to come. No matter the darkness and how cold it may seem, we hold onto the light of Christ, for the Light will dispel the darkness, or make longer the shadows and reveal the objects within our lives causing them.
Saint John Chrysostom also says similarly in his own Homily on the letter to the Philippians:
“It is comforting to know that the Lord is at hand…Here is a medicine to relieve grief and every bad circumstance and every pain. What is it? To pray and to give thanks in everything. He does not wish that a prayer be merely a petition but a thanksgiving for what we have received…How can one make petitions for the future without a thankful acknowledgment of past things?…So one ought to give thanks for everything, even what seems grievous. That is the mark of one who is truly thankful. Grief comes out of the circumstances with their demands. Thanksgiving comes from a soul that has true insight and a strong affection for God.”
We rejoice because He is with us, and we have much to be thankful for. We look forward to the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, and we rejoice, because he is our Lord God, and King. Then, we look forward to and celebrate theophany, the revelation of God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – on the waters of the Jordan, and rejoice because He is all merciful and compassionate toward His Children. We endure the somber period of the Lenten season, and we rejoice because He is Risen, having endured His crucifixion upon a cross, dying that we may live. He ascended that the Holy Spirit might descend, and we rejoice that we were worthy to be recipients of God’s grace. We endure the darkness of this world, just as the many saints who have gone before us, but we rejoice in the resurrection yet to come; we rejoice in God’s love and our healing of soul and body, the salvation of many, and the forgiveness of all.
We give praise and thanksgiving for the days that have come to pass, and look forward with joyful expectation at what is yet to come. Paul tells us not to be anxious about anything,“but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” We pray with thanksgiving, and we give voice to our thoughts, making them a tangible thing, making them real; for, even all of creation was spoken into existence. So, we say our prayers, say our confessions, say our creeds, that all these things may become real within us; that they may manifest themselves in our lives. Yet, this is only but a single reason why our prayers matter, not only to ourselves, but to the very world in which we live.
Our prayer is an encounter and relationship with God. It is through prayer that we anchor ourselves to the present moment, for indeed it is the only moment in which we can encounter God. Yes, we look back with thanksgiving on the past, and we look forward to the future with hopeful and joyful expectation, but it is only the present moment that matters to us. God is present to us at all times and in all places. He is present simultaneously in the past, present, and future, but it is only in the present moment in which we live, exist, and experience this life. Christ himself exhorts us in the Gospel of Matthew to “not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own,” and there is little we can do about the past, so we pray always, offering up the present moment to God, so that “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Tomorrow may remain a mystery, but today is a gift from God, and I jokingly say that this is why it is called the present.
It is only in the present moment that we can be still and know that He is God; but, the world provides no such peace. Far too often the world lives in a distracted state of mind, and with many, their focus of attention is divided between their mobile devices, tablets, and cell phones instead of the people and places around them in the present moment. People would rather interact through an artificial glass wall, numbing any sense of true relationship and warmth we would experience with others. We are often distracted by the advertisements and sales pitches of the world around us, telling us how the world should look – billboards, magazine racks, television commercials, radio commercials, gossip and opinion, and so forth – driving us to focus on that which we should have, instead of what we have right now. Our attention is scattered on a vision of how the world tells us things should be, instead of how the world really is. Our mind is often divided between our past and future concerns, but rarely on the importance of the present moment. Because of this, many people have no joy, cannot rejoice or be joyful, because this can only happen within our present moment. Prayer and thanksgiving can only happen where we are.
We are often so focused on doing, that we leave little time for the act of being, being Children of God, being Saints, being perfect as our Father in Heaven is perfect. Though, one should not consider the act of doing, and the act of being, to be two separate things. For, we have been exhorted to pray without ceasing, but this is not always an act of words. We become our prayer within our day to day lives; we incarnate Christ into the world; and we become that which we pray for, that for others and ourselves.
Prayer is the beginning of all theology, as Vladimir Lossky says. Prayer alone will give our soul the spiritual strength to endure all things. So, without prayer, there is no spiritual life alive within us. Our faith, our prayer, should become a state of being – it is not enough to say prayers, but we must become our prayer, become a Christian, and incarnate our faith by word AND deed. Our prayer life should be lived, and our prayers should be interwoven with our life, otherwise they become vestigial words and phrases that we simply offer in our short periods we turn towards God. Our prayers and our actions should become two expressions of the same situation. Also, we must approach our prayer life as a mutual relationship of friendship. God must be the object of our prayer, our wanting, for the intensity and elation of our prayer is often about the object of our prayer rather than the one to whom our prayer is addressed.
“All of life, each and every act, every gesture, even the smile of the human face, must become a hymn of adoration, an offering, a prayer. One should offer not what one has, but what one is.” (Bishop Kallistos Ware)
This is the gift we give: our lives. We do this because it is the only gift we can give which is reciprocal of itself, given in response to the gift which we have received ourselves: eternal life. It is for this gift, and many other reasons we are exhorted not once, but twice by the Apostle Paul in the same passage to rejoice; to be thankful for everything in prayer and thanksgiving. So let us become joy; let us all become Joy to the world because Christ our King has come, and is coming. It is a beautiful day our Lord God has made, so let us rejoice and be glad in it.
Through the prayers of our holy fathers and mothers, and Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us and save us.
Amen
