The theme of this Third Sunday of Advent is taken from Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians, “Rejoice always.” And why rejoice?--because, as Paul says, “the one who calls you is faithful.” Paul is echoing a note sounded much earlier by the prophet Isaiah, who declared, “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my whole being shall exult in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation.” In the old liturgical calendar, this Sunday was referred to as Gaudete Sunday, from the Latin Introit for the day that began with the word “gaudete,” which means “rejoice.” In our new and improved calendar the theme and tone of the third Sunday of Advent is basically unchanged. As in Advent we anticipate the Lord’s coming, not only as a baby born at Bethlehem but also as the victorious Lord and Judge of all creation at the end of the age, so we are reminded today in the midst of this season of anticipation and hope, that Christ’s comforting and saving presence is among us even now in word and sacrament.

The truth, however, is that we are not terribly impressed by this emphasis of joy. We are not impressed because we think it natural and normal and take it for granted that the church be in a perpetual praise-mode of rejoicing. The popular image of the church in this country that Protestants and Catholics alike are rushing to adopt, sometimes carelessly and uncritically, is an image of a community of perpetual joy where praise bands are the norm, the message is always “upbeat,” and only smiles are allowed.

Now, you know I don’t have anything against smiling, but I do find it interesting and instructive, and perhaps a little fortuitous, that on this Third Sunday of Advent we are also commemorating John of the Cross and Theresa of Avila. Both were major 16th century Spanish reformers of the Carmelite order and spiritual writers of renown. John of the Cross is especially interesting on this day especially, given our emphasis on rejoicing, because he is perhaps best known for his spiritual classic, The Dark Night of the Soul. So, on this day that stresses the theme of rejoicing, we commemorate one whose most familiar contribution to Christian spirituality is something called The Dark Night of the Soul. Perhaps you recall that Mother Theresa of Calcutta, who died in 1997, employed this same phrase to describe her own protracted spiritual anguish and struggle. This came as an unwelcome revelation to many of her admirers when her personal papers were published posthumously.

But what did John mean by this phrase, “the dark night of the soul”? John points out that this “dark night” is not an unusual state for serious Christians. He says that true spiritual perfection and, therefore, the joy and happiness that comes when one finally enters into a union of love with God, cannot be achieved unless first there is a cleansing and purgation of the soul, a long and difficult period of spiritual self-emptying whereby we pass through severe trials and straits, pass, as our Lord himself said is necessary, through the narrow way. In fact, according to John of the Cross, this is the only way that true happiness in union with Christ eventually can be achieved.

True happiness and joy, therefore, come at a cost; but it is a cost that is paid for us by God himself. The price paid for our happiness--for our life--is the death of God’s only Son. Thus our happiness, our joy, is always a poignant affair. For the prophet Isaiah, the “year of the Lord’s favor” is also “the day of vengeance of our God”; and the reason for Isaiah’s rejoicing is the release of the exiles from their captivity in Babylon. It is precisely on those who have been sitting in the deep darkness of exile that the light of God’s faithfulness and favor has shined in their prospective homecoming, a homecoming by the way, that will be characterized by a lot of hard work: the building up of the ancient ruins, the raising up of former devastations, the repair of ruined cities.

For Paul as well, those who have reason to rejoice always are also those who are to pray without ceasing and to give thanks in all circumstances (presumably even the bad ones). Those who may rejoice are also admonished not to quench the Spirit, nor to despise the words of the prophets, and they are to test everything, to hold fast to what is good, and to abstain from every form of evil. Perpetual rejoicing, in other words, implies perpetual spiritual watchfulness, discipline and correction.

I hope that we too, in the same spirit in which Paul is writing, and given the same spiritual and moral discipline that he commends, are those who rejoice always; and I hope that we too, with the same fervor as Isaiah, will greatly rejoice in the Lord with our whole being, because, precisely as Isaiah declared about the returning exiles, the Lord has clothed us as well with the garments of salvation and has covered us with the robe of his righteousness. There is thus, of necessity, a certain essential element of soberness to our rejoicing, because as Isaiah says, all who see us shall acknowledge that we are a people whom the Lord has blessed. But if we are a people whom the Lord has blessed whom others can readily acknowledge as such--a community whose faith is public and thus a faith that is backed up by acts of forgiveness, compassion and loving service--then we shall just have to be, like the Thessalonians to whom Paul was writing, a community that prays without ceasing, that tests everything, that holds fast to what is good and abstains from every form of evil.

These characteristics are part-and-parcel and indicative of what John of the Cross meant by the importance and the necessity of going through the “dark night of the soul,” that rugged spiritual discipline and struggle the goal of which is, to use John’s word, a perfection that implies the joy and peace that comes with true faith and genuine hope in the gospel, a faith and a hope that is hard-fought and crowned by love.

This congregation recently has been through its own “dark night of the soul”. We have been confronted with the deaths of many good and faithful people after long and fruitful lives, but also by the deaths of those whose lives tragically were cut short. How do we “rejoice always,” in such a situation of communal loss, mourning, and lament?

It is always at this point, at the point of death, the horrible and ugly death of our Lord on a cruel and humiliating tree of shame, the deaths, sometimes untimely, of those we know and love, as well as the prospect of our own inevitable deaths, that the peculiarly American jingoistic, simplistic, overly-sentimental, and self-absorbed penchant for that which must always be upbeat, positive, and happy, a thin kind of spirituality that we have exported around the world, begins to ring a little hollow. Being emotionally upbeat and happy is not at all the same as experiencing the joy that comes from the gospel’s message of death’s ultimate demise, a joy that can only be won by passing through the narrow gate and the dark night of the soul.

One of the members we lost recently chose a hymn for her funeral we normally sing on Good Friday. It never would have occurred to me to pick this hymn for such an occasion. I was wrong. She picked O Sacred Head, Now Wounded, with a text by the famous 17th century Lutheran hymn writer, Paul Gerhardt: “O sacred head, now wounded, with grief and shame weighed down, now scornfully surrounded with thorns, thine only crown….What language shall I borrow to thank thee to thank thee, dearest friend, for this thy dying sorrow, thy pity without end? Oh, make me thine forever, and, should I fainting be, Lord, let me never, never outlive my love to thee. Lord, be my consolation; shield me when I must die; remind me of thy Passion when my last hour draws nigh. These eyes, new faith receiving, from thee shall never move; for he who dies believing dies safely in thy love.”

Now, that victory over death after a life-time of struggle and strife is the real basis and cause of our rejoicing!

-Amen-