Baptism of Joy

Third Sunday in Advent December 16, 1979
Zephaniah 3:14-18; Philippians 4:4-7; Luke 3:10-18

Zephaniah, the prophet, is dramatically addressing a slum of Northern Kingdom refugees of Jerusalem, "the daughter of Zion," and he is telling them to "rejoice and shout aloud." It is an unexpected and unwarranted call to joy in the midst of almost total distress. The prophet is, in effect, saying that joy is not rated or maintained by happy circumstances, but that joy is quite simply received.

He is announcing the presence of joy. It is here. It is available. It is, in C.S. Lewis' phrase, "the utter reality." "Fear not, O Zion, be not discouraged! The Lord, your God, is in your midst, a mighty savior; he will rejoice over you with gladness, and renew you in his love. He will sing joyfully because of you, as one sings at festivals." For the prophet, joy is first and finally what is happening.

Both Zephaniah and Paul, writing to the Philippians from his chains, counsel an unprecedented joy to their listeners: "I want you to be happy, always happy in the Lord; I repeat, what I want is your happiness."

In our psychological and subjective age we would have trouble with those who appear to be telling us how to feel. We well know that feelings cannot be commanded, even by prophets or apostles or holy writ! We know that feelings just are, and we had best get in touch with them.

I guess there is much wisdom here, but Zephaniah and Paul are not just concerned about preventing neuroses. They are calling us to wholeness and holiness. They have gone far beyond our existential states and happy feelings to an objective source, a bottomless well where joy is drawn and received in obedience. They know that joy is finally a decision. They are no longer preoccupied with creating a fault-free environment which will ensure their own happiness, but they know that joy is finally an entering into another, the Other, an objective Presence, Love itself, the Lord. Joy is the Lord.

What freedom when we no longer have to wait upon ourselves to be in love! We are led beyond loving just ourselves, our own adequacy, and our own personal responses. We are, instead, commanded to recognize joy -- to trust it and believe it. We are daringly commanded to love God and thereby assured of an unfailing reservoir of true and profound joy in the Other.

Undoubtedly this is the "baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire" that John the Baptizer announces in the gospel; it is a baptism not created, like mere water baptism, but a baptism that can only be waited for, longed for, believed in, and therefore received. We see that the people listening to John were "full of anticipation, wondering in their hearts." They were predisposed and ready for joy to reveal itself. The seers and listeners, the contemplatives of every age, will be prepared to recognize joy, and to recognize its possibility everywhere.

I have committed myself to joy. I have come to realize that those who make space for joy, those who prefer nothing to joy, those who desire the utter reality, will most assuredly have it.

We must not be afraid to announce it to refugees, slum dwellers, saddened prisoners, angry prophets. Now and then we must even announce it to ourselves. In this prison of now, in this cynical and sophisticated age, someone must believe in joy.

Fourth Sunday in Advent December 23, 1979
Micah 5:1-4; Hebrews 10:5-10; Luke 1:39-45

When God gives of God's self, one of two things happens: either flesh is inspirited or spirit is enfleshed. It is really very clear. I am somewhat amazed that more have not recognized this simple pattern: God's will is incarnation. And against all of our godly expectations, it appears that for God, matter really matters.

This Creator of ours is patiently determined to put matter and spirit together, almost as if the one were not complete without the other. This Lord of life seems to desire a perfect but free unification between body and soul. So much so, in fact, that God appears to be willing to wait for the creatures to will and choose this unity themselves -- or it does not even happen. (But if God did it any other way, the medium would not be the message.)

So the Lord apparently loves freedom as much as he loves incarnation. And that is the rub of time and history and our interminable groanings. The sons and daughters of God awaiting to appear are afraid of freedom and do not trust incarnation.

So it took one who could say, "I have come to do your will, O God," to trust God's process instead of demanding God's conclusion. He is the perfectly incarnate Son. He is Jesus. Jesus trusted the process -- "a body you have prepared for me." And so, like no other journeyman, he was totally ready for God's conclusion.

You see, there is a perfect continuum between the process and the conclusion, between incarnation and redemption, and between Jesus and those informed by the same Father's Spirit.

The reason we have trouble with the full incarnation in Jesus is probably that we have not been able to recognize or admit our own limited incarnation. We also have a capacity for the divine: "For Christ plays in ten thousand places/Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his/To the Father through the features of men's faces" (Gerard Manley Hopkins, "As Kingfishers Catch Fire").

Theological doctrine we can deal with, but ourselves we cannot. It is comparatively easy to admit to a historical divine/human integration or personification, but it is apparently difficult to accept that same integration or personification within our own remembered and regretted lives. But this little self on its insignificant journey is very likely a microcosm of what God is doing everywhere and what God did perfectly in Jesus. If we are to believe the whole, we must start by trying to believe the part. If we are to love God's beginning and God's conclusion -- Jesus -- then we must try to love God's process -- ourselves. He is Alpha and Omega, but we are beta, gamma, and delta. It is all one. Truth is one. And we have been made one by God's yes to flesh in Christ.

This mystery, this holy mystery, is so central that we must try to announce it in many and new ways. It is so filled with power that our reason and balance will resist and make compromises. Frankly, it is too much.

We, like Bethlehem, are too tiny to imagine greatness within us, but "you Bethlehem-Ephrathah, too small to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to rule my people Israel." There is a whole to be found here, but it is only apparent as every part learns to love every other part. And I suspect that those who by grace can recognize the Lord within their own puny souls will be the same who will freely and intelligently affirm the Lord's presence in the body of Jesus and the body of the universe.

"But who am I that the Lord should come to me?" Elizabeth says. Perhaps, if I can recognize and trust this little graciousness, this hidden wholeness, this child in the womb, then my spirit will be prepared for the greater visitation, the revelation of the Son of God. And yet we are always aware that God is not just an experience of mine, but more rightly, I am an experience in the mind and heart of God. This is very difficult for we self-centered moderns to comprehend. But if we dare to trust this holy mystery, we participate in a Presence that is at once overwhelming gift and precious surprise -- not really demanded or necessary (at least, that is what we Franciscans say!) -- but actually not difficult to believe at all!

So we Christians prepare to make festival, or as Thomas Merton puts it: "Make ready for the Christ, whose smile -- like lightning -- sets free the song of everlasting glory that now sleeps, in your paper flesh -- like dynamite."

And God goes ahead enfleshing spirit and inspiriting flesh; while we who have learned, like Elizabeth, to trust these holy visitations, our life leaps within us for joy!

Father Richard Rohr, O.F.M., a contributing editor for Sojourners, was pastor of the New Jerusalem Community in Cincinnati, Ohio when this article appeared. His meditations for the first and second Sundays of Advent appeared in the November 1979 issue.