Father Robert Palladino, at St Aloysius in Estacada, is someone I listen to when it comes to the church calendar. Father Palladino fascinates me—a priest who has been married, formerly a Trappist monk, a scholar, a world-class calligrapher. It is Father Palladino who assures me that today is “Joy Sunday” in Advent, only he says this in Latin—Gaudete. Whoever thought this should be “joy” Sunday wasn’t living in Oregon. It’s not easy to “joy” under a gloomy sky that drips all the time. If I’m going to believe Father Palladino, “joy” in our case has to be a verb, not an emotion. We need joy about this time in Advent, and it’s not just the weather. It’s about time for joy in Advent, but what’s with John the Baptist’s pulpit thumping today? This is “joy” —brood of vipers and axing trees and burning chaff? Zephaniah is at least a party song, with singing and dancing. But to make “joy” out of John the Baptist requires some stretching.

Which may be why the lectionary committee insists that verse 18 be included in today’s reading. In case we didn’t notice it, Luke tells us John the Baptist is preaching “good news.” What is so “good” about John’s news? Springwater has had a preaching month of “repent.” What is “good” about that? What is “good,” friends, is theological, but it’s a theology that involves more than your head. It also requires your life.

Back in the olden days in Wisconsin, when I was the state representative on construction sites, I experienced my job as a huge responsibility. I was the final word in disputes, the question answerer, the one who could accept or reject work. I was the one who said whether contractors could be paid. On a seven-million-dollar project, that is a big responsibility. One day, at my favorite construction project, all of the contractors had a dispute regarding how to interpret the design documents. We looked at the situation while I made some assumptions, then I interpreted the documents, made my decision and rendered my opinion. The next day, the general contractor’s superintendent found me and showed me the flaw in my assumptions. I was wrong. I felt so stupid. Truly stupid. The project could not afford any mistakes, nor could a state construction representative afford to be the one to make it. The superintendent got disgusted with me then. “Eileen,” he said. “There was only one person who was perfect, and look what we did to him.” Silence. I’d just been given the gift of forgiveness for not being perfect. That gift became the basis for problem-solving on the rest of the job. So maybe in that time and place, the “imperfection” was itself “perfection.”

This month-long repent preaching mode has been in the context of eschatology—the end of the world. Or, as the Bible calls it, the Day of Judgment. I don’t know about you, but I can go to the end of the world at the drop of a hat. All it takes for me is a few minutes with the daily newspaper, and I’m convinced we are on the verge of the end of life as we know it. So it was with great joy that I read a poem of hope this week. It’s a recent poem, written as if by Mary the Mother of Jesus. Mary is singing a love song to God about her yearning for the liberation of God’s people, and she says, “If there is to be a tomorrow, speak again./Bestow again Torah.” Torah—righteous living, God’s people living in covenant with God. All of a sudden—at this point in Advent—the simple notion that there will be a tomorrow was joy enough for me! And yet more wonderful news. Mary’s love song didn’t seem to be saying, “yet one more day before the Day of Judgment.” As she sang, the Day of Judgment has come, we have been judged, and we are already forgiven.

That is joy, friends. That is joy enough to spend a whole lifetime just experiencing it. That’s the “good news” John the Baptist was preaching. Repent! Acknowledge your sin, your need of forgiveness. Then—claim the forgiveness! Act like people who are forgiven! Not “we can accomplish this,” but forgiveness as something received—as a consequence of repentance! We are forgiven! How do we know? John, sounds ferocious, but he mercifully spells out the particulars. He tells his listeners what forgiveness looks like for each of them.

If he were here, he’d do the same for you. You know there is room for you. You know you need to hear the particulars of repentance and forgiveness for you. I wish I could do it for you—give you particularities—because experiencing that detail gives so much joy. That burden you carry—brokenness, sin, failure, fear, misdeeds—repent! Then live as if you are forgiven. Damaged relationship with a family member? Healed. Guilt about bad habits? Healed. Tied down by fear of failure? Healed. Too much to do, never enough time for the important things? Healed. Ashamed of what you’ve done, no courage to repair the damage? Healed. What joy! Forgiveness doesn’t mean being let off the hook for consequences. I still had to find the other contractors and set the record straight. But my fear of looking foolish or losing credibility couldn’t hold me, because I’d already been forgiven. We don’t need to be afraid of consequences when we can claim forgiveness. And that is joy.

It is the same joy I experienced when I read Mary’s love song—joy based in the hope of a God whose very name means tomorrow. You remember the name of God, the name given to Moses at the burning bush. The terrified, shoeless shepherd, wanted on homicide charges, is being sent back to Egypt to lead the slaves to escape. Just to make sure he’s got things right, Moses says, “Who should I say sent me?” It’s a reasonable question. The Voice in the bush says, “I Am.” Or maybe “I Will Be Who I Will Be.” We’re not sure. The name is ambiguous. We know it’s a verb, but we’re not sure if it’s present tense or future tense. The God, Has Always Been (since before the beginning of time) is also the God Will Be. The God, the Eternal Now is also God Will Be, the only Will Be we can count on.

That is joy, friends. “If there is to be a tomorrow, speak again.” God has spoken again. We’re moving toward it. It is the coming of the Messiah in the Bethlehem birth. It is the coming again of that Messiah into your life. Into your particularities.

Last week, the folks who were in worship with us received pieces of paper with the names of friends and members of this congregation. They promised to pray for these individuals during this Advent season and, in token of that promise, they put that paper in one of these gold boxes, we tied it with a ribbon and hung it on this tree. How many of you were here? All week I’ve been hearing snippets from people about what a gift it is to them to have that privilege of praying for someone—how perfect and right it is that they received the name of that person. That is just one of the particularities of repentance: covenant life with God and each other to pray as if there is a tomorrow for each of us. We pray for each other, not because “we gotta.” We pray for each other because we get to. The attitude of “we get to” is a fruit of repentance, the hope and joy of repentance that begins and ends in our God.

Thank God it’s Joy Sunday! You know, we’re Presbyterians, and that kind of exuberance edges us too far away from the comfort of that “frozen chosen” stuff. Let me put it this way: stewardship. The first question in the Westminster Confession (a thoroughly Presbyterian document) asks what is the purpose of humanity. The answer is, “To love God and enjoy God forever.” Joy. Think of yourself as a steward of this joy. Joy is like the Midwestern farmer’s understanding of manure—it does more good if you spread it around a little. So stewards of joy, not in a stingy way, doling it out dribble by dribble and piece by piece as if there is no more where that came from. No, the more you give it away, the more there is to go around. Repent, then, do joy, live like people who have been forgiven! There’s plenty more where that came from.