Resurrection Lutheran Church, St Catharines

It was important for King David, one of the first items on his agenda once he was installed in Jerusalem. I wonder how most of the people of Israel felt about their king’s obsession to get the Ark of the Covenant to the capital city. Why not just leave well enough alone?

 

The Ark had been captured by the Philistines and brought so much disaster upon them that they sent it back to the land of Judah in an unmanned oxcart. It ended up in the house of Abinidab in the city of Kiriath-jearim. Upon the first attempt to bring the Ark from there to Jerusalem, Uzzah was struck down dead when he reached out his hand to steady the Ark, so it was then left in the house of Obed-edom for another three months.

 

Then another attempt was made. David prepared a place for the ark in the city and he appointed only Levites to carry it. He summoned all of Israel to come to Jerusalem, like they would do for the great pilgrim feasts of Passover and Pentecost and Booths. Levites were appointed to sing and play joyful music on harps and lyres and trumpets and cymbals. With a great parade of hundreds of priests and Levites they brought the Ark into the city while King David danced with joy in the procession. His wife, Michal, the daughter of Saul, found it all to be rather despicable.

 

Throughout Advent we are called to rejoice at the coming the LORD, the King. How do you feel about that? I think we all must have our particular point where we find some things in Advent joyful, but if things cross that line and go too far for us, then we might turn up our nose and even find some things rather despicable. From the kind of decorations that will go onto the Christmas tree to how modern the choir anthems get, we all have that point where we lose our taste for someone else’s joy.

 

Most of us love the annual service of Lessons and Carols, but perhaps for some the processional crucifix and torches are a bit too much. Maybe there was too much Latin in the carols or not enough. We didn’t see liturgical dancers, like King David. A few bells are okay but not too many cymbals or trumpets, please. I just listened to Advent Carols from Christ Church Cathedral in Oxford, and they performed O Oriens by Matthew Martin. There was more dissonance between the voices of the choir with the organ’s modern countermelody than I was comfortable with. I could feel my shoulders raise and my eyebrows furrow.

 

Perhaps it is because our joy is governed by our own personal likes and dislikes, rather than the event itself that we gather to celebrate. Could we sustain our joy in the presence of someone who goes farther than the bounds of our comfort zone, or would we just start to complain because we see it as someone showing off, perhaps knowing that would be the motive behind any ostentatious action we might do?

 

David’s song of thanks in our first reading is rather lengthy isn’t it, not just one psalm but a combination of two with a few added verses thrown in. That’s almost as bad as Martin Luther’s Christmas hymn of fifteen stanzas, “From Heaven Above to Earth I Come.” I can handle ten stanzas if we can separate the hymn into two of five stanzas each, but fifteen? Come on. That’s about the length of King David’s hymn that we had to sit and listen to tonight.

 

It is long and we lose our joy because we don’t want to sit still and listen for that long. Maybe that’s why David danced. Do you want to give it a try? It goes pretty much the same with any part of the liturgy (like the prayers), or even when you try to read the Bible on your own. If we are not comfortable with the sound and the style, if we don’t like to stand that long or sit quietly reading strange names and cadences, then we lose our joy for it.

 

But that is only losing our joy because of our personal likes and dislikes, for we have forgotten what the message is, what is the event that we are hearing about. When you think about the Ark of the Covenant coming to Jerusalem as the LORD Himself coming into the city, then David’s song couldn’t be long enough. There are not enough words to thank and praise God for coming to His people with His fatherly presence to preserve and defend.

 

So just after the call to give thanks and sing, David’s hymn implores the people to “Seek the LORD and His strength; seek His presence continually” (16:11). Look and see. Search it out until you perceive it. The LORD and His strength are entering into Jerusalem. He is the One who routed the Philistines all by Himself. The enemies of God’s people couldn’t stand to have the Ark and His presence among them. They sent it back. But if the LORD takes up residence in Jerusalem, then her people wouldn’t have to fear their enemies. The strength of the LORD would dwell within the capital of kingdom. So as the long procession makes its way and the singers go on and on with this hymn, “seek the LORD continually.” Watch for Him as He comes to you. Keep that thought in mind as the service goes on.

 

The hymn continues to remind the people of God’s preserving power for them. On His people’s way through the wilderness to the promised land “He allowed no one to oppress them; He rebuked kings on their account, saying, ‘Touch not My anointed ones, do My prophets no harm” (16:21-22). Any nation that stood in their way and would not let them pass He destroyed. And those who would not give up the land that was promised to the descendants of Abraham, He drove out before them.

 

Again and again the song reminds us that the LORD is our defender and keeper. He is the only god with power to rescue and save His people. “For all the gods of the peoples are idols, but the LORD made the heavens” (16:26). And so the long explanation of the First Article of the creed keeps reminding us. When we recite the Creed in any service, it is a reminds us of why we are there by declaring Who is there with us.

 

Zachariah pulled the short straw and went to Jerusalem for his priestly duties. Perhaps the ritual and routine had dampened the joy that a priest ought to have in serving the Lord. Yes, that happens. He washed and changed his garments. He trimmed the lamps. He stacked the flatbread on the table. Then he scooped up some incense and headed for the small altar by the veil. Just drop a few spoonfuls on the hot coals and recite the prayers and he would be done for the day. He could get home to his lonely wife and their too empty, too quiet house. They could sit silently with each other and share the unspoken, worn glances of their waning years and mourn what it might have been like to have children.

 

What a joy it would have been to watch the little ones run around the house and play. What wonder they would have shared as the children grew and developed their independent interests and skills. What proud moments they would have experienced as their sons entered the priesthood and their daughters were married. And now, they might have had the joy of a visit from their grown up children and perhaps the news that a grandchild was on the way.

 

But there was none of that joy for Zachariah and Elizabeth. They had no children. But they continued fulfilling their duties at home, in the community and the temple, trying to share in the joys of those around them but not finding the same gladness as what they had wanted, according to their personal preference to have been parents.

 

Suddenly amid the dull doldrums of his priestly duties, it all fell into place for Zachariah. An angel appeared to him at the altar of incense, a holy messenger of the LORD who was present behind the veil, who had heard every one of Zachariah and Elizabeth’s prayers (those for themselves and those for the nation). Gabriel rekindled the solemn joy of the presence of the LORD to Zachariah as he delivered the announcement of a child to be born to them, a child to prepare the way for the coming of the LORD to His people in the person of the Christ.

 

Zachariah’s joy was forcibly restrained as he was not allowed to speak until their son, John, was born. But he shared in the joy nonetheless, even as the ark of the LORD made its way to his house in the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy. Mary came with the LORD of the covenant in her womb. And like the Ark stayed at the home of the Obed-edom for three months, Mary housing the LORD Jesus, stayed at the home of Zachariah and Elizabeth for that same amount of time.

 

And when she went on her way to prepare for the birth of the Christ, the coming of the LORD into the world in human flesh, John the Baptist was born and Zachariah’s lips were loosed. He broke forth in the song of praise that we heard as our second reading tonight. It is not as long as David’s hymn, and perhaps that is why Zachariah’s song has found a place in the liturgy of Morning Prayer among us of limited attention span.

 

“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He has visited and redeemed His people, and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of His servant David” (Luke 1:68-69). Zachariah recognized that he had reason to sing along with King David. They shared the same joy in the same promise of the LORD to come to His people to rescue and save them from their “enemies and from the hand of all who hate us” (1:71). Not just to save from the Philistines and other nations whose gods are idols, but also to save us from the enemies of sin, death, and the devil.

 

In Zachariah’s song there is joy, not just over the birth of a son for whom he had given up hope, but first and foremost that the birth of his own signalled the birth of the Saviour of the world, the Son of God and son of Mary. This is the joy with which King David danced, the joy with which Zachariah’s song burst from his long silent tongue. This is the joy that is given to us celebrate this Advent.

 

No matter what your comfort zone or the point at which you usually begin to frown, there is a truth that lies behind our expressions of joy this season that is not dependent on your personal line of acceptance. And that is a good thing, because you probably cross the line of other people’s comfort too, and you should be all the more glad that they have a reason beyond your festive dance to be joyful in the Lord.

 

The Lord has come to His people “that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him all our days” (1:74-75). That means whether we dance or sing or smile in silence our joy has a true and profound base. It rests on the Lord who has come to dwell among us so that we may be joyful in our service to our heavenly Father. Our joy does not need to be unrestrained, but it does need to be focused.