Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

This Third Sunday of Advent has a good old-fashioned church name that I kind of like – it is called “Gaudete Sunday,” gaudete being the Latin name for rejoice. It is why, back in the old days, the third candle on the Advent wreath was pink instead of purple. Times have changed, of course, and we don’t use the purple and pink candles anymore. We use blue now, and I like the blue. But I also like thinking of this particular Sunday in that old-fashioned way, as “Gaudete Sunday,” a day to rejoice. 

Two of today’s readings still remind us to do this, to rejoice.

“I will greatly rejoice in the Lord,” proclaims Isaiah in our First Reading, “my whole being shall exult in my God.”

And Paul, in our Second Reading, tells us to “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”

And so, on this Third Sunday of Advent, Gaudete Sunday, I invite us once again to rejoice – Rejoice in the Lord today. Rejoice and give thanks. For this is the season of joy. 

Joy Despite Sorrow? 

But, even as I say that, I want to point out the obvious: That this is not always easy to do. It’s not always easy to rejoice. You may be feeling overwhelmed with stress today, or struggling to keep it all together. Or, perhaps, just going through the motions, trying to get through the season. You might be hiding behind your smile, pretending that this really is the most wonderful time of the year, even though you don’t feel that way. You may have cares and concerns that are quenching your joy. And if that’s the case, to be told to rejoice today may actually be adding to your cares, not taking them away. 

So why am I talking about joy today? Because, in the words of the Christian writer, Henri Nouwen: “Sorrow and joy can exist together … in the life of a God-centered person.” Sorrow and happiness might not be able to exist together, but sorrow and joy can. Joy is deeper than happiness. Joy is rooted in God, and in God’s promise to love us and to be with us always. 

Nothing can take God away from us, not even death. And so we can always rejoice. We can choose to rejoice, knowing that our joy is deeper and stronger than any surface happiness or sadness that we may find in this world. 

Joy is our way, as Christians, of refusing to let the sorrow of this world win. It is our way of recognizing the truth that “earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal (Thomas Moore).” Nothing on this earth can take us from God’s love, and this can give us joy despite our sorrow. It is the “joy of God” that “has passed through the poverty of the manger and the torment of the cross,” as Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it, “and so it is unconquerable, irrefutable.” 

Unconquerable, irrefutable joy. The joy of God. That is what this day is all about. 

Choosing Joy

This joy can exist together with sorrow, as Nouwen reminds us. But it doesn’t have to. As Henri Nouwen goes on to say:

“Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day. It is a choice based on the knowledge that we belong to God and have found in God our refuge and our safety and that nothing, not even death, can take God away from us.”

I really like that. I like Nouwen’s reminder to us that joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day. 

Nurturing Joy

But how do we do that? How do we choose joy? Or, to put it a little differently, how do we nurture this joy? If we think of joy as a tree, what can we do to keep it healthy, and to help it to grow? 

I think that today’s second reading holds the key. In this reading, Paul tells us to rejoice always. And then, in my interpretation of this passage, he shows us how. Here is what he wrote again: 

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise the words of prophets, but test everything; hold fast to what is good; abstain from every form of evil.

Here, Paul invites us to rejoice always, and to pray without ceasing, and to give thanks in all circumstances. And he tells us that we should do all of this, for it is God’s will that we do so. Always, without ceasing, in all circumstances, we should rejoice, and pray, and give thanks. 

But what if these aren’t three separate commands? What if they are linked? What if the way to rejoice always is by praying without ceasing and by giving thanks in all circumstances? What if this is the way to nurture our joy, to keep it healthy, and to help it to grow? To me, this is a helpful way to think about rejoicing always, in part because it shows me what to do when I don’t feel like rejoicing. 

Praying without Ceasing

And so, for example, Paul tells us that we can nurture our joy by praying without ceasing. I don’t think that Paul necessarily means that we need to pray every moment of every day, but instead that we should not give up on prayer. As long as we don’t give up on prayer, we are praying without ceasing. Keep at it, in other words, even when it doesn’t seem to be working, and even when you don’t want to. Keep praying, without ceasing. 

Stay connected to God, when things are going great, when things are going terrible, and all the times between them. And when we do that – when we stay connected to God by not giving up on God, or on prayer – we find ourselves growing in the joy of the Lord. We find, maybe to our surprise, that we are able to rejoice always. We find that our sorrow and our joy can, in fact, exist together. And we discover this by praying without ceasing. 

Giving Thanks in All Circumstances 

But then Paul goes on to tell us to give thanks in all circumstances. Don’t just pray – give thanks. Why? Because Paul knows that gratitude has a way of nurturing joy. Being thankful helps us to rejoice. And we can always find reason to be thankful, which is why we can give thanks in all circumstances, because we believe in a God whose love for us knows no bounds. A God who promises to provide for us and care for us always. A God who created the entire universe, but still cares about us enough to count the very hairs on our head. A God who gave his son for us, so that we would not perish but would have eternal life. 

What an amazing, loving, awesome God we have. How can we not be thankful? And when we are thankful, we grow in our joy. Just as when we pray without ceasing, we grow in our joy. We can rejoice always by doing these things – by praying without ceasing, and by giving thanks in all circumstances. 

Do Not Quench the Spirit

But there is one more thing that Paul invites us to do, in the very next part of this passage. He writes: 

“Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise the words of prophets, but test everything; hold fast to what is good; abstain from every form of evil.”

To me, this is Paul telling us that we can also grow in our joy by not quenching the Spirit. And the way that we do this, Paul says, is by not despising God’s Word, by holding fast to what is good, and by abstaining from every form of evil. 

The image this gives me is that of a candle, like the candles on our Advent wreath. And the Holy Spirit is the flame. The flame is already lit. God has made sure of that. We have been given the gift of the Holy Spirit. But we must be careful not to put this divine flame out. 

Don’t quench or extinguish the Spirit, Paul tells us. Nurture it by staying rooted in God’s Word, and holding fast to what is good. Be careful what we expose ourselves to – what we read and watch, what we think about. Hold fast to what is good, Paul says, and what is good always comes from God. When we do this, we keep the Spirit glowing in our life, and we grow in our joy. 

Closing

Rejoice always, Paul teaches us, by praying without ceasing, by giving thanks in all circumstances, by staying rooted in God’s word, and by holding fast to what is good. And when we do this, we discover that joy and sorrow really can exist together. And not only that, but we discover that the joy of the Lord really is our strength, as God’s Word teaches us. Our joy becomes strong, and it gives us strength. And strengthened by this joy, we can spread it around our community. I like how Dietrich Bonhoeffer describes this. He writes: 

“With God dwells joy, and down from God it comes, seizing mind, soul, and body; and where this joy has grasped a human being it spreads, it carries away, it bursts through closed doors.”

Joy bursting through closed doors is a wonderful image for Advent, isn’t it? Joy that comes down from God, that bursts into closed hearts, and then bursts through closed doors. This is the joy that is our strength. This is the joy that is found in the manger. The joy that bursts forth from the tomb; the joy that bursts forth from all doors of this world that would try to hide. This is a joy that we can rejoice in, always. 

So, my friends, let us rejoice in this gift of joy, and nurture it, until it bursts forth, spreads, and carries away, into our community and throughout our world. To the glory of God. Amen.