Once again we have but a singular reference in Isaiah to the concept of joy (35:2) on a Sunday that is meant to speak about joy. For most of us joy is as ephemeral as all of the other things we have talked about such as hope and peace. In today's world there appears to very little joy as people no longer seem to have that concept of "joie de vivre" but rather there is an excellence at morbidity and 'downness' even when we talk of positive achievements. It takes a lot out of a person when we try to be over abundant with our lives when the world around us seems to be heavy and strained. Even when we have extended family around us we feel strained as if through a colander. (Not every one but I would say the majority at this time of year put on a face).This is particularly so when relationships are strained within family and community. So, why celebrate something that there appears to be a lack of?
More and more we appear to be sinking into a morass of mediocrity that disallows the extreme feelings that come with joy and sadness and all those other emotions that we bandy about without really realising them to the fullest extent. We have lowered our expectations much as Christ chides the crowds when he asks them what they went out into the wilderness to see (Matt. 11:7-9). We do not live with great expectations and therefore we are surprised and, in some ways, negative to exuberance of life. Perhaps the issue is that those expressing such exuberance are only acting out so that they may achieve fame, fortune etc all for themselves. Genuine joy is a difficult concept to accept when we are so used to being in the depressed state that the world has conceived for us. Even John the Baptist, according to Matthew, is uncertain as to whether to celebrate with joy as he questions Christ's presence (Matt. 11:3). If John questions it is no wonder that in this current age we struggle so much with the possibility of joy in our world. Indeed we often turn towards the past to reflect on what was rather than to the future to see what is to come.
We often yearn for a future that is filled with the joys of the past and the friendships that have been created. What we never realise is that those joys that we are sunk into remain in the past and so we never have the ability to engage with the present to create new joys out of what we perceive to be endless sorrows. It is only when we recognise that by dwelling in the past and attempting to re-create that past in the present we are creating our own melancholy and inability to move into the future. In this recognition we begin our return to new life and the joy of Christ in the world. By retreating to the past and attempting to recreate it in the present we are playing a political game that is only for our benefit, our control of the world around us, our drug of choice that pushes our own agendas without thinking of the greater whole or of Christ's life, death and resurrection. In the incarnation as it comes towards us we are reminded that we are mortal for God has created us and has become created with us so that we can live into the future. A future that as we know involves dying and in dying we let go of the past. In living into the future we recognise the elements of re-birth and newness of life as we co-create the joy of God's love. It is only when we recognise the elements of death within our own lives that we can start to let go and let God's love in recreating joy, happiness and life. It is through this healing power of understanding and anamnesis as we re-live the path of Christ that we come to the joy of new life. This letting go and re-membering needs to occur within all aspects of our life. We become hypocrites when we allow our past activities and politics to guide our present activities without first going through death to create new paths and new joys.
If we do this correctly, we mourn each death and move on into new life, this applies to parish life as much as to our lives in community. This is the upside down world of God's coming kingdom, it is we who have to mourn not others, it is we who have to suffer the death of ourselves not others, it is we who have to forgive ourselves not others. Christ gives us a clue to what healing in God's kingdom means as he proclaims those deeds that have been undertaken. The poor and the outcast are given hope and joy. The vicissitudes of life are not imposed by others but by by our own wants and needs our own rejection of the joy that is around us if we open our hearts to the other. God's kingdom comes in the irruption of newness within the fecundity of our lives as we understand ourselves and so come open our eyes to joy and love in relationships we build into the future.
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