The Breath of God is Joy
The third Sunday of Advent is “pink candle” Sunday. It is traditionally called Gaudete (Rejoice) Sunday, and the pink candle symbolizes Joy. It represents a lightness of heart and an undeterrable spirit even in the darkness. In the middle of all purple, the pink candle brings hope and promises that the waiting is nearing an end. God’s promise is about to be fulfilled. In the fulfillment of God’s promise is unconditional Joy!
Not sure where to begin this reflection, I started with the dictionary and thesaurus. The synonyms for joy were happiness and delight. It also said joy is a noun. Far be it from me to take exception with Miriam Webster or Peter Roget. However, when we speak of Holy Joy, the Joy of Faith, and the Living Joy of God, words like happiness and delight are both weak and inadequate. They are wimpy words, and they do not begin to capture the unimaginable wonder of God’s Joy. God’s joy is undefeatable and undeterred. It is incredible in its depth and resilience. No temporary emotion, no matter how prevailing, can conquer it. Holy Joy is rooted in the deepest part of our souls. It is the essence of our being. God’s Joy is our breath itself.
The Joy of the Candle we light this week is not a noun but a verb. It is an action word. Holy Joy is not temporary or extinguishable. Instead, it is dynamic, vibrant, and ever-present, no matter the circumstances of our lives. Holy Joy is the rhythmic breathing that animates and gives fullness to life. Even with tears streaming down our cheeks, the breath of God enables us to take the next breath and then the next until we begin to heal.
When God creates, He creates with wonder and joy. We are a part, the best part, of God’s creation. Scripture tells us that God breathed life into humanity. First, God created us in His image, and then He breathed the fullness of Himself into our being. God’s own breath filled us with all of Him. God breathed into us the potential to be fully and completely one with Him both in Heaven and on earth.
Sometimes we get lost and cannot find our way, much like the Israelites of old. Sometimes we forget how to breathe. We become overwhelmed with life and its demands. We worry over what we cannot control. We are discouraged when life isn’t going according to our plan. We fear the future, and we mourn the past. We, like the Israelites, forget that we breathe with the very breath of God.
When the Israelites forgot how to breathe, God breathed the fullness of Himself into His Son with unimaginable love. God sent Jesus as a constant reminder, showing us how to live in the confusion of life. At the moment of Incarnation, God came to be intimate with us forever. Jesus lived with simplicity and humility to remind us what we had forgotten. He came as one like us in every way. Jesus came to remind us that we breathe with the very breath of God. That is how God created us. That is how God wants it. That is the fullness of Holy Joy.
The Joy that fills our hearts as we light this third Advent candle is at the deepest part of our souls. Temporary emotions of happiness, sadness, fear, or even lethargy and apathy, despite their power, do not have the strength to extinguish the light of God’s Joy.
So, today we remember, and we breathe. We inhale God, and His Joy seeps into the depths of our being. We are rooted in God; we live, inhaling God and exhaling Joy into our world. Our holy breath bears witness to the Joy of God made human in Jesus and in us. And in us!
As we light the Candle of Joy today, breathe deeply. Breathe in God. Breathe out, Holy Joy. It is time now to stand on the brink and wait. It is time to breathe deeply. God is born within us. Just breathe. Allow God to come and make a home in you.
In God’s Unending Love,
Gwen
