Ruth Greenaway-Robbins

A Sermon for the 3rd Sunday of Advent

The Third Sunday of Advent is Gaudete Sunday.
Gaudete means Rejoice! A moment of rose-coloured light in the deep purples of waiting. A day when the Church invites us to loosen our shoulders just a little, to breathe, to notice joy even when the candles are still surrounded by night.

Joy here is not forced cheerfulness or Christmas-card sentimentality. It is the kind of joy that glimmers like a small flame in the wind: real, fragile, stubborn. Joy as resistance. Joy that says: even in this world, even now, God is coming.

Because joy is not always easy to grasp. For some, this season is difficult: the cost-of-living crisis biting, the ache of absence at Christmas tables, conflict and uncertainty across nations, and perhaps even within our own hearts. It can feel like walking through desert places, dry ground where hope seems thin.

And yet, into this reality, Isaiah speaks a word of astonishing audacity:
“The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad; the desert shall rejoice and blossom.”

Not might, but shall. Not if things improve, not if we sort our lives out, not if the world becomes peaceful – but because God is coming, and therefore joy will blossom in the most unlikely places. Isaiah’s vision is not set in a garden but in a wasteland. God’s promise is not that life will always be easy, but that even where life feels barren, God can bring forth new shoots.

He speaks of weak hands strengthened, fearful hearts told, “Do not be afraid.” He speaks of eyes opened, the lame leaping like deer, water bursting from thirsty ground. Joy in scripture is never something we must conjure up. Joy is what happens when God arrives. It is gift, not performance. It comes to us like a green shoot through cracked earth.

Each of us knows areas of life that feel desert-like; a strained relationship, an unexpected health diagnosis, a grief we carry, a world weary with injustice. Isaiah invites us to imagine that even there, God might be planting something tender and alive.

And then we turn to Mary – a young woman in an occupied land, from an unremarkable village, newly pregnant under circumstances that could have ruined her. And she sings. She sings not because everything is simple but because she trusts that God is doing something new.

“My soul glorifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour.”

Mary’s joy is subversive.
It is joy that confronts the powerful, lifts the lowly, fills the hungry with good things. She sings of a God who overturns the world as we know it. Her joy is not escapism; it is courage wrapped up in song, a daring declaration that God is turning the world the right way up.

And her courage reminds me of a spiritual that has long stayed with me. “There Is a Balm in Gilead.” I first heard this Spiritual back in the late two thousands whilst studying singing in Canada, I worked for a short while with a black African American singing teacher. She introduced me to many spirituals as part of my training, and this one stayed with me in a way that has encouraged me in moments of finding subversive joy. “There is a balm in Gilead”  emerged from the African-American tradition, shaped in a world marked by enslavement, violence, and profound loss. I do not pretend to fully grasp the weight of that history, nor to speak on behalf of those who lived it. But what moves me is the way the song holds sorrow and joy together without diminishing either.

It begins in painful honesty:
“Sometimes I feel discouraged and think my work’s in vain.”
No pretence. No hiding the exhaustion of life in hard places.
And then, into this discouragement, comes the refrain:
“But then the Holy Spirit revives my soul again.”

That word revives is pure Advent – joy as breath returning to weary lungs, strength flowing into weak hands, hope rising where hope had thinned. Joy not born of circumstances improving, but born of God drawing near because we are loved beyond measure by God. A joy received, not manufactured.

The refrain speaks of a healing balm – God’s tenderness meeting human wounds. Somehow, communities who had every reason to despair sang it with fierce hope, clinging to the belief that God’s Spirit could still restore and revive. That is subversive joy. Joy that refuses to let suffering have the final word. Joy that blossoms in barren places – not because the world is gentle, but because God is good.

In its quiet courage, this spiritual stands close to Mary’s Magnificat. Both are songs sung in the shadows of oppression. Both proclaim a God who lifts the lowly and restores the broken. Both insist that joy can rise even in the hardest places.

Notice again: joy in scripture is never shallow. It is birthed in risk, in waiting, in uncertainty. Joy is not glitter sprinkled onto life – joy is what breaks through when we trust the promise of God’s future more than the fear of the present.

Which is why the Gospel today is so striking. While Mary sings, John the Baptist sits in prison – in a dark cell, hearing rumours about Jesus, wondering if he got it wrong. “Are you the one who is to come,” he asks, “or are we to wait for another?” Even prophets have doubts. Even saints have days where joy feels distant.

And Jesus does not scold him. Instead, he sends back evidence of joy in action: “The blind receive sight, the lame walk, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news.”

In other words, look for the signs of life. Even if John cannot see them from prison, joy is already moving like water beneath the sand.

Perhaps this is our invitation too: when joy feels elusive, look for the small signs of God at work – a meal shared, a kindness offered when you least expected it, volunteers like at our food bank handing out food with dignity, a candle lit faithfully in memory and love like we so many of us do at our church. Kingdom-joy often begins quietly. A blossom in the desert.

Gaudete Sunday tells us that joy is not pretending everything is fine – no one needs toxic positivity. Instead, joy is the confidence that God is breaking in – even now, even here. Joy is the brave decision to keep watch for light. To keep singing with Mary. To keep trusting with Isaiah. To keep seeking signs with John.

So perhaps this week as we spend time in prayer or in wondering we might ask:
• Where is something beginning to blossom in me?
• Where might God be planting hope?
• What small joy can I tend?

And maybe you need to borrow joy from someone else for a while – and that is holy too. That is why the Church gathers. When one of us cannot sing, another carries the tune. When someone’s candle flickers, we share the flame.

In some churches on Gaudete Sunday, they wear rose vestments – not the full gold of Christmas, not yet, nor the more sombre purple, but a blush of rose joy. A sign that the night is not all there is. That the Light is coming. That God is drawing near with healing and restoration.

For joy is not the absence of sorrow.
Joy is the presence of God.

And like a desert in bloom, like Mary’s song in the dark, like a spiritual sung in hard places, like good news spoken to a prisoner – joy can surprise us. Tender shoots can break through hard earth. Water can spring up in wilderness places. Hearts once fearful can find strength again.

This Advent, may God give us eyes to see joy, courage to welcome it, and grace to share it.
Amen.

I want to share with you my favourite recording of ‘There is a Balm in Gilead’ sung by the mighty Kathleen Battle and Jessye Norman. I hope you enjoy it.