Mary’s song of joy leaping within her might be just what we needed to hear this morning, God. This season of Advent has presented us with so many words of a promise of something to come, of the joy we hope for in a far off future, that we easily forget where to find joy of now. We are so distracted by the flashing lights, we get lost in holiday partying, and we get so buried in wish lists for gifts that we forget in a matter of days this will no longer be reality.
Yet your joy Oh God, is not the saccharin candy coating that leaves us feeling half full. Your joy finds us even in our emptiness, in our fear, in times we have felt betrayed. Your deep and rooted joy, labors through our pain and heartache, it screams through fear and hurt, and it is birthed among our brokenness so that a song of redemption and restoration may make its way into our hearts and onto our lips.
May we not forget Mary’s song of joy was from a place of struggle. So as we experience our own times of struggle, may we also feel that same restlessness of your spirit inside of us, struggling with us, longing with us, crying out with us. May we know we are not alone in this longing for a new song to sing of new birth and new life. And as we cry out may we also cry out with others in our lives and world, who know that song of struggle by heart. We pray that even in the midst of struggle that joy may leap and restore them:
(Concerns of the congregation spoken aloud)
While there are few quiet moments in the hurried time of Christmas Oh God, may we use these last days of Advent to grasp onto your sustaining joy we find here. Even if we aren’t the most gifted of singers, may we be I afraid to belt out the song we cannot help but sing. Giving thanks to you for every note of joy that comes to our lives. We give thanks for:
(Joys of the congregation spoken aloud)
God, No matter how faint it may sound to us, may we hear the song of Mary moving and growing within us. Clear our ears so that we may hear you calling to us, breathing on us, and singing within us. Even if it is as faint as a hum, may your song become stuck in our hearts so that we might teach others its rhythm and verses. May our every expectation and longing for hope, for peace, for love and of joy be written through our lives as collective hymn that we live out into the world. So that it will no longer be a faint hum we have to strain to hear, but that your love will be a song known in the hearts of all. Let its song also be a prayer, as we reprise the prayer that Jesus taught us to pray.
Our Father… (Lord’s Prayer)
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