One: We have lit the first two candles, one for hope and one for peace. Today we light the third candle, the candle of joy. This should be the easy one, because joy is all around us?in the children, the lights, the music, the gathering together. But how often do we let our preparations?or our memories?push joy to the side? Joy is like an underground spring that wells up within us, but joy is also a choice, an attitude. Like a muscle, it needs to be exercised. So today we open ourselves to joy, trusting that God has already planted it in us. All we need to do is give it care and offer it to share.

As the praise team sings today, a video will be playing to share images of the desert in bloom. We hope you enjoy these images as we continue to worship God.

Isaiah 35:1-10

The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus 2it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God. 3Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. 4Say to those who are of a fearful heart, ?Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God. He will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense. He will come and save you.?

5Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; 6then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy. For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; 7the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water; the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp, the grass shall become reeds and rushes. 8A highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Holy Way; the unclean shall not travel on it, but it shall be for God?s people; no traveler, not even fools, shall go astray. 9No lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it; they shall not be found there, but the redeemed shall walk there. 10And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

James 5:7-10

??????????????????????? 7Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains. 8You also must be patient. Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near. 9Beloved, do not grumble against one another, so that you may not be judged. See, the Judge is standing at the doors! 10As an example of suffering and patience, beloved, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.

As we started our Advent journey in November, this journey to something new and exciting, always expectant, we were given a pending invitation, an invitation to walk towards the light of God. ?Last week we were given a tangible hope that will emerge from a dead stump. The Scriptures for this Advent season will help us prepare for the birth of Jesus Christ through being filled with places-holy places, hard places, and the pathways in between. Together, these places present ?a geography of salvation??a map of the heights and depths our good God will go to bring us home. Through these weeks of Advent, we will ?visit? some of these sacred locales. Along the way we?ll learn that we can meet God on the mountaintop?but that God also draws near to wherever it is we find ourselves. Our journey to Bethlehem will be filled with landmarks from the book of Isaiah, and will lead us to the stories many of us know. We are moving from waiting for our invitation to celebrate when the house of the Lord is established, to knowing that even in the midst of a broken creation, signs of hope emerge, and today, to remembering that Advent isn?t only about God?s movement toward us, but also about our movement toward God. Movement in relationships is always important. As we walk through ?a geography of salvation,? I invite you to pray with me as we seek a desert in bloom. Let us pray.

This past week, I asked you to reflect on another question as we go through the hustle and bustle of preparing for Christmas. Reminding us that no matter where we are on our journeys, our feet can always walk in the light of the Lord and that signs of hope will emerge. In thinking about where signs of hope will emerge, the question was ?where do you need sprouts to grow in your life? Where do we need them in our hearts, our lives, our families, our congregation, our community?? As we venture into looking at a desert in bloom, we will look at how God moves and how we move in along the Holy Way.

I remember my first trip to Arizona. My grandfather lived out in Sun City, Arizona. We went out in in April and it was so hot! My grandfather had rocks for a lawn instead of grass! The temperature was so hot, hotter than Florida in the summer. We took at trip up to the Grand Canyon. On that drive, I remember seeing the red rock of Sedona and being amazed at everything I saw. Then when we arrived at the Grand Canyon, we jumped out of the car so excited to see what this really was. I remember being in awe of everything I saw. There aren?t words that can describe the first glimpse of the Grand Canyon. After we walked around for a bit, it started to get a little cooler. It got cold enough that it began to snow on top of the canyon. And we were freezing! It was the first time I had ever seen snow and was so excited about it happening. As I look back on that trip now, I think about the landscape and the extreme weather. Hot to cold, dry to snow, flat to mountains to canyons, trails to rivers, and nothing green, everything looking dead, to lush green landscape and everything seemed to be in bloom. I realize now, how amazing the desert is and how something that looks like it can be a time of wilderness, can be a time of growth, change, and new creation. It is images like these that bring me joy, that full joy in God?s creation, in awe and wonder of God, and God?s dreams for all of creation and the belief that what will come! In our passage for today, joy pulses through Isaiah 35 from the first line, with its glad lands and blossoming deserts, to the last, when a ransomed people come home singing!

As I look at this passage from Isaiah, I hear a great deal of hope about what is to come. I also realize there is a lot in here that is promised by not many people have ever seen realized. So let?s name the hard parts of what is still happening now. Currently in our lives, with our families, in our congregation, in our community, and throughout our world?there is still brokenness, hatred, sickness, disease, anger, blindness, deafness, muteness. These things are happening at different levels in peoples? bodies. It is happening on a spiritual level, emotional level, and a physical level. These are real. I would almost tend to think that being spiritually broken is almost harder than being physically broken. Or being spiritually blind to all the goodness of God, how God is working in your life and others, and seeing God?s amazing creation, might be harder than being physically blind. In some way or another all of us are bonded in some way, whether we like it or not. And many of us struggle with these in one way or another. For instance, I am a type 1 diabetic. I am bonded by the fact that my pancreas doesn?t work. It is broken. In order for me to live, I take a medication called insulin. I have an insulin pump attached to me at all times in order to make life closer to normal. The physical impairment causes issues for me in my life. Yet, it doesn?t spiritually impair me in any way. Through the diagnosis and healing process, to actually brought me closer to God. So there was a physical impairment, but not a spiritual impairment?but I am still broken and bonded. Does that make sense?

Isaiah is writing this to people who have actually been brought out of physical, economic, and political slavery by God. Isaiah is telling everyone that redemption is truly coming and God is moving towards them, wanting to redeem them in their situation, with their ailments, in their lives and redeem all of creation. God is on the move and wanting to release the people from what the bondage that is holding them back. Isaiah reminds the people that so many great things are possible when God is moving towards us and is the one we call home. It is when sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

And this passage is also a reminder for us that if God is moving towards us, then we have a responsibility to work on moving closer to God. We are the ones who actually need to put one foot in front of the other to get to the Holy Way, to get on the path towards God. On this path no one will go astray, not travelers or fools. Thank goodness! This is a path that will be full of people who have put their trust in God and are seeking to gain a closer relationship with God. These are people who believe and put their trust in the God they are moving towards and with. These are people who are on The Way.

Isaiah is reminding us today, that sometimes we need to look back in order to look to what is coming. Sometimes in the past we were kept by despair, lack of hope, injustice, addiction, divorce, death, and/or fear. These are the times in our lives that many of felt bonded or maybe exiled?in these times of our lives, we were walking a journey, but the journey didn?t involve God. So we need to learn from the past, from the times of bondage and exile, so we can live into the future.

Just as the images of a blossoming desert and a highway that will be called the Holy Way, bring an immense since of joy for what is to come for the people of God. Our passages from Isaiah so fair have envisioned fantastic transformations, impacts massive numbers of people, involve changes in creation itself, and describes the ultimate future of the world under God. While the first tow texts celebrate coming transformations of weapons, economics, social orders, and animals, Isaiah 35 announces coming transformations of land and human disabilities, locations, emotions, and destinies. It sings of liberations, jubilant homecomings, and the end of all sorrow and sighing. It replaces deserts with acres of bright blossoms, streams, pools, marshes. More exuberant than the preceding texts, it reports leaping, singing, rejoicing, gladness, and ?everlasting joy.?

Yet, as we hear this, we can see that these visions are not happening in our lives today. There is disappointment when old hopes seem to die and they aren?t replaced with what we felt we were promised. As the Israelites would have experienced a since of disappointment on the road home, we do too. But now, we can retrieve the old vision of a highway in the desert. The promise will be fulfilled once more, says the prophet, but its meaning will be broader, deeper, and more finally true. From everywhere on earth, the ?ransomed? will return. All the scattered promises will be joined in fulfillment together, as in a dance?earth renewed, bodies remade, freedoms conferred, the city reclaimed, new joys bestowed, and sorrow and sighing banished. This text is claiming old texts for new situations, extending trajectories, suggesting new convergences, re-visioning God?s dominion, future and present.