Meditation: A Mantle of Praise

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This meditation introduced a time of sharing our joys on the third Sunday of Advent, which is traditionally known as Gaudete Sunday, or “Rejoicing Sunday.” This meditation is also part of a nine-month series in which we will tell the story of Scripture from Creation to the early Church using the Narrative Lectionary readings.

Isaiah 61:1-11

Friends, we do not rejoice enough. Pat recently told me of a conversation she had with her daughter-in-law, who grew up in the LDS Church. In this conversation, her daughter-in-law shared something she had noticed since leaving the LDS community: progressive Protestant spaces tend to lack joy! “There’s always so much work to do,” Pat said, paraphrasing her daughter-in-law. “And we have to constantly be fixing ourselves, improving ourselves.” Growing up Mormon, her daughter-in-law had found the worship services more joyful, as the community tended to celebrate the small joys of being community together—like what was going on in their lives, and things like new babies and other life milestones. While I think we also do a good job of celebrating together, I think there’s some truth in there for us: Friends, we do not rejoice enough.

I worry, sometimes, about what our lack of joy or gratitude does to our young people. I recently read an article entitled: “Young People Ae Now So Unhappy, They’ve Changed a Fundamental Pattern of Life:  So long mid-life crisis, hello youth in despair.”  Up until about 2017, there was this U shaped pattern that was consistent across cultures:  Younger and older people were the happiest, with a dip in middle age. Now, since 2017, that trend has been reversed:  Happiness is now starting to rise with age. Our young people aren’t starting out as happy — they have this uphill climb toward it. Not all young people, of course. We’re talking big trends here, but it’s notable one.

There’s many reasons for this, they think — social media, certainly climate change and the instability of our political life and etc.  More than ever, I believe our young people need to see and hear our joy, our gratitude. They need us, as this passage from Isaiah says, to put on a mantle of praise. A mantle is cape. And so this passage is saying that the prophet has been given the spirt of God and that Spirit is empowering them to put on a mantle of praise, of joy, upon those who are despondent, despairing. We need to do this for each other, and especially for our young people.

This joy is not the thin kind peddled this time of year. It’s not the thin kind of joy that can be purchased on Amazon or wrapped up under a Christmas tree, although I do like presents. Rather, the joy promised by God in Isaiah is the thick joy of a people who have known suffering. It is a joy that has grown from the soil of oppression, exile, and brokenheartedness – and it is a joy that, like a wild rose, can barely be restrained. The kind of joy given to a people joyfully anticipating a time when their ruined cities will be repaired, their ancient ruins built up — because let’s be clear, none of that has happened yet.  This passage of Isaiah is written to give comfort and joy to a people just returning from exile. And they are returning to a devastated place. But they are rejoicing among the ruins because they know that God is helping them build up the new world, repairing the former devastations.

These words from Isaiah are intended to encourage people to take that long journey into the unknown, to journey out of Babylon, the land of their exile, and back to the Promised Land.

I know many of us feel the we are in that long journey into the unknown. We all know what’s happening on January 20. We all know about all the problems. But friends, the Promised Land is present whenever we care for each other, whenever we comfort those who mourn. The Promised Land is present whenever we bind up the brokenhearted and repair what was devastated. The Promised Land is present whenever we build up the new world within the shell of the old.

Where in your life, or in our community’s life, or in the life of the world do you see caring, comforting, binding up, repairing, building the new world? We want to hear your joy. It’s OK if it’s small. Putting on this mantle of praise is an important spiritual discipline, especially as we head into this new year. We are going to need to mourn with those who are mourning, and we are going to need to rejoice. Both can co-exist. As Frederick Beecher says in his work The Longing for Home, “Joy is home… God created us in joy and for joy, and in the long run not all the darkness there is in the world and in ourselves can separate us finally from that joy… We have God’s joy in our blood.”