It’s the third Sunday of Advent and it’s time we should sing “Go Tell It on the Mountain”! Well — not necessarily from a mountain — that would mean we’d have to go climbing! Perhaps we can start right here on level ground to be joyful and full of the good news of Christ’s coming to this world for you and me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The third \u201cpink\u201d candle is lit on the Advent wreath today. That pink candle symbolizes JOY. Paul wrote about that joy in Philippians 4:4: \u201cRejoice in the Lord always: again, I say rejoice.\u201d Can you imagine that he wrote that scripture from a dark, cold and damp prison cell? How could he write such words? He deserved to be in misery \u2013 even whining and crying a bucketful of tears and singing \u201cGloom, despair and agony on me\u201d! But he didn\u2019t. Aw! Paul! My role-model! He\u2019s the kind of role-model we, and our kids, need in a world of idolizing sports figures, music and film stars. Give me the Paul-kind-of-role-model any day! The kind that lives out \u201cNo matter where we are or what we’re facing\u2026.we can find JOY in the good news of Emmanuel\u2026.God with us — right in the middle of our circumstances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Aw \u2013 sweet joy, joy, joy down in my heart \u2013 down in my heart to stay. Did you sing that little song as a kid? I did! Joy is such a warm, fluffy feeling. But, the REJOICING that Paul speaks of is an ACTION word. In that prison cell, he was definitely taking ACTION. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
PINK is the color for this 3rd Sunday of Advent. Typically, when we think of pink \u2013 we think \u201cgirly\u201d. We put our little girls in pink outfits with a pink bow in their hair to declare “It’s a GIRL”! (In my case, my little Staci had NO hair so I scotch-taped a little bow on her head — I know that’s hard to believe when we see that massive head of hair she has today! LOL!). Sorry — I took a rabbit trail from my train of thought about Advent. Pink isn’t just about girls. God painted all shades of pink into a sunrise. And, like the various shades of pink, our expressions of joy can be so different. Joy can be exuberant — that jumping up and down little child at the prospect of something that excites them so much, or MY daughter when she opened some of her birthday presents recently. JOY is also that calm and peaceful experience of God’s faithfulness. It can be calm confidence in His sovereignty, or pure delight as He expresses His love. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
PINK is also about a teenage \u201cvirgin\u201d girl named Mary who was faced with all kinds of pressure of potential stoning because she was pregnant outside of wedlock. She could have been frozen in fear of her circumstances, of disappointing her fianc\u00e9e and her parents \u2013 never mind the \u201ctalk\u201d of the townspeople. But instead of being frozen in a \u201cwoe is me\u201d attitude, she took ACTION and \u201cwent with haste\u201d to her \u201cold\u201d cousin Elizabeth who was six months pregnant to confirm that the angel\u2019s words of \u201cNothing is impossible with God\u201d were true. She took the ACTION word REJOICE to a level that St. Paul did in his prison cell. In Luke 1:46,47 she said these words: \u201cMy soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit REJOICES in God my Savior!\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s the kind of JOY to this world \u2013 that changes everything. That joy that should never be determined by how we feel, but on WHO God is. The joy of the Lord can thrill us AND it can make us steadfast in the secure knowledge of Emmanuel — God’s presence with us. Paul tells us in 1 Thessalonians 5:16: \u201cREJOICE always!\u201d and Jesus tells us in Mark 9:24 “With God all things are possible.” THAT combination of trust should help us\u2026..carry on from this 3rd Sunday of Advent to EVERYDAY rejoicing and being joyful! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It’s the third Sunday of Advent and it’s time we should sing “Go Tell It on the Mountain”! Well — not necessarily from a mountain — that would mean we’d have to go climbing! Perhaps we can start right here on level ground to be joyful and full of the good news of Christ’s coming…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11566,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15841,12804,15840,1],"tags":[579,1210,5585,6907,15836,41,7556,542,14108,376,15837,586,15838,15839],"class_list":["post-11565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-go-tell-on-the-mountain","category-joy","category-rejoicing","category-uncategorized","tag-advent","tag-blog","tag-elizabeth","tag-girly","tag-go-tell-it","tag-joy","tag-joy-in-my-heart","tag-mary","tag-mypeacezone-com","tag-philippians-44","tag-pink-candle","tag-rejoice","tag-rejoice-in-the-lord","tag-wreath"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11565"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11565\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11567,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11565\/revisions\/11567"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}