Does everyone have that wonderful after-pageant-glow inside of them?  There is nothing like a few young bathrobe wearing shepherds and a tiny tot or two attached to star balloons marching up the aisle to scripture and carols,
to give you that warm fuzzy feeling.  I think it is something we are all looking for and needing this year.  Unfortunately that warm fuzzy feeling is not too sturdy up against the reality of the world.  By tomorrow morning, into your third crisis at work, warm and fuzzy will have cooled itself to aggravated and frustrated.
 
We need more than warm and fuzzy to get us prepared for the arrival of this Christ child.  We need more just to face the world each new day.  A French philosopher in the nineteenth century wrote "By dull care, by stupid industry, a certain social fabric somehow exists; people contrive to find work to go out to their work, and to find work to employ them actually until the evening; body and soul are kept together, and this is what humankind has to show for its six thousand years of toil and trouble."  Boy this guy would be a cheerful one at a cocktail party.
 
But he does speak to a feeling we have all experienced, that treadmill sort of existence when it feels as if our efforts and energies and emotions are all playing out as we run along in place.  This time of year with its many expectations can leave us feeling even more let down as we scurry about for another year of holiday busyness and another year in which we will not create the perfect holiday.

The great Henry Sloane Coffin wrote "It is a crippling weakness of Christians that we do not think often enough of God and God's goodness to us to be overwhelmed by God's greatness and grace, and moved to ecstasy."
 
Now I have said this before and I will say it again, I have never been a fan of those "happy Christians."  Those folks that just have so much Jesus in their hearts that they are eternally chipper.  But I do believe that too often we do not stand upon a foundation of faith in our daily lives and perhaps especially in the midst of our holiday busyness.  We often engage these days with a backdrop of melancholy for a variety of reasons.  The loss of family members and loved ones from years past, the reminder of broken relationships with those whom we used to celebrate, the news of escalating violence in Israel and Palestine.  One of the biggest reasons for our melancholy is our high expectations which are often brought low.  Many of these expectations revolve around some Norman Rockwell portrait of how Christmas should be.

You know what I am talking about, images of rosy cheeked families gathered around the dinner table, one smile bigger than the next, everything bathed in that gentle patina of loving enthusiasm.  Is this not what all of our Christmas seasons will be?
 
This morning I want us to attempt to step away from Norman Rockwell expectations to a biblical expectation for the holiday.  Our text from Isaiah is filled with powerful expectations of joy.  But unlike some of our perfect Christmas images, Isaiah acknowledges the darker tones of life as well.  He acknowledges that there are people who are brokenhearted, people who are imprisoned, people who are oppressed, people who are mourning.  Isaiah is the proclaimer of good news to all those who suffer.  This is the text Jesus quotes at the start of his ministry to announce his intentions to the world.  This holiday which celebrates the arrival of Jesus the Christ is not designed for perfect people or even for the well adjusted parts of us imperfect people.  Christmas, the celebration of the incarnation of Christ on the earth, is specifically for those of us who are broken, for the broken parts inside each one of us.
 
When we are feeling down in these days of advent, we are not out of step with the nature of the holiday.  We are merely acknowledging the reason we need to have God born into our midst.  The question is how we choose to respond to these moments of sadness.  Do we choose to wallow in them in self pity?  Or do we remind ourselves of the promises we have been given by our God?  We have already established that we live in an imperfect world and we are imperfect people.  But the bigger equation is our faith in the God who is coming; who is powerful enough to heal all our wounds, bind up our broken hearts, release us from all that imprisons our hearts; a God who will not let the poor go hungry and will not let the persecuted continue on in their suffering.

When we place our trust in this God as the center of our advent days we can reach beyond our faint spirits and put on a mantle of praise.  We can join together with a joy that is not built upon the absence of all pain, but a joy that is built upon God's power in the coming Christ to transform all of our suffering and failures into wholeness and completion.  Yes it does sound far fetched and it does not make everything perfect this very minute.

But in this season when we await the birth of one who will join us in our mortal limitations all the way to a death on a cross.  When we affirm that this huge human failure will be transformed into resurrection, into eternal life, into the victory of God's powerful love over our sinfulness, how can we not be strengthened?  How can we not celebrate God's glory?  How can we not lift up our eyes  long enough to see the beatific vision of our approaching savior?  Who has the time to be comparing themselves to Norman Rockwell when Jesus Christ is on the way?

Amen.