The holidays–Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year, are a time of arrivals. Many of you will be hosting friends or family who arrive for gatherings during this season. Many of you will be traveling to and arriving at gatherings during this season.
In fact, today is the second Sunday of what many around the world call “Advent.” The word Advent comes from a Latin word Adventus meaning “a coming or arrival.” It refers to the arrival of Jesus as a baby in the manger. Many around the world use the four Sundays prior to Christmas to celebrate Jesus’ advent, his arrival. In 2016 we will join that tradition and use the four Sundays prior to Christmas to experience Advent.
This morning we look at another arrival involving Jesus–his arrival in Jerusalem. Often called “The Triumphal Entry,” the story reveals how excited people were when Jesus entered Jerusalem. The people in the story believed Jesus was arriving in Jerusalem as a king to take his throne. He was arriving as a king, but a very different kind of king:
37 As he was drawing near—already on the way down the Mount of Olives—the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, 38 saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” 39 And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.” 40 He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.” (Luke 19:37-40 ESV)
Notice the two reactions and Jesus’ response:
- The disciples “rejoice and praise God.” They celebrate. They make merry. They are filled with joy. The disciples are the epitome of what many of us long for – contentment and abundant joy.
- The Pharisees react with “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!” They are Scrooge. They are grumpy. They are downright mean. They are the epitome of what many of us often struggle with–negativity and pessimism.
- And Jesus responds to the Pharisees with a strange phrase: “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”
Just like the phrase which Eric preached from last week–”Go and tell that fox” (Lk. 13:32)–this is not a phrase most of us have spent a lot of time considering: “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.” But it turns out to be a very rich phrase.
It teaches us some important things about rejoicing. After all, Jesus uses this phrase in the face of people who want the disciples to stop rejoicing. This phrase has many lessons to teach us about rejoicing.
In fact, there are at least four ways of reading and understanding this phrase. The words Jesus used leave the precise meaning a little unclear. And over the centuries, Christians have heard four important lessons in this one phrase.[1] Jesus uses stones to teach us four lessons about rejoicing. I’ve put my own spin on these four traditional ways of interpreting Jesus’ words.
#1-Jesus uses rocks as a kind of owner’s manual. And he teaches this lesson: God raised me to rejoice.
When Jesus says, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out,” some Christians have interpreted it in this way:
“It would be easier to make rocks speak up than it would be to get these disciples to shut up.”
Jesus may be saying that the Pharisees may as well wish for rocks to cry out if they are wishing for the disciples to shut up. It would be easier, Jesus may be saying, to get rocks to speak than to get the disciples to stop rejoicing.
Heard in this way, rocks become a kind of owner’s manual. They remind us what we are made to do. What we’ve been reared and raised by God to do. Unlike rocks, we have been made to rejoice. Thus it would be easier to get rocks to cry out than it would be to get humans to stop rejoicing. Jesus’ point is that rocks do not come equipped to do what we are equipped to do: rejoice.
In other words, the disciples, in rejoicing, are doing exactly what they’ve been designed to do. And it would be easier to get stones to start doing something they weren’t designed to do (cry out) than it would be to get the disciples to stop doing something they were designed to do (rejoice).
Rocks are created to silently sit. You are created to enthusiastically exult. Rocks inspire us to remember that we each come fully equipped with all the bells and whistles needed for one thing: living lives of abundant joy. Our standard equipment as humans allows us to naturally do what rocks could only miraculously do: live lives of abundant joy. When I contemplate rocks, I am reminded of what I can uniquely do that they cannot: rejoice. And that is the life we’ve all been made for.
Paul uses this same word “rejoice” from v. 37 when he writes this:
We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, we live; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything. (2 Cor. 6:8-10 ESV)
We were made to live with the ability to always rejoice, no matter the circumstance.
Paul uses the same word “rejoice” when he writes this:
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. (Phil. 4:4 ESV)
We were made to rejoice always.
Life with the Lord is not trouble-free. But it can be joy-filled. We were made to live lives of joy. Rocks remind us that while they were made to silently sit, we were made to radically rejoice–even in tough times.
In her book Fight Back with Joy (6-7) Margaret Feinberg writes this:
Joy is one of those words that has been overused, distorted into a cliche. Plastered on coffee mugs, necklaces, T-shirts, decorative pillows–even dish soap. This critical quality has been transformed into a trinket we rarely notice and almost never take seriously. Many people live joyless lives because they don’t understand what joy is, what joy does, how to discover joy, and what to do with it once they find it. C. S Lewis once described joy as “serious business,” yet I assumed I could take joy lightly, capturing it in my free time like fireflies in a mason jar. I learned that you need much more than an experiment to unleash the power of joy. You need chutzpah, you need backbone, you need intentionality–and sometimes you need a crisis. (Margaret Feinberg, Fight Back with Joy)
Her crisis was cancer. Yet even in that crisis, she learned to rejoice. Her book is her testimony of the way in which not even cancer could rob her of abundant and abiding joy.
Every rock we see is like an owner’s manual. Because a rock cannot rejoice it reminds us that we can. Every rock is a reminder that God raised us to rejoice. And the joy that seems to come more easily for some of us in times like Christmas is intended to be ours all year long.
#2-Jesus uses rocks as a kind of mediary. And he teaches this lesson: God provides substitutes to rejoice when I stop.
When Jesus says, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out,” some Christians have interpreted it in this way:
“Even if my disciples stopped rejoicing, these stones would never cease rejoicing.”
That is, even if the Pharisees managed to get the disciples to stop rejoicing, the rocks would just take over–they would continue the rejoicing.
This way of hearing Jesus’ phrase is the opposite of the first interpretation. The first interpretation highlighted the fact that rocks cannot do what we are created to do: rejoice. This second interpretation highlights that, in fact, rocks can rejoice. Rocks, as do all things in nature, join us in celebrating life and the God who made it:
David proclaims this in Ps. 19:
The heavens tell about the glory of God. The skies announce what his hands have made. Each new day tells more of the story, and each night reveals more and more about God’s power. (Ps. 19:1-2 ERV)
Elsewhere we read this:
Praise the Lord from the earth, you great sea creatures and all deeps, fire and hail, snow and mist, stormy wind fulfilling his word! Mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars! Beasts and all livestock, creeping things and flying birds! (Ps. 148:7-10 ESV)
While we humans are uniquely equipped to rejoice, we are nonetheless part of a larger chorus comprised of the heavens, the skies, the great sea creatures, fire, hail, snow, mist, wind, mountains, hills, fruit trees, cedars, beasts, birds and, yes, stones. Even stones take up the great vocation of rejoicing.
This means that when circumstances hit us which cause us to press “pause” on our own rejoicing, rocks continue what we cannot. Stones, and all of creation, become our mediary, our surrogate, our stand-in, our substitute. When we cannot find the energy, the enthusiasm or the will to rejoice, stones do it for us–because they are part of that creation chorus which constantly rejoices in all God has done.
In the book Stories for the Journey, William White tells about a seminary professor named Hans and his wife, Enid. World War II forced Hans and Enid to flee to America where Hans found a job teaching. Nearly every day Hans and Enid took long walks together, holding hands, and they always sat close in church, until Enid died. Hans was overwhelmed with sorrow. He stopped eating. He stopped his long walks. Worried, the seminary president along with three other friends, visited Hans regularly. But Hans remained depressed. He told his friends, “I am no longer able to pray to God. In fact, I am not certain I believe in God any more.” After a moment of silence the seminary president said, “Then we will believe for you. We will pray for you.” So the four men met daily for prayer, the three friends praying because Hans could not. Many months later, as the four gathered with Hans, he smiled and said, “It is no longer necessary for you to pray without me. Today, I would like to pray with you.” The friends has been his mediary, his substitute. When he couldn’t believe, they believed for him. When he couldn’t pray, they prayed for him–until he was able to rejoin them in believing and praying. (William R. White, Stories for the Journey, (Augsburg, 1988), 47-49)
When those tough times come, stones do for us what Hans’ friends did for him. They rejoice when we cannot–until we are able to rejoin them. Every rock we see reminds us of this: God provides substitutes to rejoice when I stop.
#3-Jesus uses rocks as a kind of mentor. And he teaches this lesson: “God prompts me to rejoice when I pause.”
When Jesus says, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out,” some Christians have interpreted it in this way:
“If the disciples stop rejoicing, the stones will start correcting.”
That is, the stones will notice that the disciples have stopped rejoicing and they will urge the disciples to change course and start rejoicing again. The stones will try to correct the disciples and urge them to begin rejoicing.
This idea is rooted in an obscure Old Testament book called Habakkuk which pictures a homeowner engaged in behavior that is wrong. When the homeowner engages in this wrong behavior, here’s what Habakkuk writes:
“the stone will cry out from the wall.” (Hab. 2:11)
That is, the stones which make up the wall of the house will notice the wrong behavior and will cry out in order to try to correct that behavior.
James uses a similar image when he writes this:
“Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you…” (Jas. 5:4 ESV).
James pictures landowners engaged in a wrong behavior and the wages they withheld crying out to correct that wrong behavior.
Jesus thus may be picturing the stones “crying out” against the disciples if they were to stop what they were created to do–rejoicing. In this sense, rocks become a kind of mentor. They hold us accountable. Even when no one else in our life notices that we’ve given up on our God-created task of rejoicing, rocks notice. And they cry out, in an attempt to correct our wrong behavior. In an effort to steer us back to the path of rejoicing.
#4-Jesus uses rocks as a kind of munition. And he teaches this lesson: God defends me against that which deters my joy.
When Jesus says, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out,” some Christians have interpreted it in this way:
“If you try to stop the disciples from rejoicing, these stones will cry out and stop you!”
Rooted in the same imagery as I noted in point #3, this understanding makes use of the Bible’s insistence that when a wrong is committed, even the stones notice and cry out in protest (e.g., Hab. 2:11). In point #3, the stones cry out against the disciples. Here they cry out against the Pharisees.
More than 30 times this verb “cry out” is used in the Psalms of a person crying out to God. Often, as in Rev. 6:10, “cry out” is used as a cry for God to do something about a wrong:
They cried out with a loud voice, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?”(Rev. 6:10 ESV)
Jesus pictures the stones crying out to God against the Pharisees. Because the Pharisees are trying to stop the disciples from rejoicing, the stones rise to the defense of the disciples. The rocks become their advocate. The stones cry out to God, begging God to defend the disciples from people and circumstances that are trying to prevent their rejoicing.
Seen in this way, stones become a kind of munitions, a kind of weapon designed by God to bring protection to us. They remind us that God is working for us so that we can live lives of abundant joy. And he’s trying to defend us against people and circumstances that rob us of joy.
There are a lot of things working against us when it comes to this business of rejoicing. For some of us, that is especially true during the holidays. We miss those who have passed away or moved away. We are lonely. We are struggling financially. There are many things working to rob of us joy even during Christmas. But thank God for the rocks! Because the remind us that God is at work defending us against those joy-robbers. God is at work helping us to do what we’ve been created to do–live lives of abundant joy.
So, here’s what I encourage you to do this week. First, get busy rejoicing. Every person in this room has reasons to do what the disciples were doing–praising God and rejoicing. If you have nothing else, you do have Advent, the arrival of Jesus as a baby in a manger. That alone gives you reason to get up every day and rejoice. Your number one job this week is simply to rejoice. Do things that fill you with joy. Be intentional about laughing and loving and having fun. Rejoice.
Second, carry a rock with you all week and let it remind you of one of these four truths. We’ve placed some white stones in orange buckets in the back. You can take one of those. Or you could just pick up a stone in your yard, along the sidewalk, or at a park this week. Carry it in your pocket or purse. And each time you feel it let it remind you of one of these truths:
- God raised me to rejoice (manual);
- God provides substitutes to rejoice when I stop (mediary);
- God prompts me to rejoice when I pause (mentor);
- God defends me against that which deters my joy (munitions)
Let’s close by praying this prayer out loud together: Father, thank you for making me to rejoice. Please defend me this week from things that deter my joy. Please prompt me to rejoice when I pause. And if circumstances arise that truly make it impossible for me to rejoice, surround me with others who can rejoice until I am able to join that cosmic chorus of joy once again.
