When I was young, Christmas was a time for ‘dressing up’ in my family. We wore our ‘good’ clothes to church and to special Christmas events. I loved the feeling of joy that surrounded these opportunities. My mom created a sense of joy in our home by decorating and inviting my sisters and I to help in the decorating. I have fond memories of getting the boxes out of the attic, unpacking them, and then spreading the garlands, bows and tinsel all around the house. We had a few different nativity scenes to put in different rooms too. Once we had the tree up, unpacking all the beloved ornaments was an activity all its own. Still today, as I talk about this, I feel the joy of the season coming through me.

I grew up on a beef feedlot just a few miles from here, on Eicher Road. By this time of year, my parents were finalizing plans for creating more than 100 ‘meat packages’ to distribute to friends and neighbors. This meant that my sisters, brothers, and I would gather around the kitchen table, wrapping sausage and chipped beef in freezer paper, then in red cellophane. We would add a bow, and place some of each type of meat into a basket. These special packages would be loaded into the car and off we’d go to deliver them over the next handful of days leading up to Christmas.

It was a special thing to grow up this way—with a sense of generosity and abundance to be shared with others. I loved being part of this joyful sharing. Some neighbors on Eicher Road have lived there more than 50 years and I know they received that many Eicher Christmas Meat packages. The most beautiful part of this is what happened next—neighbors would appear at our house with packages of all kinds of treats! Cookies of every sort, including Donna Rietz’s famous chocolate covered peanut butter balls! Our kitchen counter held plates and baskets of homemade treats!

I bring all of this into this message for the third week of Advent because we celebrate the Joy of Jesus’ birth, and the Joy of Jesus’ life and message: Share with others, help each other, ALL ARE WELCOME. In the scripture reading from Isaiah we hear the words, “The year of the Lord’s favor” which might ring a bell for some of you. It’s a reference to the ‘year of jubilee’.

Jubilee was historically a time when everything was set back to its starting place and I think there is something so beautiful about this idea. It seems like a relief to know that things can return to they way they started, rather than just getting worse and worse, or more and more confusing.

I am a nanny for a little boy named Nathaniel, who is 3 years old. He loves to play with his wooden train tracks and we often build entire worlds when we are together. It’s always different. He usually doesn’t want to put the wooden train set away, to preserve this world he built. But his mom has taught him that at the end of each day, the house will be ‘re-set’ to it’s ‘put-away’ state, and tomorrow everything will start afresh. Nathaniel has learned that this is a helpful way to go about building his train worlds because with each new day, he remembers how to build the parts he really liked about his previous world but can forget about the parts he didn’t care for, or that weren’t as he wanted them to be. In this way, he is exponentially growing and learning.

Another personal connection to this idea is from my one-day lesson in welding from a master welder. There is more to this story, but the part I bring to share today is this: As I learned to hold the tool and create a ‘bead’ of weld along the joint line, this teacher told me that if I got too shaky or the line got too wobbly, I should stop (rather than keep going). In other words, take a moment to pause and refocus my attention to creating a clean line. That lesson has proven so helpful in my non-welding life.

Two weeks ago Rob in maintenance here at MV told me a wonderful story that I want to pass on to you. I wanted to bring it into the first week of Advent as a story about Hope, but I think it fits during this week of Advent just as well, and it resonates with this idea of ‘year of jubilee’. On a walk near his property, Rob heard an interesting sound coming from a pipe near the ground. After further inspection, he found it came from a tiny kitten deep inside the pipe and even after urging the kitten to come out, it resisted and was scared. Rob spent 20 minutes trying to coax it out and made a tiny lasso which he finally managed to hook around the tiny kitten’s arm. Gently he pulled the kitten out. Covered in oily sludge, Rob wrapped it up and brought it home. And found a great home for him, where he lives and plays with a big German Shepherd dog friend. Imagine the joy!

These stories illustrate, at least to me (and I hope to you), that there is restoration in Christ’s birth and life. There is restoration in righting things in the world that have become out of alignment. The world can be restored to its starting position if we follow Jesus and there is JOY in this because people (and kittens) who don’t have what they need will be given enough; people on the fringes or margins will be included into the mainstream or ‘whole cloth’.

It doesn’t matter who you are or what you have or haven’t done in your life. It doesn’t matter whether you live in a house/tent/apartment/tiny home/mobile home/or the Mennonite Village. It doesn’t matter whether you experience illness or immobility. It doesn’t matter who you are. ALL ARE WELCOME to be surrounded by the Hope/Peace/Joy of Jesus and welcomed into the house of God.‘The Jesus way is to come together with those who are on the fringes, the marginalized, who are present within and outside of our community.’ As followers of Jesus we can seek out those who are marginalized, or on the fringes of our society. We can light the way for others by sharing joy.

AND, as followers of Jesus, when we are not experiencing this joy, we can join with others who are. We can soak up the joy of others around us, and in this way ‘water the seeds of joy’ in us. Sometimes, if you are like me, you can feel guilty for not resonating with the joy of the season. Remember, ALL ARE WELCOME. Joy is here for all of us whenever we are ready for it.