Rejoice! You brood of vipers!

The third Sunday of Advent has long been a time for rejoicing. Today is sometimes called laudate Sunday—the Sunday of rejoicing. The mood lightens. We light a pink candle.

You can hear it in the reading from Zephaniah: “Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter Jerusalem!”

You can hear it in the song from Isaiah. “You shall draw water with rejoicing from the springs of salvation…Cry aloud, ring out your joy, for the great one in the midst of you is the Holy One of Israel.”

And of course you can hear it in Paul’s letter to the Philippians. “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.”

We don’t rejoice often enough. Children know how to rejoice. Even my dog knows how to rejoice. All I need to do is say the word “dinner” or “walk” and suddenly she’s having the best day she’s ever had. She’ll quite literally leap for joy. And she’ll do the same thing again tomorrow. I don’t remember the last time I rejoiced that way.

We grow up and we forget to notice the wonder that is the world. Oh, we might rejoice now and again—at extraordinary things—at the birth of a baby, at a wedding, or at good news long hoped for. But we forget to rejoice at the ordinary, at life itself. At a sunrise or a smile or a loved one’s face.

We become accustomed to everyday marvels and we forget to rejoice.

But also, I suspect, we stop rejoicing because life is hard, because we’re too often preoccupied with fear and regret.

I guess that’s where the other theme of this Sunday comes in.

Were you wondering when I’d mention our old friend John the Baptist? John’s not the first guy I think of when I think of rejoicing. But maybe he should be. I actually can imagine John the Baptist dancing in the River Jordan, dancing with joy, singing, splashing in the water, camel’s hair clothing flying every which way.

But in today’s Gospel, John isn’t dancing. He’s there to draw our attention to the dark side of life.

It's jarring. We go from “Rejoice and exult with all your heart!” to Repent, “you brood of vipers”!—all in the same Sunday.

But actually, I think that’s as it should be.

There are two theological errors Christians often fall into. The first errs on the side of optimism; the second on the side of pessimism.

On the optimistic side, we can slip into what’s sometimes referred to as “moralistic therapeutic deism.” That’s a world view that says that God loves us and wants us to be happy and that we ought to try to be nice to one another, but otherwise God doesn’t require much of us.

On the pessimistic side, we can lean too strongly into a message of God’s judgment and find ourselves without hope. We can become trapped in patterns of sin and guilt and come to expect only condemnation.

But if you see the world through rose colored glasses or through a haze a despair, you’re probably missing the full power of the Gospel.

John calls us to repentance. He calls out our sin. But he also proclaims the good news of Jesus’s coming—news that is good precisely because we need it so desperately. News that is good because redemption and forgiveness are real.

There’s something refreshing in John’s sometimes brutal honesty. Have you ever gotten things really wrong? Have you hurt someone you love? Ignored the suffering of others? Turned a blind eye to injustice?

John the Baptist doesn’t say, “Oh, that’s ok.” He doesn’t say that it’s only human to sin. Crowds of people who have done such things have come out to hear him and he calls them a brood of vipers. Crowds of people very much like you and me. But then John says this—to them and to us: Hey, you brood of vipers! Listen! The Gospel is for you! Not for people better than you. For you.

When we understand that truth, then, and only then, the crowd’s question can become our own. “What then should we do?” Share with those in need. Be honest. Don’t use force to coerce others to do your will.

Then, and only then, can we live as Paul calls us to live: “Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

Rejoice, you brood of vipers!

That’s as good as summary of the full breadth of the Gospel as any other I’ve heard. It contains within it the full spectrum of honesty, repentance, and joy.

When we follow that path to its end, even God will rejoice with us. In the words of Zephaniah, The Lord…will rejoice over you with gladness, he will renew you in his love; he will exult over you with loud singing as on a day of festival.”

And so, rejoice!