You shall no more termed Forsaken and your land shall no more be called Desolate . . . for the Lord delights in you.

Here’s a concept that most of the world does not take seriously: God loves a party.

That’s not the picture that the Church presents – externally or internally - often enough or well enough, God loves a party, as Isaiah puts it, the Lord delights in you.

Think about most Christians as they are portrayed in the media and they are usually either timid and boring, or serious and boring, or they have big hair sprayed in place and artificial smiles that also look like they are sprayed in place, and are boring.

Rarely, if ever, do you see anyone who you would want to share a pew with, much less go to a party with.

Yet the truth and the reality are that God loves a party: weddings, baptisms, birthdays, anniversaries, Sunday morning worship,

God loves it when his people are together and are filled with joy, that brings God the delight, the satisfaction that comes when life is what it should be.

You may not have ever given that much thought, but you understand it, don’t you?

Those of you who are parents, you get it, right?

Especially as children grow older, parents can find joy only when their children find joy, I remember some years ago when our son was engaged and people would ask me if I liked Stacey – and the truth is that I always have, even when Scott wasn’t sure – but my answer would always be: “She makes him happy, she makes him smile, I love her for that alone!” and the same is true about our friends and spouses and parents, when they are happy we are happy. We are codependent, incapable of finding joy except in our relationships.

So it is with our God, in fact this may be a part of the Image of God in which we are created, this need for deep and intimate relationships that can cause us pain and tears at times, but brings us such overwhelming joy that the pleasure is always worth all the pain.

That last phrase, “the pleasure is worth all the pain” comes from my old friend Mr. Buffett - not Warren, the other one – and he had a song and a tour a few years ago entitled “There’s a Party at the End of the World” and, as with many of the Theological points I draw from what some might call a questionable source, it was an unintentional truth. Jimmy was singing about a party in Tierra Del Feugo at the southern tip of Argentina. But his unintentional truth is the promise of scripture: at the end of the world – and at the end of each of our worlds, each of our lives – there is a party.

When Christ was pushed to describe the Kingdom of God, the world to come, he turned frequently to images of a party, a wedding reception with food and wine in abundance, laugher and dancing all surrounded by, fueled by God’s Great Joy.

There is a party at the end of the world, Jesus and Jimmy both say so.

And Christ framed it in the words of a wedding celebration so that we would understand that in our little parties and gatherings here and now, we are tasting the Kingdom of God, we are in the presence of God and when we are filled with joy, God is filled with joy.

But let me stop to ask a question that doesn't get asked often enough: what is Joy?

I wrote an article on joy more than 20 ago and nothing has happened in my life to change my understanding of it. So let me quote myself:

We know what joy is not.

Joy is not the bitter cynicism that runs through too many of our lives, Joy celebrates the best in people rather than obsessing over the worst in us.

Joy is not the suspicion over the motives of others, Joy allows others to offer their gifts and affection to God and to us freely.

Joy is not an empty headed smiley face view of life that denies pain and sorrow nor is it a bland stoicism that won't allow itself to feel and to experience and to live, rather Joy is an immersion into life, a daily celebration of the miracles that surround us, Joy is an ability to laugh and to cry, easily and sincerely.

I couldn’t say it – or resay it – any better myself!

You shall no more termed Forsaken and your land shall no more be called Desolate . . . for the Lord delights in you.

This passage from Isaiah is a direct continuation of last week’s story, a variation on the journey of the Magi.

The Magi had the star placed before them, an invitation from God to see something new and special and holy, they responded and traveled to places that they had never been before, they went home after they had seen the very presence of God, they went home differently.

Isaiah’s appeal is to the people of Israel who had their pilgrimage thrust upon them. They had left their homes, or at least the generations before them had, but they left at the point of a sword as captives.

Now they are returning from exile, coming home, in John Denver’s words “to a place they had never been before”. And they probably started out not far from where the Magi would begin their trip 500 years later, traveling with a sense that they had been forsaken, a physical and spiritual desolation.

We have made that journey of the empty soul, haven’t we?

We have traveled to funerals that have come too soon, leaving words unsaid and hurts unhealed.

We have traveled through economic hard times with jobs lost and dreams shattered leaving us adrift in the world.

We have had marriages come undone, by anger or by apathy, leaving us with shattered plans of a happily ever after that never happened.

But we have had our desolation turn into epiphanies on those roads as well. And we have found unexpected joy on those roads, haven’t we?

Who were the people who spoke to us and encouraged us and prayed for us in our darkest times?

Who were the people who believed in us and loved us at moments when we had lost faith in ourselves and were incredibly unlovable?

Through whom did God work to show us the divine holiness of life when we were most in need?

In what relationships, during our coldest winter times of the soul, did our epiphanies occur?

You shall no more termed Forsaken and your land shall no more be called Desolate . . . for the Lord delights in you.

Isaiah was telling them – and us - that no matter how bad things looked when they got home, it would still be home and God would be with them and remain with them. In the love that they felt for each other and for God and for their land they would find the purpose of their journey.

That’s what’s going on in the wedding story from John.

We find a young couple teetering on the brink of social embarrassment; they are running out of wine at the party.

And in that atmosphere of love, Jesus wouldn’t allow anything but joy and so he provides them not only with an increased and exorbitant quantity of wine, but the quality is the finest of the day.

It is the first miracle of Christ and it reminds us that in the time we set aside to celebrate life, God is ready to celebrate with us. Two weeks ago in bread and wine, last week in ordination, today in water, God is delighted to be with us, for it is in these sacred moments, not in our possessions, that God is with us. The old bumper sticker is still helpful: “Love People, Use Things, not the other way around”. That’s why I am not hesitant to ask for your generosity in our fund for the people of Haiti, God wants to love those people and he wants to use our money in the process and the blessings will come to them and to us.

Martin Luther King, Jr., whom we honor as a nation this week, reminded us of this when he wrote: Property is intended to serve life, and no matter how much we surround it with rights and?respect, it has no personal being. It is part of the earth man walks on; it is not man.

In the life that lies ahead for this child, in the changes of life that come and go for all of us, the realities of our relationships of love – with each other and with God – are the only realities that matter, the rest – the houses and cars and jewels and electronics – the rest is just property to be used, temporary widow dressing and when we realize that, when we celebrate that with God our lives and relationships become finer, our dreams become grander, our prayers become more passionate.

When we celebrate together we bring Joy to God, the same way a child brings joy to a parent.

When we celebrate the baptism of a child we see the promise of all that will be, not in detail, but in quality of life, we gain the reminder that it was in just such a form that God came to us in Bethlehem with promises of peace and good will and great joy.

And the Joy doesn't only belong to parents and to the rest of us, that epidemic of smiles is the outward visible sign of the inward and invisible reality not only of our joy, but of God’s joy this day.

This sacred Joy is what we are given to travel with in our journeys, it comes to us when we invite the presence of Christ into our daily routines and activities, it turns buckets of plain water into gallons of the finest wine, it turns jobs into vocations, it turns acquaintances into friends, it turns the fragility and brevity of life into something that is abundant and eternal and joyful.

And it pleases God in ways that we will only fully understand when we are enjoying that party at the end of the world.

You shall no more termed Forsaken and your land shall no more be called Desolate . . . for the Lord delights in you.