God.

It’s a week until Christmas Eve.

Most of them could be shopping days.

But these friends are wrestling with decisions about cancer. Those friends are struggling with job changes. These friends are remembering who they will be missing this year.

So many friends are shopping for more days.

+++

The third Sunday of Advent looks different. Or, more accurately, the candle looks different.

It’s about joy.

And my friends are struggling with it.

And so, God, would you remind us that joy is not an expectation or an obligation.

It’s not something to work up to, not something that you scold us for not having.

It’s more like something that seeps from your heart to ours.

God, in the giggle of a child, in the words of a stranger, in the kindness of a friend, in a glimpse of something beyond all this, would you sustain us with your joy today?

Please?

Through Christ our Lord we ask,

Amen.