The Joy Candle
Zwingli-La and Sandy Hook
Today (as I write) is the third Sunday of Advent, when we light the candle of joy on the Advent wreath, and when I am reminded of my old seminary classmate, Matt Crebbin.
While Matt and I were at Andover Newton Theological School in the late 80s/early 90s, we and some other classmates formed a band called Zwingli-La. “Zwingli” is for the sixteenth-century Swiss reformer, Ulrich Zwingli. “La” is for “la, la, la…” You know, singing.
We were the second Andover Newton rock band to be named after a famous Reformed theologian (our predecessors called themselves “Calvinist Anxiety”). Our namesake, Ulrich Zwingli, was known for his involvement in the Affair of the Sausages (1522), the incident that incited the Swiss Protestant Reformation. It was a protest against the legal enforcement of fasting during Lent. Grow up and look it up!
I played bass in Zwingli-La. Matt was our very handsome front man, playing rhythm guitar and singing in his California-born-and-raised rock and roll voice. Andy was our lead guitar player. Randy played drums, and Jed played saxophone and keyboard.
We played a couple of shows on campus, and were invited to play a dance at a church. One time we went full on “Let it Be” and brought our equipment outside for a guerilla concert—not on a rooftop, sorry to say, but on the steps of the administration building. “We could certainly hear you,” was our church history professor, Dr. Luti’s, tactful compliment.
We did not play music from the Swiss Reformation (which I guess would be hymns from the Geneva Psalter?) We played mostly fifties rock and roll—because it was easy and fun and people liked it. But we stretched out our repertoire in a few directions. We had a sped-up version of Bob Marley and the Wailers’ “Buffalo Soldier” that Franklin, an exchange student from South Africa, sang to great applause. Randy let Matt take over the drumkit so he could play guitar and sing Van Morrison’s “Brown-eyed Girl.” We also played “I Got You (I Feel Good),” by the Godfather of Soul, James Brown.
“I Got You” is a song everybody knows but not everybody can sing. It’s deceptively simple. The trick to playing funk, another bass player once told me, is not only what to play, but when to play—and when not to play. Every “I feel!” Every “good!” Every “I got…you!” Every shouted “Ow!” has to be right on the beat, and every syncopated rest has to be silent, or else it isn’t “I Got You.” It’s just a bunch of chords and shouts.
So how was Matt Crebbin’s James Brown? He did a lot of things right. He had the growl. He had the tone. He had the style. He even had the moves. But did he have the funk? Were all the lyrics and the shouts in the right places and not in the wrong places?
Well…
Let’s just say that when we began the song, we knew Matt would feel good. We just didn’t know when he would.
Zwingli-La broke up amicably when we graduated. Matt and I pursued different paths. After a brief stint as an associate pastor, I went into academia. Matt went on to have a successful career in ministry. For going on nineteen years, he has been the senior minister at Newtown Congregational Church (UCC) in Newtown, Connecticut, a city whose name may sound familiar.
Newtown was the home of Sandy Hook Elementary School, the site of the deadliest elementary school shooting in American history. On December 14, 2012, five years into Matt’s ministry at the Congregational Church, a twenty-year old man walked into Sandy Hook School and shot and killed twenty-six people. Twenty were children between six and seven years old.
When tragedies like this happen, the news media descends on the community, and they often interview local clergy. Matt gave several interviews, explaining how the tragedy affected his congregation, and how his and other religious communities were responding to the grief and shock of the whole city. The interviewer asked him what his sermon would be that Sunday. He said he would be preaching about joy.
“You know, I’m going to be preaching about joy on Sunday,”1 he said, “because that is the third Sunday of Advent and it is when we light our candle, which is the candle of joy. And I’ll be talking about how joy is different than happiness.”
“The root for happiness,” Matt continued to explain, “is the same root as happenstance or haphazard. ‘Happiness’ is really rooted in this notion that somehow we are dependent upon circumstances around us as to whether we’ll be happy or not. And really for people of faith, joy is a deeper sense that we are held in something that sustains us, beyond even our ability to recognize, sometimes even in the moment.”
“What we really need,” said Matt, “in this season of Advent, is to know that God continues to hold us. And that God’s joy—God’s joy in terms of God’s hopes for us, God’s care for us, God’s love for us—that deep and abiding presence, especially for us as Christians, that comes to us in the love of Christ born among us. That is something that we can rely on, even when we may not feel happy.”
“And even when at initial blush, we might say, ‘How can we be joyous?’” Even when confronted with the unspeakable, senseless horror of the violent death of children, “there is light in the midst of our lives and there is grace that holds us and calls us and comforts us. And so that’s some of what I’ll be talking about this Sunday.”
Some might be tempted to dismiss “joy,” as Matt defined the term, as religious denial or escapism—an excuse for complacency, or an insular possession of “us as Christians.” In response I would offer Matt’s career since the shooting—his tireless efforts against gun violence, his advocacy for sensible gun legislation, and for the rights to life and safety for all people of all faiths. The joy that Matt spoke of is the kind that empowers him to engage the world with its suffering, not to escape from it.
The tragedy at Sandy Hook gave Matt an opportunity to speak to people who were traumatized by violence—to his congregation, to the city of Newtown, to all Americans who feared their schools would never be a safe place for their children. He took that moment to share the true meaning of joy. Joy differs from happiness. Joy is eternal. Joy is the light, which shines out in the darkness, and which the darkness cannot overcome.
This past week the shadow of violence has darkened our nation and the world. A shooting at Brown University claimed two lives. An attack on a Hanukkah celebration in Sydney, Australia has claimed fifteen. Now more than ever, we need that miraculous joy of Emmanuel, God with us.
Thank you, pastor Matt, for sharing that joy with us, just when we needed it. You’re timing was perfect, as always.
Well, almost always. Let’s try James Brown, “I Got You,” from the top, one more time!
These quotes are from an interview that Matt gave to NPR on the first anniversary of the shooting, slightly edited. Unfortunately, I could not find a video or transcript of his Today show interview of 2012, but I remember it vividly, and what he said here is almost the same.