Christmas Eve 2008
Shepherds and angels and us.
Christianity isn’t a private religion. Here in the darkness, in the privacy of this place on this night it may seem cozy and intimate. Just as after her labor, the relative safety of that stable may have seemed to be a private place to Mary, the mother of Jesus. But this private moment, the one Mary rested from 2000 years ago has world shattering consequences. The peace that the angles told the shepherds about, the peace that Isaiah prophesied about wasn’t (and isn’t) a private peace, an individual accomplishment. It isn’t heralded by a quiet inward calm. It is a public announcement, what we really mean when we wish for “Peace on Earth.” No more blood-stained uniforms, no more threats of mushroom shaped clouds on the horizon, no more homes torn from the inside out with people’s selfishness and violence and fear.
When we look around the world today, we see the results of what happens when we make the Gospel of Jesus Christ into a private religion that is only for old people and little children. Society is cast adrift with no where to turn for morals and ethics. So money and power rule, the weak and the poor are savaged and taken advantage of and the world cries for a savior, for someone to solve the problems and make everything all right.
Brothers and sisters, hear the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ: the Savior has been born and we each have a vital part to play in working for His Kingdom.
Hear the angels sing again:
Luke 2:9-14 9 Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid; for see-- I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: 11 to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. 12 This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger." 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, 14 "Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!"
What did the angels’ song mean to those shepherds long ago? What does it mean to us today? And what would it mean to begin to sing that song into our world today? What if we believed and lived like we believed the words of Isaiah 9 and the words of the angels here were literally, really true? I believe that it is true. I believe that neither George Bush nor Barack Obama can save the world, our economy, the problems in the Middle East, the hunger in the Sudan, the war in Darfur, the apathy of America and Great Britain or the appalling poverty of the Two-Thirds world. The Wonderful Counselor, the Prince of Peace is the Son of God, the Mighty One.
That is a huge claim but it gets lived out in small ways, in small steps taken by individuals that combine into larger movements, waves of public opinion and action.
Think of it this was, on a cold Judean night some 2000 years ago, there was a baby born who was the Son of God, fully human and fully divine. And he lived and taught, healed people, eased their suffering and showed them how to live. Turn the other cheek, he said. Love your neighbor as yourself, he told them. And with stories and miracles and showing them the Father, he taught them and us the better way. But the powers and principalities couldn’t stand it. And they brutally murdered him on a shameful Roman cross. But this man, this Jesus, this Son of God conquered death and the grave for himself and for us. And here we are, 2000 years later thinking about and celebrating his birth and how that humble, quit event forever changed the world.
Is it the “Greatest Story Ever Told?” Perhaps. But better still it is the greatest story ever lived. And our lives, yours and mine, are part of that same story. Through the shepherds, the angels sing to us. And through the life and death and resurrection of Jesus, we can sing the angels’ song into a world that is dying, a world at war. How do we sing the song?
• By turning the other cheek.
• By putting other people before ourselves
• By sitting in the stillness that we carve out of our lives and listening to God.
• By stopping before we act and asking what could happen if we acted in God’s best interest instead of in our own best interest.
• By simply doing the next right thing.
Rooted in God’s word, empowered by His Holy Spirit, walking with His people, we sing a song that even the angels cannot sing, a new song of peace and hope and joy and love that is not for ourselves alone but is to be sung to the world and for the world.
Will you join in the song?
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Monday, December 15, 2008
There He is, that's Him.
Show clip from The Cosby Show, Season1, Episode 13 – Rudy’s Sick
“No more partying in there” says little Rudy to the germs she has just discovered.
Our culture seems to think that the presence of Christ is like Rudy’s germs. It ought to be something we can see, experiment with, manage. How Jesus lives in us must be like germs and microbes, DNA, chemical elements and quarks, something we can’t physically see but that has been captured and defined by science.
How do we define the presence of Christ in something outside ourselves? How do we define the presence of Christ in something like Holy Communion? Theologians over the centuries have argued this. There is the Roman Catholic view of transubstantiation, where the bread and juice literally become the physical body and blood of Christ. There is the later Zwinglian view of consubstantiation where the substance changes but we can’t really tell any difference. And then along came the Reformers that simply threw up their theological hands and said, well maybe it’s just all symbolic anyway. But I don’t buy that either. I think Christ is really present but it comes back to the question – how do you explain it? What is the something more?
The Levites and Pharisees knew there was something more and they quizzed John the Baptist about it. John pointed to the Messiah to answer their questions. Here’s something we often miss: John knew Jesus, he knew the Messiah was already there, alive and human. After all, they were cousins and John was just a few months older than Jesus.
Go back to their mothers. Think about Elizabeth and Mary and the time they spent together during their pregnancies. Here’s Elizabeth almost past the age of being able to conceive a child who is pregnant. Her husband is mysteriously mute after taking his turn in the Temple in the Holy of Holies. And yet, when Mary appears the baby leaps in her womb. And Mary, young, pregnant after some overshadowing that had nothing to do with what we understand as human conception is at the beginning of the journey she will make with her son.
With that bond between their mothers, in the way of extended family in those days, John and Jesus surely played together as little boys. They must have shared in common being different because of the circumstances of their births, especially in the company of other, more ‘normal’ Jewish boys.
So when John testified about Jesus, it wasn’t a prophecy for a far-off time. John knew Jesus, knew him as a human person and as Messiah. When John said “there is one coming after me the thong of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie”, he wasn’t talking about some shadowy, ethereal someday sort of person. The face of Jesus was what he could see in his mind’s eye.
That realization, that John actually knew Jesus, gives a rich layer of texture to our understanding of this text. The Pharisees didn’t recognize the face of the Messiah yet but they soon would for he was already among them. How do we bring that into today? What is the Bible telling us through this Scripture on the Third Sunday of Advent?
Go back to Rudy and her ‘partying’ germs. Through science, we know so much about our human bodies that there is no unexplored territory. I have to confess I am fascinated by those films made by tiny cameras deep inside a living human body showing hearts beating, what it looks like when we swallow, how our brain synapses work. We even talk about our human bodies like they are simply a mechanical system. Athletes are fine tuned machines. We talk about our joints being either creaky or well-oiled. But in our love of science and answers, we have left no room for God.
Yes, John knew Jesus the man but he also recognized in him Jesus the Messiah. We can know that our bodies are fearfully and wonderfully made but, in some way that defies and defines our human limitations, God is present in us and with us. God is in us not in a way we can quantify and predict but in a way that is just as real, perhaps more real than what we can see under a microscope or touch with our human hands.
How can we now, how can we see Jesus? How can we see God at work in our world, feel the Holy Spirit and be empowered by it? That’s where faith comes in. Before you turn your brains off at the sound of a ‘church’ word, let me show you what I mean.
Rudy found out about the germs because of her symptoms, because she was sick. We know that our hearts are beating because we are still alive. How can we know that God is real and among us?
Think about where we are physically at this moment. I stand up here in this traditional pulpit because in the days before electricity and microphones, this was the best way for one person to be heard by a lot of people. But the architecture of this sanctuary also reflects what we believe theologically. The one who presumes stand in the pulpit stands in God’s place. They speak for God and don’t think that doesn’t keep me up nights. But just as I can come down from the pulpit and stand among you out here in the pews, in the people’s space, realize that Jesus did the same thing.
Jesus left his father’s house and came down, incarnate in a real human body, just like us. Someone once said, he came down to be like us so we could someday be like Him. John knew him and told other people. Jesus died and was resurrected and came to the disciples and others to show them and us that death had been conquered. And the disciples and Paul empowered by the living Christ and the Holy Spirit told everyone they could. Their lives where changed drastically by the presence of God.
So how do we know? When can we say “There’s Jesus”? When we look into each other’s faces and see him there. When we care for the poor, the stranger, the imprisoned and we see His face in their faces. When we speak God’s name in public, in places where it is not normally heard, that’s Him. When we live lives of repentance and forgiveness, of reconciliation and restoration, that’s Him. When we change our perspective from our short human attention span to God’s eternal view – that’s Jesus at work in us and in the world.
When we walk and talk and love and cry and grieve and live and die in His Spirit and by His truth, we proclaim with our lives the mystery of faith:
Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.
When all around us we can see the love and joy, the peace and patience, the gentleness and self-control we can look at each other and say: “There’s Jesus, that’s Him.”
“No more partying in there” says little Rudy to the germs she has just discovered.
Our culture seems to think that the presence of Christ is like Rudy’s germs. It ought to be something we can see, experiment with, manage. How Jesus lives in us must be like germs and microbes, DNA, chemical elements and quarks, something we can’t physically see but that has been captured and defined by science.
How do we define the presence of Christ in something outside ourselves? How do we define the presence of Christ in something like Holy Communion? Theologians over the centuries have argued this. There is the Roman Catholic view of transubstantiation, where the bread and juice literally become the physical body and blood of Christ. There is the later Zwinglian view of consubstantiation where the substance changes but we can’t really tell any difference. And then along came the Reformers that simply threw up their theological hands and said, well maybe it’s just all symbolic anyway. But I don’t buy that either. I think Christ is really present but it comes back to the question – how do you explain it? What is the something more?
The Levites and Pharisees knew there was something more and they quizzed John the Baptist about it. John pointed to the Messiah to answer their questions. Here’s something we often miss: John knew Jesus, he knew the Messiah was already there, alive and human. After all, they were cousins and John was just a few months older than Jesus.
Go back to their mothers. Think about Elizabeth and Mary and the time they spent together during their pregnancies. Here’s Elizabeth almost past the age of being able to conceive a child who is pregnant. Her husband is mysteriously mute after taking his turn in the Temple in the Holy of Holies. And yet, when Mary appears the baby leaps in her womb. And Mary, young, pregnant after some overshadowing that had nothing to do with what we understand as human conception is at the beginning of the journey she will make with her son.
With that bond between their mothers, in the way of extended family in those days, John and Jesus surely played together as little boys. They must have shared in common being different because of the circumstances of their births, especially in the company of other, more ‘normal’ Jewish boys.
So when John testified about Jesus, it wasn’t a prophecy for a far-off time. John knew Jesus, knew him as a human person and as Messiah. When John said “there is one coming after me the thong of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie”, he wasn’t talking about some shadowy, ethereal someday sort of person. The face of Jesus was what he could see in his mind’s eye.
That realization, that John actually knew Jesus, gives a rich layer of texture to our understanding of this text. The Pharisees didn’t recognize the face of the Messiah yet but they soon would for he was already among them. How do we bring that into today? What is the Bible telling us through this Scripture on the Third Sunday of Advent?
Go back to Rudy and her ‘partying’ germs. Through science, we know so much about our human bodies that there is no unexplored territory. I have to confess I am fascinated by those films made by tiny cameras deep inside a living human body showing hearts beating, what it looks like when we swallow, how our brain synapses work. We even talk about our human bodies like they are simply a mechanical system. Athletes are fine tuned machines. We talk about our joints being either creaky or well-oiled. But in our love of science and answers, we have left no room for God.
Yes, John knew Jesus the man but he also recognized in him Jesus the Messiah. We can know that our bodies are fearfully and wonderfully made but, in some way that defies and defines our human limitations, God is present in us and with us. God is in us not in a way we can quantify and predict but in a way that is just as real, perhaps more real than what we can see under a microscope or touch with our human hands.
How can we now, how can we see Jesus? How can we see God at work in our world, feel the Holy Spirit and be empowered by it? That’s where faith comes in. Before you turn your brains off at the sound of a ‘church’ word, let me show you what I mean.
Rudy found out about the germs because of her symptoms, because she was sick. We know that our hearts are beating because we are still alive. How can we know that God is real and among us?
Think about where we are physically at this moment. I stand up here in this traditional pulpit because in the days before electricity and microphones, this was the best way for one person to be heard by a lot of people. But the architecture of this sanctuary also reflects what we believe theologically. The one who presumes stand in the pulpit stands in God’s place. They speak for God and don’t think that doesn’t keep me up nights. But just as I can come down from the pulpit and stand among you out here in the pews, in the people’s space, realize that Jesus did the same thing.
Jesus left his father’s house and came down, incarnate in a real human body, just like us. Someone once said, he came down to be like us so we could someday be like Him. John knew him and told other people. Jesus died and was resurrected and came to the disciples and others to show them and us that death had been conquered. And the disciples and Paul empowered by the living Christ and the Holy Spirit told everyone they could. Their lives where changed drastically by the presence of God.
So how do we know? When can we say “There’s Jesus”? When we look into each other’s faces and see him there. When we care for the poor, the stranger, the imprisoned and we see His face in their faces. When we speak God’s name in public, in places where it is not normally heard, that’s Him. When we live lives of repentance and forgiveness, of reconciliation and restoration, that’s Him. When we change our perspective from our short human attention span to God’s eternal view – that’s Jesus at work in us and in the world.
When we walk and talk and love and cry and grieve and live and die in His Spirit and by His truth, we proclaim with our lives the mystery of faith:
Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.
When all around us we can see the love and joy, the peace and patience, the gentleness and self-control we can look at each other and say: “There’s Jesus, that’s Him.”
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Merry Christmas from Mitford (almost!)
Dear Friends and Family,
I hadn't sent an update in awhile from our outpost in North Carolina and wanted you all to know we are not just alive and well, but happy and thriving.
If you are familiar at all with the Mitford books by Jan Karon, you would find many parallels between that made-up community and this real one. We are on the coast of North Carolina and not in the mountains but the town itself itself is so like her concept that sometimes I think she must have stayed here for awhile. We have a local restaurant that everyone here calls "The Grill." It's real name is the Country Kitchen, or something like that, but we all just call it the Grill. It is the place to go on Sunday after church for fried chicken, collards and potato salad. But on Saturday night, it's seafood night and they have the BEST hush puppies and fried oysters I have ever eaten (Sorry, Tister, I know you are the king of hush puppies in KY).
We have a local grocery store that is a little shabby around the edges but if you know the right folks, they cut the thickest and best rib-eye steaks around. The word is to never pick up what's in the case but to ask for the steaks to be cut fresh. And boy, is that worth it! In order to get back to the meat case, you have to walk through the crowd of men that sit around in the front of the store. They won't let you by without a little conversation and usually some good natured teasing. They are still asking me if I have gotten any more good deer (since I hit a huge buck in my car). But these are the same men that not only changed my tire to the spare when I had a flat but had to be talked out of taking the tire into Washington for me to have it fixed or taking me to Washington to a meeting so I could leave my car in the shop. Good guys, and one of them in our new Lay Leader here at the church. :)
The town is so small that I wouldn't even need a car if the parsonage was in Bath but since we are a couple of miles out of town, I am not giving up my car yet. The surrounding area is a lot like kentucky. One of the families in the church owns a riding stable and we have been riding several times. I still miss my horses but Jim's are a close second. There is even a black and white horse that could be Paint's brother. His name is Thunder and I really enjoy riding him. Soon on our church website Dean will probably post the picture of the 'horse' Jim found for me. But, Bible references aside, donkeys really aren't my thing. :)
If you remember, in the Jan Karon books, Father Tim and his wife, Cynthia, go up and sit on a stone wall that overlooks the valley to watch the sunset. They call the view the "Land of Counterpane." Here, Dean and I go down to the river, out on Warren and Irene's pier and watch the sunset. The breeze kicks up about sundown and when the weather is warm, the fish literally jump. Davey Burbage, Jr. is still teasing me about my amazement over that. He called me 'Jumpin' Mullet Sorg" for about a month.
Someone told me when we moved down here that there are still four seasons here: Almost Summer, Summer, It's Still Summer and Christmas. Well, here we are at Christmas, it's 70 degrees and I have spent Derby Days that are colder than it is here now. We have seen some snow but it doesn't seem to accumulate and it's just warmer somehow. Maybe it's the Gulfstream that is just 60 miles offshore here.
I'm not sure that we'll send out Christmas cards this year. I am counting the days until Mark and Sarah are here and we are all together. We have a real tree for the first time in years. It will be wonderful to look out from the pulpit on the 21st and see my children's faces.
I hope this email will go a little ways toward you all knowing that we are thinking of you and praying for you. I found a box of last year's cards with the picture of the horse barn and all the snow. God has certainly moved in a mighty way this year and looking back, I am amazed at how all of our lives have unfolded.
My prayer for all of us is that we stay open to the adventure, that we let the past serve its purpose of reminding us where we've been but that we don't let it define who we are and that we live into the reality that repentance and forgiveness are the foundation stones for what it means to be truly human, the way God intended us to be in the first place.
Go in peace to love and serve the Lord, my friends. And God bless us every one.
I hadn't sent an update in awhile from our outpost in North Carolina and wanted you all to know we are not just alive and well, but happy and thriving.
If you are familiar at all with the Mitford books by Jan Karon, you would find many parallels between that made-up community and this real one. We are on the coast of North Carolina and not in the mountains but the town itself itself is so like her concept that sometimes I think she must have stayed here for awhile. We have a local restaurant that everyone here calls "The Grill." It's real name is the Country Kitchen, or something like that, but we all just call it the Grill. It is the place to go on Sunday after church for fried chicken, collards and potato salad. But on Saturday night, it's seafood night and they have the BEST hush puppies and fried oysters I have ever eaten (Sorry, Tister, I know you are the king of hush puppies in KY).
We have a local grocery store that is a little shabby around the edges but if you know the right folks, they cut the thickest and best rib-eye steaks around. The word is to never pick up what's in the case but to ask for the steaks to be cut fresh. And boy, is that worth it! In order to get back to the meat case, you have to walk through the crowd of men that sit around in the front of the store. They won't let you by without a little conversation and usually some good natured teasing. They are still asking me if I have gotten any more good deer (since I hit a huge buck in my car). But these are the same men that not only changed my tire to the spare when I had a flat but had to be talked out of taking the tire into Washington for me to have it fixed or taking me to Washington to a meeting so I could leave my car in the shop. Good guys, and one of them in our new Lay Leader here at the church. :)
The town is so small that I wouldn't even need a car if the parsonage was in Bath but since we are a couple of miles out of town, I am not giving up my car yet. The surrounding area is a lot like kentucky. One of the families in the church owns a riding stable and we have been riding several times. I still miss my horses but Jim's are a close second. There is even a black and white horse that could be Paint's brother. His name is Thunder and I really enjoy riding him. Soon on our church website Dean will probably post the picture of the 'horse' Jim found for me. But, Bible references aside, donkeys really aren't my thing. :)
If you remember, in the Jan Karon books, Father Tim and his wife, Cynthia, go up and sit on a stone wall that overlooks the valley to watch the sunset. They call the view the "Land of Counterpane." Here, Dean and I go down to the river, out on Warren and Irene's pier and watch the sunset. The breeze kicks up about sundown and when the weather is warm, the fish literally jump. Davey Burbage, Jr. is still teasing me about my amazement over that. He called me 'Jumpin' Mullet Sorg" for about a month.
Someone told me when we moved down here that there are still four seasons here: Almost Summer, Summer, It's Still Summer and Christmas. Well, here we are at Christmas, it's 70 degrees and I have spent Derby Days that are colder than it is here now. We have seen some snow but it doesn't seem to accumulate and it's just warmer somehow. Maybe it's the Gulfstream that is just 60 miles offshore here.
I'm not sure that we'll send out Christmas cards this year. I am counting the days until Mark and Sarah are here and we are all together. We have a real tree for the first time in years. It will be wonderful to look out from the pulpit on the 21st and see my children's faces.
I hope this email will go a little ways toward you all knowing that we are thinking of you and praying for you. I found a box of last year's cards with the picture of the horse barn and all the snow. God has certainly moved in a mighty way this year and looking back, I am amazed at how all of our lives have unfolded.
My prayer for all of us is that we stay open to the adventure, that we let the past serve its purpose of reminding us where we've been but that we don't let it define who we are and that we live into the reality that repentance and forgiveness are the foundation stones for what it means to be truly human, the way God intended us to be in the first place.
Go in peace to love and serve the Lord, my friends. And God bless us every one.
Monday, December 8, 2008
Necessity of Comfort
These are the texts and sermon for the Second Sunday of Advent.
Isaiah 40:1-11
Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.
A voice cries out: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.’
A voice says, ‘Cry out!’ And I said, ‘What shall I cry?’ All people are grass, their constancy is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the Lord blows upon it; surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand for ever. Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good tidings; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings, lift it up, do not fear; say to the cities of Judah, ‘Here is your God!’ See, the Lord God comes with might, and his arm rules for him; his reward is with him, and his recompense before him. He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep.
Mark 1:1-8
The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
As it is written in the prophet Isaiah,
‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way;
the voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
“Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight” ’,
John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. He proclaimed, ‘The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.’
How do we hold in fruitful tension the prophecy of Isaiah in chapter 40 and the description of John the Baptist in Mark 1? Here we are in the season of Advent, a holy time that is hard to perceive when all around we are surrounded by:
• Santas and red-nosed reindeer,
• snowmen and mistletoe
• and every recording artist who ever had a record deal singing the same dozen songs about the baby in Bethlehem.
And the peace of the Savior, the coming of the King seems further away than ever. As much as we love Christmas carols and the warm sentimentality of homecomings and the delight on the faces of little children experiencing the magic of the season, the Bible refuses to let us drown in a sea of goo. John the Baptist in his camel skin clothing with his command for repentance doesn’t seem to fare well when you put him next to Burl Ives singing Have a Holly Jolly Christmas. There is safety in the sentimentality. It is all about us and our families, where we all are safe and secure and comforted.
Isn’t that what Isaiah is talking about? Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins. (Isaiah 40:1-2) Isaiah here is prophesying to a people that were suffering the pain of exile and oppression. These were the descendents of the original Exodus people that had been taken over and dispersed by the Babylonian Empire as a punishment for falling away from God. They needed to hear the prophecy that there would be an end to their suffering and that the Messiah would come. And we need to hear those words of comfort as well. We live in a world that is characterized by pain and suffering, transition and loss. There are many for whom this holiday season will be one of suffering, one of tortured memories of loved ones who have died, family members that are far away, lives that have been ripped apart by addiction, violence and man’s inhumanity to man. So this word of comfort from Isaiah is a necessary one. It is vital that we remember and tell the world around us that there is comfort and hope, grace and peace. Hear again the final words of Isaiah in this section:
"He will feed His flock like a shepherd;
He will gather the lambs in His arms;
He will carry them in His bosom;
He will gently lead the mother sheep."
God is among us to care for those who are most vulnerable, most in need of care. Part of our responsibility as His church is to be his hands and feet in the world, offering that comfort and protection to those who need it the most. It seems as if the very things that make this holiday season so sweet for some are the very things that rub salt into the wounds of those who hurt and mourn. Before we can hear the words of John the Baptist, we must hear and know the prophecy of Isaiah. There is comfort and protection and hope in the arms of God who above all is Love Incarnate. When it seems that all hope is gone, Isaiah reminds us that hope is still possible. It affirms that grace is still possible.
It is no accident that the opening words of Mark’s Gospel are from Isaiah’s prophecy. The prophecy was fulfilled in the coming of Jesus and it was John the Baptist’s vocation to prepare the way. That’s what this season of Advent is all about, getting ready. And how do we get ready for the coming of Jesus? John the Baptist has it in a word. Repent. But hear the echo from the original text the way Mark intended it. This is a voice crying out in the wilderness with an urgency that is missing in many of our English translations and is missing in our piecemeal, daily devotional way of reading the Bible.
When you separate the Scripture down into 365 easily understood passages, something is lost. In the original Greek and in good English translations, the word euqws, immediately, occurs 30 times in the Gospel of Mark alone. After Jesus was baptized by John he immediately went into the wilderness. Immediately the disciples turned and left their nets, immediately Jesus healed or taught or said. Again and again Mark uses this word, immediately, immediately. The whole gospel has this sense of urgency. Mark’s writing is rough, unlike the educated letters of Paul or the precision of Luke the physician. So hear the urgency of John’s call to repent.
-What does it mean to repent? Literally, it means to turn away from some action or course of action and to turn your face to something new. Martin Luther, the great Reformation theologian said that sin is when humans turn in on themselves. Using that same image then, repentance would be turning away from ourselves and our sinfulness to look into the face of God. It means changing our perspective from looking at our lives form our own selfish perspective to looking at our lives from God’s eternal perspective.
-What does repentance look like in our everyday lives? What it looks like is that we make a conscious and real decision to stop doing something that we know is out of the will of God.
What we have to repent of is no mystery. Even now, I know the Holy Spirit is pricking each of your hearts, just as mine is being moved to give up that one thing that we cherish, that we put before God. Maybe it’s money, maybe it’s time, “Oh, I’ll get around to working for the church later, after I retire, after the kids are grown, after I go fishing, after 18 more holes of golf.” Maybe it’s not picking up the phone to check on a friend, to offer a word of encouragement. “I’m too tired, I worked hard all day.” Maybe it’s the spurt of self-righteous irritation we feel when things are done our way, or what we expected someone else to take care of doesn’t happen at all. So we gladly take on a martyr complex “Oh, I’ll do it myself, that’s the only way it will ever get done right anyway. Poor, pitiful me.” I don’t know about you but those are the top of the list of things I need to repent of.
-What does repentance do? It smoothes the hills and valleys of our lives, it removes the obstacles that block our paths. It prepares a way for the King’s arrival in our midst. Go back to Isaiah’s prophecy: Every valley will be lifted up, every mountain will be made low, the uneven ground will be made level and the rough places be made smooth. (40:4)
Our lives are to be pipelines of God’s love, glory and grace in the world. But often our un-confessed sin and self-centeredness block up that pipeline with the grunge of the filth of sin. Imagine a section of cPVC pipe, white and clean, ready to bring good drinking water into your home. But after years of neglect, that pipe can get dirty, stained with the minerals and chemicals that are part of the water supply. The beauty of cPVC and newer types of plumbing lines is that they are slick. Unlike cast iron, they easily shed any residue that might block the water supply and they don’t rust out and break. And that is what repentance does for us. It keeps the pipelines of our lives clear and clean, useful and life-giving. Repentance gets ‘me’ out of the way, so the Holy Spirit can run through my life, spilling over, abundantly blessing others.
Repentance is not a one-shot deal. It isn’t getting your heavenly ticket punched once and for all. Repentance is part of a life of discipline, discipling to be more like Christ. Repentance is about perspective and discipline but mostly repentance is about grace. All these things are impossible without God’s grace. Will Willimon says that you can think about turning away from sin and its consequences in two ways. You have to repent, yes but by God’s grace, we get to repent. For without grace, repentance and forgiveness wouldn’t even be a possibility.
Grace is fully an act of God. That’s the beauty and the purpose of prophets – whether it’s Isaiah prophesying comfort to an embattled people or John the Baptist offering the opposite of comfort. John the Baptist issues a warning, a wake-up call to announce the reality of grace, the reality of God who is continually making all things new. Isaiah is reaching for a far-off day when comfort will come, John the Baptist is preaching the immediacy of that day “Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is near.” And remember the preaching of Peter on the Day of Pentecost “Repent and be baptized every one of you.”
Like Peter, we live in the already and the not yet. As a child, I never understood what it meant when Shakespeare wrote “The king is dead. Long live the King.” Or the man who said to Jesus: “Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.” In both those cases, one sentence or the other has to be true. If the King is dead, why say “Long live the King”? If you say you believe, then why do you have to ask for help with unbelieving? Why do we wait during Advent for the King to arrive, for the baby to be born when it all has happened already?
Because we are still waiting. Yes, Jesus Christ was born, fully human and fully divine on a cold Palestinian night many years ago. And he lived and taught and healed and grew in favor and stature with both God and man. And he gathered around himself a group of followers and disciples and after 33 years, he was brutally murdered, crucified on a shameful Roman cross. And the veil of the Temple was torn in two and all of creation and the Creator mourned. But after three days, he rose again and he appeared to his disciples and gave them instructions, peace and comfort. And he ascended into heaven and sent the Holy Spirit to lead and guide us from that day to this. And he calls us to be his disciples, to be stewards of His-story. And it all begins with a voice crying in the wilderness “Prepare the way of the Lord.” “Repent.”
For the King is coming again after this second time of Advent waiting. But instead of coming as a tiny baby, he will come as conquering King. And the prophecy of Isaiah, and John the Revelator will be fulfilled. So what then is our response in this already but not yet time, between the king that has been born and the King that will come to judge the living and the dead for they are one and the same?
Repent. Turn your face away from the world and your entrapment. Repent and be free to live a life full of risk and purpose and grace. Yes, we are waiting for the King to come, waiting for the light to fully drown out the darkness that threatens to engulf us. But brothers and sisters, hear the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The King has come, the King is coming! The curse of Adam and Eve has been removed and we will live together in the beauty of creation as it was intended to be. There will be no more night, no more pain, no more fear. But in this waiting time, don’t be content to simply endure, to grit your teeth and just exist. Repent, turn your face to God’s perspective and see the world as it really is: a place full of grace and glory, a world of forgiveness and hope. Repent, turn, look around, God is all around if you will
Isaiah 40:1-11
Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.
A voice cries out: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.’
A voice says, ‘Cry out!’ And I said, ‘What shall I cry?’ All people are grass, their constancy is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the Lord blows upon it; surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand for ever. Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good tidings; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings, lift it up, do not fear; say to the cities of Judah, ‘Here is your God!’ See, the Lord God comes with might, and his arm rules for him; his reward is with him, and his recompense before him. He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep.
Mark 1:1-8
The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
As it is written in the prophet Isaiah,
‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way;
the voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
“Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight” ’,
John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. He proclaimed, ‘The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.’
How do we hold in fruitful tension the prophecy of Isaiah in chapter 40 and the description of John the Baptist in Mark 1? Here we are in the season of Advent, a holy time that is hard to perceive when all around we are surrounded by:
• Santas and red-nosed reindeer,
• snowmen and mistletoe
• and every recording artist who ever had a record deal singing the same dozen songs about the baby in Bethlehem.
And the peace of the Savior, the coming of the King seems further away than ever. As much as we love Christmas carols and the warm sentimentality of homecomings and the delight on the faces of little children experiencing the magic of the season, the Bible refuses to let us drown in a sea of goo. John the Baptist in his camel skin clothing with his command for repentance doesn’t seem to fare well when you put him next to Burl Ives singing Have a Holly Jolly Christmas. There is safety in the sentimentality. It is all about us and our families, where we all are safe and secure and comforted.
Isn’t that what Isaiah is talking about? Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins. (Isaiah 40:1-2) Isaiah here is prophesying to a people that were suffering the pain of exile and oppression. These were the descendents of the original Exodus people that had been taken over and dispersed by the Babylonian Empire as a punishment for falling away from God. They needed to hear the prophecy that there would be an end to their suffering and that the Messiah would come. And we need to hear those words of comfort as well. We live in a world that is characterized by pain and suffering, transition and loss. There are many for whom this holiday season will be one of suffering, one of tortured memories of loved ones who have died, family members that are far away, lives that have been ripped apart by addiction, violence and man’s inhumanity to man. So this word of comfort from Isaiah is a necessary one. It is vital that we remember and tell the world around us that there is comfort and hope, grace and peace. Hear again the final words of Isaiah in this section:
"He will feed His flock like a shepherd;
He will gather the lambs in His arms;
He will carry them in His bosom;
He will gently lead the mother sheep."
God is among us to care for those who are most vulnerable, most in need of care. Part of our responsibility as His church is to be his hands and feet in the world, offering that comfort and protection to those who need it the most. It seems as if the very things that make this holiday season so sweet for some are the very things that rub salt into the wounds of those who hurt and mourn. Before we can hear the words of John the Baptist, we must hear and know the prophecy of Isaiah. There is comfort and protection and hope in the arms of God who above all is Love Incarnate. When it seems that all hope is gone, Isaiah reminds us that hope is still possible. It affirms that grace is still possible.
It is no accident that the opening words of Mark’s Gospel are from Isaiah’s prophecy. The prophecy was fulfilled in the coming of Jesus and it was John the Baptist’s vocation to prepare the way. That’s what this season of Advent is all about, getting ready. And how do we get ready for the coming of Jesus? John the Baptist has it in a word. Repent. But hear the echo from the original text the way Mark intended it. This is a voice crying out in the wilderness with an urgency that is missing in many of our English translations and is missing in our piecemeal, daily devotional way of reading the Bible.
When you separate the Scripture down into 365 easily understood passages, something is lost. In the original Greek and in good English translations, the word euqws, immediately, occurs 30 times in the Gospel of Mark alone. After Jesus was baptized by John he immediately went into the wilderness. Immediately the disciples turned and left their nets, immediately Jesus healed or taught or said. Again and again Mark uses this word, immediately, immediately. The whole gospel has this sense of urgency. Mark’s writing is rough, unlike the educated letters of Paul or the precision of Luke the physician. So hear the urgency of John’s call to repent.
-What does it mean to repent? Literally, it means to turn away from some action or course of action and to turn your face to something new. Martin Luther, the great Reformation theologian said that sin is when humans turn in on themselves. Using that same image then, repentance would be turning away from ourselves and our sinfulness to look into the face of God. It means changing our perspective from looking at our lives form our own selfish perspective to looking at our lives from God’s eternal perspective.
-What does repentance look like in our everyday lives? What it looks like is that we make a conscious and real decision to stop doing something that we know is out of the will of God.
What we have to repent of is no mystery. Even now, I know the Holy Spirit is pricking each of your hearts, just as mine is being moved to give up that one thing that we cherish, that we put before God. Maybe it’s money, maybe it’s time, “Oh, I’ll get around to working for the church later, after I retire, after the kids are grown, after I go fishing, after 18 more holes of golf.” Maybe it’s not picking up the phone to check on a friend, to offer a word of encouragement. “I’m too tired, I worked hard all day.” Maybe it’s the spurt of self-righteous irritation we feel when things are done our way, or what we expected someone else to take care of doesn’t happen at all. So we gladly take on a martyr complex “Oh, I’ll do it myself, that’s the only way it will ever get done right anyway. Poor, pitiful me.” I don’t know about you but those are the top of the list of things I need to repent of.
-What does repentance do? It smoothes the hills and valleys of our lives, it removes the obstacles that block our paths. It prepares a way for the King’s arrival in our midst. Go back to Isaiah’s prophecy: Every valley will be lifted up, every mountain will be made low, the uneven ground will be made level and the rough places be made smooth. (40:4)
Our lives are to be pipelines of God’s love, glory and grace in the world. But often our un-confessed sin and self-centeredness block up that pipeline with the grunge of the filth of sin. Imagine a section of cPVC pipe, white and clean, ready to bring good drinking water into your home. But after years of neglect, that pipe can get dirty, stained with the minerals and chemicals that are part of the water supply. The beauty of cPVC and newer types of plumbing lines is that they are slick. Unlike cast iron, they easily shed any residue that might block the water supply and they don’t rust out and break. And that is what repentance does for us. It keeps the pipelines of our lives clear and clean, useful and life-giving. Repentance gets ‘me’ out of the way, so the Holy Spirit can run through my life, spilling over, abundantly blessing others.
Repentance is not a one-shot deal. It isn’t getting your heavenly ticket punched once and for all. Repentance is part of a life of discipline, discipling to be more like Christ. Repentance is about perspective and discipline but mostly repentance is about grace. All these things are impossible without God’s grace. Will Willimon says that you can think about turning away from sin and its consequences in two ways. You have to repent, yes but by God’s grace, we get to repent. For without grace, repentance and forgiveness wouldn’t even be a possibility.
Grace is fully an act of God. That’s the beauty and the purpose of prophets – whether it’s Isaiah prophesying comfort to an embattled people or John the Baptist offering the opposite of comfort. John the Baptist issues a warning, a wake-up call to announce the reality of grace, the reality of God who is continually making all things new. Isaiah is reaching for a far-off day when comfort will come, John the Baptist is preaching the immediacy of that day “Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is near.” And remember the preaching of Peter on the Day of Pentecost “Repent and be baptized every one of you.”
Like Peter, we live in the already and the not yet. As a child, I never understood what it meant when Shakespeare wrote “The king is dead. Long live the King.” Or the man who said to Jesus: “Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.” In both those cases, one sentence or the other has to be true. If the King is dead, why say “Long live the King”? If you say you believe, then why do you have to ask for help with unbelieving? Why do we wait during Advent for the King to arrive, for the baby to be born when it all has happened already?
Because we are still waiting. Yes, Jesus Christ was born, fully human and fully divine on a cold Palestinian night many years ago. And he lived and taught and healed and grew in favor and stature with both God and man. And he gathered around himself a group of followers and disciples and after 33 years, he was brutally murdered, crucified on a shameful Roman cross. And the veil of the Temple was torn in two and all of creation and the Creator mourned. But after three days, he rose again and he appeared to his disciples and gave them instructions, peace and comfort. And he ascended into heaven and sent the Holy Spirit to lead and guide us from that day to this. And he calls us to be his disciples, to be stewards of His-story. And it all begins with a voice crying in the wilderness “Prepare the way of the Lord.” “Repent.”
For the King is coming again after this second time of Advent waiting. But instead of coming as a tiny baby, he will come as conquering King. And the prophecy of Isaiah, and John the Revelator will be fulfilled. So what then is our response in this already but not yet time, between the king that has been born and the King that will come to judge the living and the dead for they are one and the same?
Repent. Turn your face away from the world and your entrapment. Repent and be free to live a life full of risk and purpose and grace. Yes, we are waiting for the King to come, waiting for the light to fully drown out the darkness that threatens to engulf us. But brothers and sisters, hear the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The King has come, the King is coming! The curse of Adam and Eve has been removed and we will live together in the beauty of creation as it was intended to be. There will be no more night, no more pain, no more fear. But in this waiting time, don’t be content to simply endure, to grit your teeth and just exist. Repent, turn your face to God’s perspective and see the world as it really is: a place full of grace and glory, a world of forgiveness and hope. Repent, turn, look around, God is all around if you will
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