May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: Christmas
PROPER: A
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: December 24 & 24, 2001
TEXT: Isaiah 9:2-4, 6-7 “ . . . and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”
Luke 2:1-20 – “And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.”
ISSUE: There are many startling reversals in the story of Jesus. The first are last and the last first. Jesus expresses the way God thinks, not the way man thinks. There is a startling new understanding of the coming Messiah as the Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, who is born in a manger wrapped in swaddling cloths. Jesus challenges the forces and powers of the world with the great simplicity of love. He makes us rethink what is truly important in our lives. Coming to the world like we are, he intends to make us like himself. We shall make room for him.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
“For a child has been born for us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” These are the words of the prophet Isaiah, familiar to us at the Christmas season. These words are believed to have originally been written at the end of a dreadfully oppressive regime in Judah, the rule of the Assyrian ruler, Tiglath-pileser. They are a coronation poem or song for the coming of a new king in the hope of his bringing about a new age of peace and justice.
The king would not literally have been a child, but a new king, a new start, and new hope for an oppressed people.
The Wonderful Counselor would be a person who was skilled with the political skills of governing and leading the nation wisely.
A Mighty God, or mighty in God, speaks of a divine warrior, or an invincible warrior of the oppressed.
An Everlasting Father would be a person who was an unfailing source of protection and love, like any good father.
A Prince of peace is a controller of his subjects that brings a state of well-being and prosperity, or at least that which offers the best of all things for his people.
The coronation poem is one of great hope and expectation. Who Isaiah was referring to we cannot be sure. But the early Christian Community saw in the coronation anthem the epitome of Jesus. But how can the child laid in the manger really be the Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace?
For the early Christian Community Jesus’ infancy was not literally important. Luke’s beautiful birth narrative story is really a poem itself that expresses in the way an overture does in an opera the themes of what is to come. The infant child is the sign of new hope and new beginning. Shepherds are his heralds, and angels his welcoming chorus. The world will see in his seeming frailty and subtlety something quite grand.
The ministry and teaching is one of change, turn around, that gets the attention of all of his followers. He is the great reversal for the world, or the way of great repentance, change. Jesus’ parables are often stories with shocking endings that people don’t expect:
The workers in the vineyard who have worked all day long get the same pay that those who came at the last minute receive.
The prodigal son who wastes his father’s living gets forgiveness, and his good brother gets a lecture to be compassionate and to be changed himself.
The blessed, and the most honorable are the poor, not those who have more than their share, but who in fact do the sharing.
Those who mourn are the blessed and honorable, who shall be comforted, not those happy but insensitive folk.
The lepers and the outcasts, the cursed, are the folk who get restored.
The parable of the scoundrel who has been ripping off his master receives congratulations for his skillfulness.
The lame and paralyzed, the oppressed walk once again. The deaf hear the love of God spoken; blind receive new insight into the wonder of God. The speechless, those without voice or power are given new hope. All that has been cast down is being raised up, and all that are lost are being found.
The throne of the Lord is a cross, and his crown is an entanglement of thorns. Yet in him is the hope of the world.
He is the Wonderful Counselor with the political skills that challenge the politics and the power structures of the world. He is Mighty God, the mighty warrior champion of the poor, and the oppressed, and who demands justice. He is the Everlasting Father providing undeserved grace and love for his wayward sons and daughters. He is the Prince of Peace who intends to bring well-being, comfort, and the best of all possible worlds for his creation. He is the Lord who wants our attention, and calls us into his service as faithful, loyal subjects.
Our world knows the oppression of powerful and cruel regimes. We have seen the brutality and the cruelty that can be inflicted on human beings. Many people around this world this evening need comforting and justice. Many folk mourn. Many people are hungry, abandoned, orphaned all around the world. The world does need a savior, and a Lord of Lords and a King over all Kings and potentates who is a Wonderful Counselor, A Mighty God, and Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace.
This Christmas evening we celebrate the fact that God in the person of Jesus Christ has and does come among us. We sing the coronation hymn that the King of Love and the Prince of Peace is with us, and that His Kingdom shall have no end. Indeed, Jesus Christ is the Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Tonight the light shines in the darkness.
Monday, December 24, 2001
Sunday, December 23, 2001
ADVENT 4
May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: ADVENT 4
PROPER: A
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: December 23, 2001
TEXT: Isaiah 7:10-17 – “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.”
Matt. 1:18-25 – “Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and they shall name him Emmanuel,” which means, “God is with us.”
ISSUE: Isaiah tells King Ahaz to trust God: “Ask God for a sign.” But Ahaz intent on not changing his policies and looking to the powers of the world to be his salvation comes under great judgment, by the time a woman conceives and the child grows up to eat common foods of the land, curds and wild honey. This last Sunday of Advent is our day of decision to choose between the powers of the world and the culture or to cling closely to God, who comes among us in Jesus Christ our Lord.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The scriptural passages from Isaiah and Matthew were rich in meaning for the people who first heard them read in their early Christian Churches, and for the folk looking for hope in what was at times a grim world.
First let me give a little background into the passage by Isaiah the prophet. It was a particularly politically troubled time when Isaiah spoke to King Ahaz. Ahaz was not a very good king. He wearied his subjects, which means he placed great burdens of injustice upon the poor. His policies were lacking. He feared the political enemies of Israel and Syria, and chose to align himself with the more powerful Assyrians at the time. Isaiah implores him to ask for a sign from God to guide him in the right direction. Isaiah knew that the Israel and Syria were not the enemies that Ahaz thought they were. But, Ahaz refuses to ask a sign from God. He gives a pious excuse that it is not appropriate to test God. What he really meant was that he didn’t want either Isaiah or God to meddle with his policies. He was refusing to change, and chose to align himself with the greater powers of the world for protection and safety, which saved him from Israel and Syria but landed him in great trouble with the Assyrians who turn Judah into a vassal state greatly oppressed.
Isaiah turned to Ahaz and said that if he would not ask a sign or turn to God for protection, then God would give him a sign: A young virgin, or a woman of marriageable age, would conceive and bear a son and name him Emmanuel, which means “God is with us.” By the time the child would be old enough to know good from bad, about age 12, the nations, political powers, and kings Ahaz had feared would be gone. Then, Judah and King Ahaz would be humiliated by the Assyrians.
The simple message of Isaiah in a complicated political situation was “trust God.” God is with us. We really do not know who the pregnant young woman was. We do not know who the son was. It could most likely have been Isaiah’s own wife, and Isaiah named the child, like prophets did in those days, a prophetic message: “God is with us.” Remember his first son was named, “A Remnant shall remain.” But remember the message: Trust God and not the powers of the world alone; God is with us. There was for Isaiah and the people of that time no concept of what would happen in far off future years. They lived mostly in the present and the very near future.
Some 700 plus years later, Matthew is writing his Gospel account of Jesus’ story. He’s writing some 70 years after Jesus’ actual birth. Matthew is writing largely for a Jewish community of early Christians, and thus is intent on conveying how Jesus and his ministry is rooted in Hebrew Scriptures and the hope of the nation, which be this time didn’t have much left. For Matthew both genealogy and the work of the prophets played a significant part in his presentation of who Jesus was. The fact that Jesus was son of Joseph made him in the line of the ancient King David whose lineage God had promised would never end. Mary was related to John the Baptist, giving Jesus a priestly prophetic background.
In the Old Testament, Joseph was a dreamer and an interpreter of dreams from whom came the great leader Moses, followed by Joshua who eventually leads the Israelites into the Promised Land. For Matthew, Joseph, the father of Jesus, is the dreamer, interpreter of dreams and protector of his people gives us Jesus, Joshua another form of the name Jesus, to lead his people into the Kingdom of God, the Garden of Eden, the Realm and Dominion of God. Jesus is savior of his people. John the Baptist like Moses calls for a ministry of repentance that is eventually turned over the Jesus to fulfill the hope of God’s kingdom.
Matthew is also famous for picking out passages from the prophets and attempting to illustrate how Jesus is their fulfillment. He quotes in this case, Isaiah 7:10f, “Look, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Immanuel,” which means, “God is with us.” What was and is the church’s teaching? From Mary, a young woman of marriageable age, and by intervention of the Holy Spirit came a prophetic-priestly son whose life revealed the presence of God to his faithful people. The message: Trust in God; God is with us in Jesus Christ our Lord. You need not fear, and you must not place your faith and confidence in the world and the world’s culture for your protection and salvation. Trust God. Put your loyalty in the way of Jesus Christ and therein you find the purpose and the meaning for your life. “Isaiah said it,” says Matthew to his people, “God is with us.” Now we see the fulfillment in the life and ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ.
To a world rife with violence, fear, cruelty, poor and questionable leadership, the message comes to trust in God for both Isaiah and Matthew, and Matthew for us more clearly reveals who that woman is that bears the son and who the son is. In our world today, we still live with a great deal of violence and crime. Our communities rural, suburban, and our cities are not immune from it. We do live with fear, and the events of September 11th have increased our fears. Our imaginations have been triggered with all kinds of on going horrible scenarios of terror from dirty atomic weaponry, to poison gasses and germs, to atomic power plant melt downs. We can look to the culture, to the powerful to save us. But sometimes the culture is as much a mess as our private lives, and the nations powers can be just as uncertain and confused as to what to do, and with whom to make appropriate alliances. Nationally we once backed Osama bin Laden.
As a Christians the message of this season is that God is with us. Turn around to putting your trust and faith in God, which means to repent. Turn back and dream dreams and have visions of hope that come from the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. Jesus came and comes in love. He came to serve the world and to show people the way back to a deeper and profounder meaning of what God is, and to reveal the meaning of life. Jesus ministry was first and foremost to reveal the love and forgiveness of God. His proclamation was that God loves and adores his creation. God loves as Jesus did the children who had no significant merit of their own. His intention was to raise up all that had fallen and subject to discrimination and injustice. Jesus’ ministry was an empowering one. His healing ministry was to restore the cursed and oppressed. His ministry was to teach folk to love one another, to keep attached to one another and do what needed to be done to reveal the God that is with us, with you and with me. It was in dying, changing, sacrificing and turning away from the past that Jesus and his disciples came to life full and eternally and meaningfully.
This Advent-Christmas season often gets caught up in giving to the poor and needy. We gave generously stocking gifts for women and their children in refuge centers for the abused. We’ve given generously to The Ark for homeless children. Many of you may also have given to the Red Cross, Episcopal Relief and Development in the wake of September 11th. It is the season of giving. But the core of the season is not just giving it is in a deeper understanding that God is with us. That God comes among us. The season evokes a spiritual understanding that God calls us to love Him, and to recognize our dependence upon him to keep us human. Otherwise we drift away in to being just proud of ourselves, or stuck in past traditions and old ways. God is alive and with us now to evoke dreams and hopes and appreciation of God’s world as a place where peace and justice are meant to abide, where we are directed by God to wherever it is that God may be calling us.
This is the season where we change, turn around to God, or turn back to God. We come to realize that God is there; God is with us. He has been there in the past, is now, and ever more shall be extending his presence, his love, and his call to us. This is the season of letting our human spirits to be renewed with the very presence of God. Come into our hearts Lord, Jesus. There is room . . . . . . . . .
SEASON: ADVENT 4
PROPER: A
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: December 23, 2001
TEXT: Isaiah 7:10-17 – “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.”
Matt. 1:18-25 – “Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and they shall name him Emmanuel,” which means, “God is with us.”
ISSUE: Isaiah tells King Ahaz to trust God: “Ask God for a sign.” But Ahaz intent on not changing his policies and looking to the powers of the world to be his salvation comes under great judgment, by the time a woman conceives and the child grows up to eat common foods of the land, curds and wild honey. This last Sunday of Advent is our day of decision to choose between the powers of the world and the culture or to cling closely to God, who comes among us in Jesus Christ our Lord.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The scriptural passages from Isaiah and Matthew were rich in meaning for the people who first heard them read in their early Christian Churches, and for the folk looking for hope in what was at times a grim world.
First let me give a little background into the passage by Isaiah the prophet. It was a particularly politically troubled time when Isaiah spoke to King Ahaz. Ahaz was not a very good king. He wearied his subjects, which means he placed great burdens of injustice upon the poor. His policies were lacking. He feared the political enemies of Israel and Syria, and chose to align himself with the more powerful Assyrians at the time. Isaiah implores him to ask for a sign from God to guide him in the right direction. Isaiah knew that the Israel and Syria were not the enemies that Ahaz thought they were. But, Ahaz refuses to ask a sign from God. He gives a pious excuse that it is not appropriate to test God. What he really meant was that he didn’t want either Isaiah or God to meddle with his policies. He was refusing to change, and chose to align himself with the greater powers of the world for protection and safety, which saved him from Israel and Syria but landed him in great trouble with the Assyrians who turn Judah into a vassal state greatly oppressed.
Isaiah turned to Ahaz and said that if he would not ask a sign or turn to God for protection, then God would give him a sign: A young virgin, or a woman of marriageable age, would conceive and bear a son and name him Emmanuel, which means “God is with us.” By the time the child would be old enough to know good from bad, about age 12, the nations, political powers, and kings Ahaz had feared would be gone. Then, Judah and King Ahaz would be humiliated by the Assyrians.
The simple message of Isaiah in a complicated political situation was “trust God.” God is with us. We really do not know who the pregnant young woman was. We do not know who the son was. It could most likely have been Isaiah’s own wife, and Isaiah named the child, like prophets did in those days, a prophetic message: “God is with us.” Remember his first son was named, “A Remnant shall remain.” But remember the message: Trust God and not the powers of the world alone; God is with us. There was for Isaiah and the people of that time no concept of what would happen in far off future years. They lived mostly in the present and the very near future.
Some 700 plus years later, Matthew is writing his Gospel account of Jesus’ story. He’s writing some 70 years after Jesus’ actual birth. Matthew is writing largely for a Jewish community of early Christians, and thus is intent on conveying how Jesus and his ministry is rooted in Hebrew Scriptures and the hope of the nation, which be this time didn’t have much left. For Matthew both genealogy and the work of the prophets played a significant part in his presentation of who Jesus was. The fact that Jesus was son of Joseph made him in the line of the ancient King David whose lineage God had promised would never end. Mary was related to John the Baptist, giving Jesus a priestly prophetic background.
In the Old Testament, Joseph was a dreamer and an interpreter of dreams from whom came the great leader Moses, followed by Joshua who eventually leads the Israelites into the Promised Land. For Matthew, Joseph, the father of Jesus, is the dreamer, interpreter of dreams and protector of his people gives us Jesus, Joshua another form of the name Jesus, to lead his people into the Kingdom of God, the Garden of Eden, the Realm and Dominion of God. Jesus is savior of his people. John the Baptist like Moses calls for a ministry of repentance that is eventually turned over the Jesus to fulfill the hope of God’s kingdom.
Matthew is also famous for picking out passages from the prophets and attempting to illustrate how Jesus is their fulfillment. He quotes in this case, Isaiah 7:10f, “Look, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Immanuel,” which means, “God is with us.” What was and is the church’s teaching? From Mary, a young woman of marriageable age, and by intervention of the Holy Spirit came a prophetic-priestly son whose life revealed the presence of God to his faithful people. The message: Trust in God; God is with us in Jesus Christ our Lord. You need not fear, and you must not place your faith and confidence in the world and the world’s culture for your protection and salvation. Trust God. Put your loyalty in the way of Jesus Christ and therein you find the purpose and the meaning for your life. “Isaiah said it,” says Matthew to his people, “God is with us.” Now we see the fulfillment in the life and ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ.
To a world rife with violence, fear, cruelty, poor and questionable leadership, the message comes to trust in God for both Isaiah and Matthew, and Matthew for us more clearly reveals who that woman is that bears the son and who the son is. In our world today, we still live with a great deal of violence and crime. Our communities rural, suburban, and our cities are not immune from it. We do live with fear, and the events of September 11th have increased our fears. Our imaginations have been triggered with all kinds of on going horrible scenarios of terror from dirty atomic weaponry, to poison gasses and germs, to atomic power plant melt downs. We can look to the culture, to the powerful to save us. But sometimes the culture is as much a mess as our private lives, and the nations powers can be just as uncertain and confused as to what to do, and with whom to make appropriate alliances. Nationally we once backed Osama bin Laden.
As a Christians the message of this season is that God is with us. Turn around to putting your trust and faith in God, which means to repent. Turn back and dream dreams and have visions of hope that come from the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. Jesus came and comes in love. He came to serve the world and to show people the way back to a deeper and profounder meaning of what God is, and to reveal the meaning of life. Jesus ministry was first and foremost to reveal the love and forgiveness of God. His proclamation was that God loves and adores his creation. God loves as Jesus did the children who had no significant merit of their own. His intention was to raise up all that had fallen and subject to discrimination and injustice. Jesus’ ministry was an empowering one. His healing ministry was to restore the cursed and oppressed. His ministry was to teach folk to love one another, to keep attached to one another and do what needed to be done to reveal the God that is with us, with you and with me. It was in dying, changing, sacrificing and turning away from the past that Jesus and his disciples came to life full and eternally and meaningfully.
This Advent-Christmas season often gets caught up in giving to the poor and needy. We gave generously stocking gifts for women and their children in refuge centers for the abused. We’ve given generously to The Ark for homeless children. Many of you may also have given to the Red Cross, Episcopal Relief and Development in the wake of September 11th. It is the season of giving. But the core of the season is not just giving it is in a deeper understanding that God is with us. That God comes among us. The season evokes a spiritual understanding that God calls us to love Him, and to recognize our dependence upon him to keep us human. Otherwise we drift away in to being just proud of ourselves, or stuck in past traditions and old ways. God is alive and with us now to evoke dreams and hopes and appreciation of God’s world as a place where peace and justice are meant to abide, where we are directed by God to wherever it is that God may be calling us.
This is the season where we change, turn around to God, or turn back to God. We come to realize that God is there; God is with us. He has been there in the past, is now, and ever more shall be extending his presence, his love, and his call to us. This is the season of letting our human spirits to be renewed with the very presence of God. Come into our hearts Lord, Jesus. There is room . . . . . . . . .
Sunday, December 16, 2001
ADVENT 3
May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: ADVENT 3
PROPER: A
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: December 16,2001
TEXT: Isaiah 35:1-10 – “He will come and save you.” Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy. For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water; the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp, the grass shall become reeds and rushes.
ISSUE: Isaiah has a vision of great hope for the people in exile. Their time of release shall come. There shall be a road, a Holy Way, leading them back to Zion through a blooming desert. The world and its people know many forms of being in exile today. The passage is hopeful, and calls a repentant people back to God.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
There is a very close relationship between the reading from Gospel of Matthew and the passage from Isaiah 35. In Matthew’s account, John the Baptist, who had called for repentance and change in preparation for a new age and messianic hope, was in jail. John had spoken against and embarrassed King Herod, so he was placed in prison to silence him. It is thought that Jesus himself had been a disciple of John the Baptist. In John’s absence, Jesus begins his own ministry developing his own followers, or disciples. It is clear that Jesus had a great deal of respect for John the Baptist. Jesus saw John as a profoundly significant prophet. Jesus saw John as the Elijah type personality that he was. He was not merely a man calling people to be sorry for their sins, but he called them to an abrupt change in their behavior. John was not luxurious or self-indulgent, dressed in soft robes, but a strong personality that challenged his people and the times to become people of God, reclaiming that holiness and the justice to which God had called them. John is anticipating the coming of a new age, and the possibility of a military-like messiah.
It was apparently clear as the story is told by Matthew that John saw the growing popularity of Jesus, and from the prison sends his own disciples to inquire as to whether or not Jesus is the messianic hope and leader of God’s people into a new age. “Are you the one, or shall we wait for another?” John’s disciples ask. Jesus responds, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raise, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.” What Jesus is doing is quoting, almost exactly, in this response the messianic hope written in the 35th chapter of Isaiah.
What had Isaiah been talking about? Isaiah was addressing the Jewish people at a time when they were in exile from their homeland. Isaiah lays out the hope that the time will come soon when the people will know a glorious deliverance. The people will be saved from their oppressors and set free. It will be a miraculous time when, “Then the eyes of the blind are opened, the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.” What’s more the desert leading back home will come into bloom. The burning sand will be cooled, and there shall be an oasis in the desert along the way, and the feeble grasses will be strong like reeds and rushes. Through the desert shall be a highway and no one shall be lost; even those too dumb to read roadmaps will not lose their way. There will be no lions or ravenous beasts to threaten them. The people shall, even those with feeble knees and weak hands will be strengthened and return home singing for joy.
What’s happening here in these passages for both Isaiah, and quoted by Jesus to John the Baptist? The passages are addressed to people who are in exile. In Isaiah’s instance, the Jewish people had been conquered and forced to leave their homeland, and then their homeland was destroyed. But the time of their exile was over, and they were being allowed to return home. They are given a very hopeful vision. Jesus is addressing a different time and situation. The people were not physically exiled so much as they were in a spiritual exile. Their land was conquered. The poor were badly oppressed. Widows without a son had no voice and were often robbed. The spirituality was based largely on law, and law full of loopholes and which favored the rich. Peasants were seen as outcasts from God. People who were sick, lame, deaf, dumb, blind, lepers were all outcasts, and were believed to be cursed by God. Life was extremely hard, taxation and tolls were everywhere and oppressive. There was an overall political, economic, and spiritual exile for the greater majority of people. The people perceived themselves to be in darkness and in a lifeless world. There was little hope. Isaiah and certainly Jesus could not believe that God would leave his people in a world of darkness, despair, and hopelessness. They anticipated a repentant world, a world that would be turned upside down so that the dark side would be turned towards the light of God.
Isaiah foresees a repentant, dramatically changed, world of opposites. Blind people who cannot see will see. Deaf people will hear. Voiceless people will have a voice. Vicious animals will become tame. Dry dangerous despairing deserts will turn to a garden paradise. The people in fear, alienation, and oppressed with sing for joy as their world return to the light of God. “The people walking in darkness will see a new light. Sorrow and sighing shall flee away in the presence of God.
Jesus picks up on that same theme when he speaks to John’s disciples. The blind see the presence of God among them. The lame walk, the paralyzed hopeless will begin to take steps again toward hope. The deaf, those who had not heard of God’s redeeming and forgiving love will hear of it. The dumb and powerless will have a voice again. The impure untouchable lepers will be made pure again. Even the untouchable cursed dead folk doomed to Sheol, the place of shadows, will be raised up into the light of God’s kingdom. All that is cursed will be turned upside down and know the blessing and honor that God gives to his people. There shall be a road, a Holy Way that leads to God’s love, and no one shall lose their way. And nothing no cruel vicious thing spirit or devil or vicious animal shall separate us from the love of God. When God comes to his world, it will be a repentant world, a changed world that is up side down and facing the light of hope and deliverance from the darkness.
It is imperative, good people, that we ourselves be repentant and ready to allow ourselves to be turned over in repentance so that we can fully appreciate the repentant hope and vision of Isaiah and participate in the Kingdom of our Lord. Can we participate in the vision and the hope, and allow Jesus to come again into our wilderness, our exile, and our times of despair and hopelessness?
Can we join in the visions and the hope that come from our Scriptures, from the prophets and the Lord Jesus? Is it possible to envision a world where Jewish people and Islamic people, and Christian folk can honor and respect their understandings of God’s covenants without suspicion, hate, and critical remarks? Is it possible to envision a world where Native Americans, African Americans, Asians can be respected with dignity and without derogatory remarks. We must look to the children of Afghanistan who have suffered so much war and destruction knowing the fear they must have, and knowing that such a large percentage of them have lost their parents with the hope that the day will come when each one is adopted in a home that will restore their hope for the future. When we look at nations where there are starving people, we have to hope that their deserts will bloom, and that there will be teachers who will enable them to find the agricultural savvy to feed themselves. We really need to hope and envision a time when the hotshots and the proud and the greedy will be repentant and turned over to become aware that God blesses, honors, the poor, the meek, the merciful, the caring, the servants, and those who themselves will hunger and thirst to seek justice for all. Maybe as Americans we may need to examine our own status and image in the world and in the sight of God. We may like everyone else face the fact that we, and our proud power and consumptive habits, may well need some repentance, living more simply so that the rest of the world may live and have its fair share as well.
In each of our own lives, before we can step into the Kingdom of God, that world which is overturned and facing the light, we need personally to be a people ready to make the appropriate changes that make us resonate with the Anointed Christ. We often need God and the Presence of Christ to take away our sense of vengeance. We need to reclaim our calling as servants as opposed to those who expect to be served. We by the grace of God need to understand that God’s grace comes to us not because we earn it, but because it is a freely given gift from God. Being turned over we become a new people, and the people we were meant to be.
“Are you the one who is to come?” asks John. New insights are given; the Word of God is being heard. The unclean are purified. The folks paralyzed in fear, despair, and hopelessness are walking again. May the Lord Jesus Christ turn each of us over that we may be in resonance with the coming of his Kingdom once again.
SEASON: ADVENT 3
PROPER: A
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: December 16,2001
TEXT: Isaiah 35:1-10 – “He will come and save you.” Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy. For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water; the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp, the grass shall become reeds and rushes.
ISSUE: Isaiah has a vision of great hope for the people in exile. Their time of release shall come. There shall be a road, a Holy Way, leading them back to Zion through a blooming desert. The world and its people know many forms of being in exile today. The passage is hopeful, and calls a repentant people back to God.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
There is a very close relationship between the reading from Gospel of Matthew and the passage from Isaiah 35. In Matthew’s account, John the Baptist, who had called for repentance and change in preparation for a new age and messianic hope, was in jail. John had spoken against and embarrassed King Herod, so he was placed in prison to silence him. It is thought that Jesus himself had been a disciple of John the Baptist. In John’s absence, Jesus begins his own ministry developing his own followers, or disciples. It is clear that Jesus had a great deal of respect for John the Baptist. Jesus saw John as a profoundly significant prophet. Jesus saw John as the Elijah type personality that he was. He was not merely a man calling people to be sorry for their sins, but he called them to an abrupt change in their behavior. John was not luxurious or self-indulgent, dressed in soft robes, but a strong personality that challenged his people and the times to become people of God, reclaiming that holiness and the justice to which God had called them. John is anticipating the coming of a new age, and the possibility of a military-like messiah.
It was apparently clear as the story is told by Matthew that John saw the growing popularity of Jesus, and from the prison sends his own disciples to inquire as to whether or not Jesus is the messianic hope and leader of God’s people into a new age. “Are you the one, or shall we wait for another?” John’s disciples ask. Jesus responds, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raise, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.” What Jesus is doing is quoting, almost exactly, in this response the messianic hope written in the 35th chapter of Isaiah.
What had Isaiah been talking about? Isaiah was addressing the Jewish people at a time when they were in exile from their homeland. Isaiah lays out the hope that the time will come soon when the people will know a glorious deliverance. The people will be saved from their oppressors and set free. It will be a miraculous time when, “Then the eyes of the blind are opened, the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.” What’s more the desert leading back home will come into bloom. The burning sand will be cooled, and there shall be an oasis in the desert along the way, and the feeble grasses will be strong like reeds and rushes. Through the desert shall be a highway and no one shall be lost; even those too dumb to read roadmaps will not lose their way. There will be no lions or ravenous beasts to threaten them. The people shall, even those with feeble knees and weak hands will be strengthened and return home singing for joy.
What’s happening here in these passages for both Isaiah, and quoted by Jesus to John the Baptist? The passages are addressed to people who are in exile. In Isaiah’s instance, the Jewish people had been conquered and forced to leave their homeland, and then their homeland was destroyed. But the time of their exile was over, and they were being allowed to return home. They are given a very hopeful vision. Jesus is addressing a different time and situation. The people were not physically exiled so much as they were in a spiritual exile. Their land was conquered. The poor were badly oppressed. Widows without a son had no voice and were often robbed. The spirituality was based largely on law, and law full of loopholes and which favored the rich. Peasants were seen as outcasts from God. People who were sick, lame, deaf, dumb, blind, lepers were all outcasts, and were believed to be cursed by God. Life was extremely hard, taxation and tolls were everywhere and oppressive. There was an overall political, economic, and spiritual exile for the greater majority of people. The people perceived themselves to be in darkness and in a lifeless world. There was little hope. Isaiah and certainly Jesus could not believe that God would leave his people in a world of darkness, despair, and hopelessness. They anticipated a repentant world, a world that would be turned upside down so that the dark side would be turned towards the light of God.
Isaiah foresees a repentant, dramatically changed, world of opposites. Blind people who cannot see will see. Deaf people will hear. Voiceless people will have a voice. Vicious animals will become tame. Dry dangerous despairing deserts will turn to a garden paradise. The people in fear, alienation, and oppressed with sing for joy as their world return to the light of God. “The people walking in darkness will see a new light. Sorrow and sighing shall flee away in the presence of God.
Jesus picks up on that same theme when he speaks to John’s disciples. The blind see the presence of God among them. The lame walk, the paralyzed hopeless will begin to take steps again toward hope. The deaf, those who had not heard of God’s redeeming and forgiving love will hear of it. The dumb and powerless will have a voice again. The impure untouchable lepers will be made pure again. Even the untouchable cursed dead folk doomed to Sheol, the place of shadows, will be raised up into the light of God’s kingdom. All that is cursed will be turned upside down and know the blessing and honor that God gives to his people. There shall be a road, a Holy Way that leads to God’s love, and no one shall lose their way. And nothing no cruel vicious thing spirit or devil or vicious animal shall separate us from the love of God. When God comes to his world, it will be a repentant world, a changed world that is up side down and facing the light of hope and deliverance from the darkness.
It is imperative, good people, that we ourselves be repentant and ready to allow ourselves to be turned over in repentance so that we can fully appreciate the repentant hope and vision of Isaiah and participate in the Kingdom of our Lord. Can we participate in the vision and the hope, and allow Jesus to come again into our wilderness, our exile, and our times of despair and hopelessness?
Can we join in the visions and the hope that come from our Scriptures, from the prophets and the Lord Jesus? Is it possible to envision a world where Jewish people and Islamic people, and Christian folk can honor and respect their understandings of God’s covenants without suspicion, hate, and critical remarks? Is it possible to envision a world where Native Americans, African Americans, Asians can be respected with dignity and without derogatory remarks. We must look to the children of Afghanistan who have suffered so much war and destruction knowing the fear they must have, and knowing that such a large percentage of them have lost their parents with the hope that the day will come when each one is adopted in a home that will restore their hope for the future. When we look at nations where there are starving people, we have to hope that their deserts will bloom, and that there will be teachers who will enable them to find the agricultural savvy to feed themselves. We really need to hope and envision a time when the hotshots and the proud and the greedy will be repentant and turned over to become aware that God blesses, honors, the poor, the meek, the merciful, the caring, the servants, and those who themselves will hunger and thirst to seek justice for all. Maybe as Americans we may need to examine our own status and image in the world and in the sight of God. We may like everyone else face the fact that we, and our proud power and consumptive habits, may well need some repentance, living more simply so that the rest of the world may live and have its fair share as well.
In each of our own lives, before we can step into the Kingdom of God, that world which is overturned and facing the light, we need personally to be a people ready to make the appropriate changes that make us resonate with the Anointed Christ. We often need God and the Presence of Christ to take away our sense of vengeance. We need to reclaim our calling as servants as opposed to those who expect to be served. We by the grace of God need to understand that God’s grace comes to us not because we earn it, but because it is a freely given gift from God. Being turned over we become a new people, and the people we were meant to be.
“Are you the one who is to come?” asks John. New insights are given; the Word of God is being heard. The unclean are purified. The folks paralyzed in fear, despair, and hopelessness are walking again. May the Lord Jesus Christ turn each of us over that we may be in resonance with the coming of his Kingdom once again.
Sunday, December 9, 2001
ADVENT 2
May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
: ADVENT 2
PROPER: A
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: December 9, 2001
TEXT: Isaiah 11:1-10 – A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. The Spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. . . . . .The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.
ISSUE: The theme of this second Sunday in Advent deals with repentance. Repentance means an inner change of heart and direction, while many may think of it erroneously as having to do with being sorry. Coupled with the call for repentance is the call to be transformed and ready to enter into the image of Christ as a people of peace and love. There is hope in the coming of Christ as the change agent who brings the peace of love for which we year and need.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The primary theme of this second Sunday in Advent is the call to repentance. In the Matthew lesson, old St. John the Baptist, or the John the dipper calls the people of his time to repentance. John is a prophetic character, dressed like a prophet in his camel’s hair and assuming the prophets diet of honey and wild locust. He is much like Elijah in his preaching and energetic vitality that calls a world to dramatic repentance. John anticipated and hoped for the coming of the messianic figure, who would bring in the Kingdom of God. He looks upon a world that was cruel, impersonal and insensitive to human need, and that had abandoned a personal responsible closeness for God, for simply old traditions and ancestral ties. John calls for repentance, which means change in the hearts of God’s people.
Many people today are inclined to think when they read or hear this Advent gospel story of John, that he was primarily calling people to confess their sins, and be sorry for them. Sorry is okay. But remember when you were a kid and you told your mother that you were sorry. She didn’t always buy that. “Sorry, I don’t care if you’re sorry, I want your bad behavior to change.” John’s call to repentance was just that, a change of heart that had an influence on activity. Pharisees and Sadducees were advised to stop relying on their ancestry as providing them privilege. Soldiers were taught to stop being bullies, and live on their wages. Tax collectors were to collect only taxes that were fair and stop their extortion. Repentance had little to do with being sorry; it had much more to do with making a dramatic change in a person’s life. Repentance was to be ready for a new age of transformation.
The concept of repentance being connected to a transformation is not peculiar to the Christian Scripture tradition, it is deeply rooted in the Hebrew Scriptures and in the prophetic teachings of Isaiah. Isaiah was a master at anticipating, hoping, and attending to the need for transformation among his people and the nation. Living and preaching in a time of significant wealth accumulated by the rich from the work of the poor, and living at a time when the people had abandoned a meaningful relationship with Yahweh for rituals and perfunctory religion, Isaiah saw a great need and hoped desperately, yearned for, a new age where God’s people would be truly repentant, changed, and the life of the nations dramatically transformed.
There are few passages from the Hebrew Scriptures that are quite so beautiful as Isaiah’s prophecy in Chapter 11. The golden age of King David is long gone. He anticipates new hope and a restoration of a new Kingdom of Judah and Israel that will once again be a kingdom that is truly God’s kingdom. Isaiah proclaims and anticipates that out of the stump, or trunk, of a degenerate kingdom there will come a new shoot, a new branch. It is a messianic hope that a savior and restorer will come to the nation that is enveloped by the Spirit of God, with wisdom and understanding, a wise counselor with the spirit and knowledge and fear, or better still an awe of God. He will restore the peasants and the poor to their rightful dignified status in the land. He will be intent upon what is right and just.
A popular theme in Christmas cards based on the Isaiah text is that of the lion and the lamb, the wolf and the lamb, the leopard and the kid goat, the calf, and fatling lying down with the lion in peace. The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall like down together, and the lion shall eat straw with the ox. What’s more a nursing child will play over the nest of a poisonous snake without being harmed. The earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
This imagery or vision is a vision of a transformed world and nature. The use of animals, lambs and lions lying down together is, of course, symbolic. Animals in Scripture were often mascots for a nation, in the same way the Eagle is American symbol and the Bear is a Russian Symbol. Wolves are seen as treacherous and cunning. The lamb is a symbol of meekness. Isaiah presents and image of transformed world, transformed nations, and transformed people who will live together in peace, and treat one another with justice and what is right.
Out of the roots of a spiritually impoverished nation, will come a messianic leader who in his relationship with God will lead the way into a world that is not just sorry, but transformed into the Garden of Eden, into the Kingdom of God. Old enmities will be forgotten. The Mighty will live peaceably with the weak. Exploitive types of people and nations will change their relationship with the poor and needy. It shall be an age when people will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
Isaiah’s image and vision may seem too strong for us, or just too hopeful for our world. There is just so much pain and suffering in our own world today. The stealthy wolves, the lions, and bears seem to have such an advantage over the lambs. It’s not much fun living in a world at war, or in a world of fear for travelers, and for our children. It’s not much fun fearing what disease the postman may deliver. It’s hard to see young men and women brought home in body bags. It’s every bit as difficult to see small children in nations like Afghanistan orphaned and living in inadequate orphanages. The mix of wealth, luxury, and power mixed with hatred, war, suspicion, fear, and anxious uncertainty for the future creates a pall of darkness and greatly limits our hope and joy. The events of recent months have had a serious effect on the outlook and the psychological well being of so many of us. When I was Christmas shopping one evening, a lady with her market basket comment as she passed by, “You know, I’m just not into this, this year.” Cruelty, terrorism, prejudice, and anxiety about the future have surely had their effect on all of us, I am sure. We as God’s people are indeed needful of a transformation. Maybe we need to make some changes, some kind of turn around. Maybe we need turn back to a reclamation of the God of love and hope, to look for the savior, for God to come to us, and renew us in our hopes for his Kingdom.
For the Christian Community there is no way back to God, except through Jesus Christ. He is our savior and our hope. Indeed, he is the one with the Spirit of God in him. He is the one who brought to the world a renewed spirit of wisdom based on love and forgiveness. He is the one who wears the belt of justice and righteousness around his waist, and complete trust, loyalty, and faith in God. After all, he lived a life himself that dealt with human cruelty from his birth until his death, in argument and threat, and death, but who remained so assured of the mercy, love, and compassion of God that he was raised up to fullness of eternal life. Where else would we turn except to the saving grace that comes in human despair and darkness from Jesus Christ? For out the darkness from Christ come the light and the hope for the world.
This past week I spent a day at a conference with two Muslim clergy. Their presentation was a great hope for a far greater understanding between Christianity and Islam. We share so many things that are alike. We do not need to be so suspicious, and when we change, repent, discipline ourselves to be more aware of the world around us, we may find pockets and places where hope grows and appears like shoots out of stumps or new branches out of old trees. Our advent prayer is one that needs to include our ability to change directions and be open to the renewing spirit of God to bring us the hope and the comfort we need.
I commented to someone last week at the coffee hour, (Pankaj Malik) that so much of what we see on the TV news is the harsh forbidding land of Afghanistan with its soldiers and the devastation going on there. He remarked having been there, he knew that it was in fact a beautiful country where some of the very best pomegranates and grapes of the world grow. It is not all devastation. It is not all dust and desert, but there is beauty and goodness and hope there as well.
Maybe it is time to try to let go of some of our busyness and doing Christmas the way we always do it, and seek to let God enable us to become transformed. Maybe we need to simplify and reduce the demands, change, repent from our fear and hopelessness, and turn back to God and anticipation of a renewed coming of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior into our lives. Advent is the Christian’s New Year, the time of rethinking our lives and their directions. What are the issues deep down we need to change and deal with? A closer relationship with God through Jesus Christ may eventually lead us all into the light and transformed into people of love and hope.
: ADVENT 2
PROPER: A
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: December 9, 2001
TEXT: Isaiah 11:1-10 – A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. The Spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. . . . . .The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.
ISSUE: The theme of this second Sunday in Advent deals with repentance. Repentance means an inner change of heart and direction, while many may think of it erroneously as having to do with being sorry. Coupled with the call for repentance is the call to be transformed and ready to enter into the image of Christ as a people of peace and love. There is hope in the coming of Christ as the change agent who brings the peace of love for which we year and need.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The primary theme of this second Sunday in Advent is the call to repentance. In the Matthew lesson, old St. John the Baptist, or the John the dipper calls the people of his time to repentance. John is a prophetic character, dressed like a prophet in his camel’s hair and assuming the prophets diet of honey and wild locust. He is much like Elijah in his preaching and energetic vitality that calls a world to dramatic repentance. John anticipated and hoped for the coming of the messianic figure, who would bring in the Kingdom of God. He looks upon a world that was cruel, impersonal and insensitive to human need, and that had abandoned a personal responsible closeness for God, for simply old traditions and ancestral ties. John calls for repentance, which means change in the hearts of God’s people.
Many people today are inclined to think when they read or hear this Advent gospel story of John, that he was primarily calling people to confess their sins, and be sorry for them. Sorry is okay. But remember when you were a kid and you told your mother that you were sorry. She didn’t always buy that. “Sorry, I don’t care if you’re sorry, I want your bad behavior to change.” John’s call to repentance was just that, a change of heart that had an influence on activity. Pharisees and Sadducees were advised to stop relying on their ancestry as providing them privilege. Soldiers were taught to stop being bullies, and live on their wages. Tax collectors were to collect only taxes that were fair and stop their extortion. Repentance had little to do with being sorry; it had much more to do with making a dramatic change in a person’s life. Repentance was to be ready for a new age of transformation.
The concept of repentance being connected to a transformation is not peculiar to the Christian Scripture tradition, it is deeply rooted in the Hebrew Scriptures and in the prophetic teachings of Isaiah. Isaiah was a master at anticipating, hoping, and attending to the need for transformation among his people and the nation. Living and preaching in a time of significant wealth accumulated by the rich from the work of the poor, and living at a time when the people had abandoned a meaningful relationship with Yahweh for rituals and perfunctory religion, Isaiah saw a great need and hoped desperately, yearned for, a new age where God’s people would be truly repentant, changed, and the life of the nations dramatically transformed.
There are few passages from the Hebrew Scriptures that are quite so beautiful as Isaiah’s prophecy in Chapter 11. The golden age of King David is long gone. He anticipates new hope and a restoration of a new Kingdom of Judah and Israel that will once again be a kingdom that is truly God’s kingdom. Isaiah proclaims and anticipates that out of the stump, or trunk, of a degenerate kingdom there will come a new shoot, a new branch. It is a messianic hope that a savior and restorer will come to the nation that is enveloped by the Spirit of God, with wisdom and understanding, a wise counselor with the spirit and knowledge and fear, or better still an awe of God. He will restore the peasants and the poor to their rightful dignified status in the land. He will be intent upon what is right and just.
A popular theme in Christmas cards based on the Isaiah text is that of the lion and the lamb, the wolf and the lamb, the leopard and the kid goat, the calf, and fatling lying down with the lion in peace. The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall like down together, and the lion shall eat straw with the ox. What’s more a nursing child will play over the nest of a poisonous snake without being harmed. The earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
This imagery or vision is a vision of a transformed world and nature. The use of animals, lambs and lions lying down together is, of course, symbolic. Animals in Scripture were often mascots for a nation, in the same way the Eagle is American symbol and the Bear is a Russian Symbol. Wolves are seen as treacherous and cunning. The lamb is a symbol of meekness. Isaiah presents and image of transformed world, transformed nations, and transformed people who will live together in peace, and treat one another with justice and what is right.
Out of the roots of a spiritually impoverished nation, will come a messianic leader who in his relationship with God will lead the way into a world that is not just sorry, but transformed into the Garden of Eden, into the Kingdom of God. Old enmities will be forgotten. The Mighty will live peaceably with the weak. Exploitive types of people and nations will change their relationship with the poor and needy. It shall be an age when people will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
Isaiah’s image and vision may seem too strong for us, or just too hopeful for our world. There is just so much pain and suffering in our own world today. The stealthy wolves, the lions, and bears seem to have such an advantage over the lambs. It’s not much fun living in a world at war, or in a world of fear for travelers, and for our children. It’s not much fun fearing what disease the postman may deliver. It’s hard to see young men and women brought home in body bags. It’s every bit as difficult to see small children in nations like Afghanistan orphaned and living in inadequate orphanages. The mix of wealth, luxury, and power mixed with hatred, war, suspicion, fear, and anxious uncertainty for the future creates a pall of darkness and greatly limits our hope and joy. The events of recent months have had a serious effect on the outlook and the psychological well being of so many of us. When I was Christmas shopping one evening, a lady with her market basket comment as she passed by, “You know, I’m just not into this, this year.” Cruelty, terrorism, prejudice, and anxiety about the future have surely had their effect on all of us, I am sure. We as God’s people are indeed needful of a transformation. Maybe we need to make some changes, some kind of turn around. Maybe we need turn back to a reclamation of the God of love and hope, to look for the savior, for God to come to us, and renew us in our hopes for his Kingdom.
For the Christian Community there is no way back to God, except through Jesus Christ. He is our savior and our hope. Indeed, he is the one with the Spirit of God in him. He is the one who brought to the world a renewed spirit of wisdom based on love and forgiveness. He is the one who wears the belt of justice and righteousness around his waist, and complete trust, loyalty, and faith in God. After all, he lived a life himself that dealt with human cruelty from his birth until his death, in argument and threat, and death, but who remained so assured of the mercy, love, and compassion of God that he was raised up to fullness of eternal life. Where else would we turn except to the saving grace that comes in human despair and darkness from Jesus Christ? For out the darkness from Christ come the light and the hope for the world.
This past week I spent a day at a conference with two Muslim clergy. Their presentation was a great hope for a far greater understanding between Christianity and Islam. We share so many things that are alike. We do not need to be so suspicious, and when we change, repent, discipline ourselves to be more aware of the world around us, we may find pockets and places where hope grows and appears like shoots out of stumps or new branches out of old trees. Our advent prayer is one that needs to include our ability to change directions and be open to the renewing spirit of God to bring us the hope and the comfort we need.
I commented to someone last week at the coffee hour, (Pankaj Malik) that so much of what we see on the TV news is the harsh forbidding land of Afghanistan with its soldiers and the devastation going on there. He remarked having been there, he knew that it was in fact a beautiful country where some of the very best pomegranates and grapes of the world grow. It is not all devastation. It is not all dust and desert, but there is beauty and goodness and hope there as well.
Maybe it is time to try to let go of some of our busyness and doing Christmas the way we always do it, and seek to let God enable us to become transformed. Maybe we need to simplify and reduce the demands, change, repent from our fear and hopelessness, and turn back to God and anticipation of a renewed coming of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior into our lives. Advent is the Christian’s New Year, the time of rethinking our lives and their directions. What are the issues deep down we need to change and deal with? A closer relationship with God through Jesus Christ may eventually lead us all into the light and transformed into people of love and hope.
Sunday, December 2, 2001
ADVENT 1
May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: ADVENT 1
PROPER: A
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: December 2, 2001
TEXT: Isaiah 2:1-5 (6-9 explains world situation.)
Many peoples shall come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob: that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
ISSUE: Isaiah addressed a very complicated world, not at all unlike our own. It was a time of impending war and destruction. It was a time when Judah and Israel’s faith was more perfunctory than genuine. Wealth and paganism prevailed at the expense of the poor. Isaiah saw an impending doom, coupled with hope that a remnant would remain and a new age of God would come. People would flow back to the holy city of Jerusalem like a river. In a time of great anxiety, hope in God’s love prevails.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
I would like to direct our attention today, and for all of the Advent Season to the passages from Isaiah. The prophet Isaiah and the Hebrew Book of Isaiah is quite articulate concerning the time in which it was written, and it has some very vivid imagery. Actually the book is not written entirely by one person named Isaiah, as the book covers an extensive period of the time. The first 35 Chapters may well be the work of the person Isaiah. The following Chapters may well be the work of continuing disciples or a school of thought following Isaiah’s thinking. But the Book clearly sees the times for what they were. The Jewish nation was facing a time of impending doom, and Isaiah recognized a need for transformation of God’s people. The Book is also rich in hope and expectations that God would not abandon his people, but would bring about a Messianic age of hopefulness.
Isaiah was himself probably a part of the upper class, living some 700 years before the birth of Christ. He lived in an age of significant affluence in the Jewish nation of Judah where the city of Jerusalem was the capital city. Isaiah’s observation was that the wealth of the upper classes was largely the result of injustice and oppression of the poor. Peasants were evicted from their lands to make room for larger land holdings and fine manor homes. Injustice often breeds by its nature a significant amount of violence. The national life was one of self-complacency and pride in its military strength, wealth, and luxury. Foreign influence along with their pagan gods had influenced both the peasant class, and rich class. They bowed down to them. The nation’s religious faith in Yahweh, The One God of Israel and Judah, had become perfunctory and formal, but lacking in genuine relationship. Judah became more trusting in their own strength and accomplishments than in its trust and dependence upon God.
Isaiah could not forget God (Yahweh). His mission was to call them back to returning to their allegiance to God. “In returning and rest you shall be saved.” (30:15) Again and again the people were not good at listening, and the nation met with desolation and exile into foreign nations. However, Isaiah’s message is not all doom and he gave hope that in return to God, a remnant would be saved. He even named his son, She’ar Yashub, meaning “A Remnant Shall Remain.”
When we look at various stages in history, it is interesting that there do seem to be various time when it appears that in certain ways history is repeating itself, running in cycles. Let me read to you just a few of the passages of Isaiah the follow immediately after the passage read this morning. This reading is taken from Eugene Patterson’s book, The Message, The Old Testament Prophets: (Isa. 2:6-9)
God, you’ve walked out on your family Jacob because their world is full of hokey religion,
Philistine witchcraft, and pagan hocus-pocus, a world rolling in wealth,
Stuffed with things, no end to is machines and gadgets,
And gods – gods of all sorts and sizes.
These people make their own gods and worship what they make.
A degenerate race, facedown in the gutter. Don’t bother with them! They’re not worth forgiving.
That’s very dramatic language for Isaiah’s time, but it may be somewhat descriptive of our own time. We are living in a pretty affluent time, when we know that there is often a growing separation between the wealthy and the poor. We are living in a time when people are becoming more and more enamored with the electronic things and computerized gadgets: cell phones, electric doors, lap-tops so we can work everywhere at all times, incredibly sized home TV’s, DVD’s, CD’s, and all kinds of stuff and toys to entertain us and our children. We’ve also seen growing interest in witchcraft and new age paraphernalia, and religions that lead people to suicide adventures, and empty exercises in hocus-pocus. So many of these things become what we rely upon for our life’s satisfaction.
Unfortunately we probably have more baptized Christians that are not inactively involved in the life and the mission of Christ’s church than are active and genuinely involved in their own spiritual development, and deep personal relationship with God through their love for Jesus Christ. Serious involvement and learning in the way of God does not come easy in a very secular world that is affluent and self-complacent. Finding peace with in and with God is hard.
Certainly one of the foremost issues of our time is how do we accomplish the mission of peace without war. The world, our nation included, seems to be invested in finding peace through violence. We have come to trust almost primarily in our weaponry and power as our strength and our ultimate salvation. We’ve come to find that nuclear power may well be our ultimate destruction. We’ve also come to find that military power and sophisticated weaponry is not quite so powerful against biological weapons like anthrax and germ warfare. The subtly of terror inflicts not just bodily harm, but fear, uncertainty, anxiety. Living frightened and fearful is not a pleasant way to live. Yet the world in its need to serve its own interests refuses to let go, to be transformed into something more hopeful. The world at times seems almost cartoon like. We powerfully truly to stamp out evil over here, and it pops up over there, time and again. We cannot find the way to lasting peace in spite of all our trampling down of others.
In our personal lives as well there is great difficulty in finding last peaceful relationships. So many folk battle one another, battle spouses, battle children. We find it hard in our pride to forgive, to change, to repent, to love sacrificially without reward. It is hard, very hard to heal the wounds and assuage the pain of so many of our human relationships. We really do need a savior. We really do need God in a meaningful and intense way: “A degenerate race, face down in the gutter. Don’t bother with them. They’re not worth deserve forgiving,” says the pessimistic side of Isaiah. Our world and our lives need to be reclaimed in a despairing and violent world. We need real meaning restored to what it means to be a human, a lover of one another, steeped in brotherhood and sisterhood, and in a relationship with a God that sustains us in being God’s own faithful people with purpose.
Isaiah had a vision, a hope, a dream, a vision from God:
There’s a day coming when the House of the Lord will be on a high mountain, and all nations will see it. All nations will be a like a river flowing up hill to God’s mountain. People will say, “Let’s climb God’s mountain.” God will show us the way he works and would have us do things, so we can live the way we are supposed to live. God will show us the way to peace, and how to beat swords and spears, our hatred and weaponry into plows and bulldozers so we can rebuild a fallen world. No more will nation fight nation, and persons try to humiliate and destroy one another. We won’t play war no more!
Who will lead us up the mountain to the house of God? Who will lead the way? Who will be our messianic hope for deliverance? God we need a savior to lead us back to you. Send us a savior, Lord! Help us to reclaim the savior and live each day as if he were due to arrive any moment. Come Lord Jesus and lead us to the Kingdom of God.
SEASON: ADVENT 1
PROPER: A
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: December 2, 2001
TEXT: Isaiah 2:1-5 (6-9 explains world situation.)
Many peoples shall come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob: that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
ISSUE: Isaiah addressed a very complicated world, not at all unlike our own. It was a time of impending war and destruction. It was a time when Judah and Israel’s faith was more perfunctory than genuine. Wealth and paganism prevailed at the expense of the poor. Isaiah saw an impending doom, coupled with hope that a remnant would remain and a new age of God would come. People would flow back to the holy city of Jerusalem like a river. In a time of great anxiety, hope in God’s love prevails.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
I would like to direct our attention today, and for all of the Advent Season to the passages from Isaiah. The prophet Isaiah and the Hebrew Book of Isaiah is quite articulate concerning the time in which it was written, and it has some very vivid imagery. Actually the book is not written entirely by one person named Isaiah, as the book covers an extensive period of the time. The first 35 Chapters may well be the work of the person Isaiah. The following Chapters may well be the work of continuing disciples or a school of thought following Isaiah’s thinking. But the Book clearly sees the times for what they were. The Jewish nation was facing a time of impending doom, and Isaiah recognized a need for transformation of God’s people. The Book is also rich in hope and expectations that God would not abandon his people, but would bring about a Messianic age of hopefulness.
Isaiah was himself probably a part of the upper class, living some 700 years before the birth of Christ. He lived in an age of significant affluence in the Jewish nation of Judah where the city of Jerusalem was the capital city. Isaiah’s observation was that the wealth of the upper classes was largely the result of injustice and oppression of the poor. Peasants were evicted from their lands to make room for larger land holdings and fine manor homes. Injustice often breeds by its nature a significant amount of violence. The national life was one of self-complacency and pride in its military strength, wealth, and luxury. Foreign influence along with their pagan gods had influenced both the peasant class, and rich class. They bowed down to them. The nation’s religious faith in Yahweh, The One God of Israel and Judah, had become perfunctory and formal, but lacking in genuine relationship. Judah became more trusting in their own strength and accomplishments than in its trust and dependence upon God.
Isaiah could not forget God (Yahweh). His mission was to call them back to returning to their allegiance to God. “In returning and rest you shall be saved.” (30:15) Again and again the people were not good at listening, and the nation met with desolation and exile into foreign nations. However, Isaiah’s message is not all doom and he gave hope that in return to God, a remnant would be saved. He even named his son, She’ar Yashub, meaning “A Remnant Shall Remain.”
When we look at various stages in history, it is interesting that there do seem to be various time when it appears that in certain ways history is repeating itself, running in cycles. Let me read to you just a few of the passages of Isaiah the follow immediately after the passage read this morning. This reading is taken from Eugene Patterson’s book, The Message, The Old Testament Prophets: (Isa. 2:6-9)
God, you’ve walked out on your family Jacob because their world is full of hokey religion,
Philistine witchcraft, and pagan hocus-pocus, a world rolling in wealth,
Stuffed with things, no end to is machines and gadgets,
And gods – gods of all sorts and sizes.
These people make their own gods and worship what they make.
A degenerate race, facedown in the gutter. Don’t bother with them! They’re not worth forgiving.
That’s very dramatic language for Isaiah’s time, but it may be somewhat descriptive of our own time. We are living in a pretty affluent time, when we know that there is often a growing separation between the wealthy and the poor. We are living in a time when people are becoming more and more enamored with the electronic things and computerized gadgets: cell phones, electric doors, lap-tops so we can work everywhere at all times, incredibly sized home TV’s, DVD’s, CD’s, and all kinds of stuff and toys to entertain us and our children. We’ve also seen growing interest in witchcraft and new age paraphernalia, and religions that lead people to suicide adventures, and empty exercises in hocus-pocus. So many of these things become what we rely upon for our life’s satisfaction.
Unfortunately we probably have more baptized Christians that are not inactively involved in the life and the mission of Christ’s church than are active and genuinely involved in their own spiritual development, and deep personal relationship with God through their love for Jesus Christ. Serious involvement and learning in the way of God does not come easy in a very secular world that is affluent and self-complacent. Finding peace with in and with God is hard.
Certainly one of the foremost issues of our time is how do we accomplish the mission of peace without war. The world, our nation included, seems to be invested in finding peace through violence. We have come to trust almost primarily in our weaponry and power as our strength and our ultimate salvation. We’ve come to find that nuclear power may well be our ultimate destruction. We’ve also come to find that military power and sophisticated weaponry is not quite so powerful against biological weapons like anthrax and germ warfare. The subtly of terror inflicts not just bodily harm, but fear, uncertainty, anxiety. Living frightened and fearful is not a pleasant way to live. Yet the world in its need to serve its own interests refuses to let go, to be transformed into something more hopeful. The world at times seems almost cartoon like. We powerfully truly to stamp out evil over here, and it pops up over there, time and again. We cannot find the way to lasting peace in spite of all our trampling down of others.
In our personal lives as well there is great difficulty in finding last peaceful relationships. So many folk battle one another, battle spouses, battle children. We find it hard in our pride to forgive, to change, to repent, to love sacrificially without reward. It is hard, very hard to heal the wounds and assuage the pain of so many of our human relationships. We really do need a savior. We really do need God in a meaningful and intense way: “A degenerate race, face down in the gutter. Don’t bother with them. They’re not worth deserve forgiving,” says the pessimistic side of Isaiah. Our world and our lives need to be reclaimed in a despairing and violent world. We need real meaning restored to what it means to be a human, a lover of one another, steeped in brotherhood and sisterhood, and in a relationship with a God that sustains us in being God’s own faithful people with purpose.
Isaiah had a vision, a hope, a dream, a vision from God:
There’s a day coming when the House of the Lord will be on a high mountain, and all nations will see it. All nations will be a like a river flowing up hill to God’s mountain. People will say, “Let’s climb God’s mountain.” God will show us the way he works and would have us do things, so we can live the way we are supposed to live. God will show us the way to peace, and how to beat swords and spears, our hatred and weaponry into plows and bulldozers so we can rebuild a fallen world. No more will nation fight nation, and persons try to humiliate and destroy one another. We won’t play war no more!
Who will lead us up the mountain to the house of God? Who will lead the way? Who will be our messianic hope for deliverance? God we need a savior to lead us back to you. Send us a savior, Lord! Help us to reclaim the savior and live each day as if he were due to arrive any moment. Come Lord Jesus and lead us to the Kingdom of God.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
