On That Day
Sunday, December 9th, 2007
Advent 2
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Isaiah 11:1-10
Overwhelming, Surprising, Unexpected, Enduring and Unfettered Love

1 A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. 2The 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. 3His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear; 4but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. 5Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist, and faithfulness the belt around his loins. 6The 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. 7The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. 8The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den. 9They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
10On that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples; the nations shall inquire of him, and his dwelling shall be glorious.

I had a wonderful experience last night.

Along with the rest of the family and part of the church family, I got to watch Hannah and Caleb in the Westmoreland Player’s production of ‘The Best Christmas Pageant Ever’.

Not to make it too fine a point, but the cast did a WONDERFUL job. We laughed, we cried, and for those of us who have at one time or another been Veggie Tales fans, “it moved me, Bob.”
If you are not familiar with the story, it involves the ‘good kids’ from a local church complaining about being in the Christmas Pageant AGAIN … nothing ever changes. The same girl plays Mary, the same boy plays Joseph, the same kids end up being angels, or shepherds or wise men – that is, until the Herdmans show up.

The Herdmans are six kids from a rough family – to quote the youngest, Gladys, they are the kind of family that child protective services is at their house every five minutes. They know nothing about how to behave properly in church, bully all the other kids, act like they don’t belong to ANYBODY, and generally wreak havoc wherever they go.

They find out about Church only because one little boy who is tired of losing his lunch to one of the older Herdman boys tells him about the refreshments they get whenever they go to church – cake, donuts, candy, cookies … and that is what draws the Herdman kids in. It happens to be around the same time that they are preparing the Christmas Pageant. Through a mysterious set of circumstances, involving threats to life and limb and ears, none of the regulars end up in their ‘traditionally assigned’ roles. And all the ‘important’ roles are filled by Herdman kids.

Everyone is in a tizzy about what is going to happen to the Christmas Pageant. Even the Reverend suggests that Grace, the director, use a near-fire in the church kitchen as an excuse to cancel the Pageant. She doesn’t, and the show goes on – with the cast never having run all the way through the play.

And that’s where the miracle happens. It is in the unexpectedness of the responses that the story becomes new. It IS new to the Herdmans – they’ve never heard the Christmas story before. They are hearing it for the first time. And they can’t help but react honestly and realistically to the situation. Imogene as Mary and Gladys as the Angel of the Lord really do break the mold that the characters had been poured into over the years. The angel of the Lord doesn’t just say ‘in the city of David, Which is Bethlehem’, but ‘They’re in the stable, behind the Inn, Jesus is in the manger!’ – just so the shepherds won’t wander all over God’s green acre – and she gives them a good shove in the right direction just to be sure they know where they are heading. Meanwhile, Mary burps the baby Jesus while she’s holding him. It’s a very unbecoming thing for the Madonna to do to the savior of the world, but a very natural thing for a mother to do to a newborn child after feeding him.

When the heavenly hosts break out into songs of joy … well … it’s not just with her voice that the angel of the Lord accompanies them – let’s just say I’ve never seen interpretive movement like THAT in any Worship service I’ve been in. It was the singularly most hilarious scene in the entire play – to worship with such abandon – what’s the phrase? “Dance as though no one is watching.”

What am I getting at, telling you about a play I saw last night? What’s the connection with the images from Isaiah this morning?

It is this:

God was about making something new in Bethlehem. In the coming of Jesus of Nazareth to a young girl and her new husband, God was showing us something as unlikely as the images we are presented with in the passage.

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

What is our immediate response when we think of a wolf and a lamb, a leopard and a baby goat, or a child – ANY child – playing near a venomous snake – in the NATURAL world – OUTSIDE our faith-informed biblical image library? The immediate response is “there’s no WAY that’s going to happen without SOMEONE or SOMETHING getting hurt, bitten, or eaten!”

“God Will”
Who keeps on trusting you
When you've been cheating
And spending your nights on the town
And who keeps on saying
that he still wants you
When you're through running around
And who keeps on loving you
When you've been lying
Saying things ain't what they seem
CHORUS:
God does but I don't
God will but I won't
And that's the difference
Between God and me
God does but I don't
God will but I won't
And that's the difference
Between God and me

VERSE:
So who says he'll forgive you
And says that he'll miss you
And dream of your sweet memory

And that is, I think, the whole point of the passage. Isaiah is painting a picture for us of just how transformative the power of God’s love is. If we can begin to picture those things actually happening, we can begin to envision what would have seemed like at LEAST as unlikely occurrences in our own lives and relationships.

We can actually SEE ourselves apologizing for the harshness of our tone in that one exchange just last week. We can seek out and forgive the one who wronged us so painfully all those years ago, or if they are no longer around, we can find it in our hearts to put away the hurt and the pain and let the memory fade with time as we have NOT let it until now. We can walk up to that one who was at one time our brother or sister and once again extend our hands and arms in an embrace that begins the reconciliation that is found in the overwhelming, surprising, unexpected, enduring and unfettered love of a God who came to earth to dwell among us, LIVE with us, and BE one of us in order to reconcile the relationship God intended to have with us from the very beginning.


Let’s pray.