Sunday, December 12, 2010
Advent 3A
Jerusalem Baptist Church (Emmerton), Warsaw VA
Isaiah 35:1-10
Theme: The Improbable Good News.
The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus 2it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God. 3Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. 4Say to those who are of a fearful heart, “Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God. He will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense. He will come and save you.”
5Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; 6then 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; 7the 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. 8A highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Holy Way; the unclean shall not travel on it, but it shall be for God’s people; no traveler, not even fools, shall go astray. 9No lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it; they shall not be found there, but the redeemed shall walk there. 10And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
Note to the reader: While I will continue to put manuscripts together, I am going to be trying to step away from them more intentionally. I will use them as a way to put thoughts down in words as they come to me, and hopefully to organize them as they may need to be. They may or may not reflect what and how the messages are delivered on Sunday mornings.
Christmas used to be so simple. It was about the presents. Even growing up in a home where the Christmas story was THE Christmas story, where we would wait to open our gifts because first Daddy had to read the passage from Luke and then we would always have a family prayer, even in that context, at least as a boy, IT WAS ABOUT THE PRESENTS.
I DO remember that, even from a relatively early age, it wasn’t ONLY about what we got, but also about giving. There were a couple of years as a young teenager when that went by the wayside somewhat, but from what I can remember, it really WAS as important to give as it was to receive. I would encourage you to check that against the memories of my family, though, as their memories are likely different than mine.
One thing I do remember, distinctly, and it is something that has persisted to the present day, was the feeling of frustration that came with the business of Christmas – the busy-ness of it. The sense of near-desperation that came from spending time doing something that I increasingly found distasteful – shopping. Not just dealing with the crowds, but dealing with the feeling of inadequacy when it came to finding ‘that perfect gift’ for whomever it was I was looking for. You wanted to find something nice, but … maybe not TOO nice … something that seemed more expensive than it actually was. You wanted to impress, but not break the bank in the process. The exception was our Christmas engagement. But that is just what it was – an exception.
One exception to this was a couple of Christmases ago when we purposefully gave to an organization – Heifer International – in the name of the kids’ teachers as Christmas gifts – gifts that provided either chickens or goats or some such thing to families in developing countries that would then enable them to … improve their situation – their condition in life.
But even in that circumstance, the prevailing culture had so insinuated itself into our sense of what Christmas is about that it still felt like something was missing.
It’s been in the light of that that I’ve realized just how hard it is to swim against the stream. Especially when that stream is supposedly celebrating something you AGREE with – that you in fact celebrate yourself!
I don’t want you to leave here thinking that I am the Grinch, or that Scrooge and I are interchangeable. It’s not that I don’t like Christmas. I do. I really do. I love the idea of celebrating – especially as the winter deepens and as we move into a new year – both the church year and the secular one.
I like the idea of blessing people with unexpected gifts … sometimes even overwhelming them. We’ve been on the receiving end of that, and knowing how it feels makes me want to try to do it as often as we can for others. I like the idea of celebrating in spite of the circumstances. We’ve lived through Christmases that have followed both personal and family losses, but being able to celebrate regardless of what has happened, or of what we are in the midst of suffering, helps me to lift my eyes to the hills, as it were, and see from where my help comes. It gives me a sense of perspective and helps me remember that there is more going on than just what is happening in my life at the moment, and that it’s not all about me.
And that was the first step in my discovery that Christmas … that Christ’s Mass, wasn’t at all about exchanging gifts … but about receiving the greatest, the best gift of all.
And that is where the music from the last Christmas Cantata begins to swell in your head and you tune out the rest … and you fill in the words to the songs you’ve sung all through the years during this season … and it all begins to sound … plastic.
But let’s focus in on something that isn’t plastic, that was real, that happened.
I heard an excellent message a couple of days ago, preached by Bruxey Cavey, teaching pastor at The Meeting House, which is a church made up of a network of six different congregations in the Toronto, Canada, area. They belong to the Brethren In Christ denomination. He was the guest speaker at Woodland Hills church in St. Paul, Minnesota, last Sunday.
In it, he stated something that really resonated with me, and it was this: The world is full of pain and suffering. That is a fact. In the nativity, God was running towards our suffering, to come alongside us and share in it – to be with us in that suffering. God chose to enter into our existence in order to show us how much he loves us.
We may not admit to it, but I think there are times when we tend to lean towards the idea that, because of all the suffering in the world, that God must be at a remove from us. But he is anything BUT that. He has drawn close, he has entered into our own lives, through the person of the Holy Spirit, to make us aware of that otherness that exists, that may not be evident, and unfortunately frequently ISN’T, but that DOES come into existence whenever we model Christ’s behavior and life to the world around us.
And this is where it gets hard.
It’s hard not just because we are swimming against the current and because the current in our particular instance claims to be generally flowing in the same direction of our faith tradition, but hard because it gets down to being open with each other, to being willing to admit faults and failures, and to ask for – and hopefully receive – a gift that Christ himself modeled in his ministry: forgiveness.
Part of being a part of a community of faith – a family of faith – is being accountable, being willing to share in our struggles, in our shortcomings, as well as our victories.
I stand here this morning to ask for your forgiveness. Whether by accident, or a confluence of circumstances, or by reluctant intent, there have been instances in the last few weeks and months where I have not been the pastor that I needed to be to you. Times when I stood here and preached on the importance of being Christ’s presence and ended up being absent for the most part from your lives.
For the most part, you’ve been models of grace to me in the wake of those times. You’ve understood the demands on my time from other responsibilities, and have allowed for that. And while I am profoundly grateful for that, you need to know that I understand that it is not something that I would allow to go on, that I am mindful of what it means to BE with you, alongside you, sharing with you.
So it is in the hopefulness of Advent that I come to the place where it started, to the manger, and ask God to prepare my heart once again to receive the Christ Child. The hay here is still a little damp, a little musty, and being that, it reminds me that the circumstances of the world didn’t change just because Christ came into the world. The potential for the world to change went through the roof, but the actual circumstances remained … imperfect. Jesus was born, and Quirinius was still governor of Syria. Herod was still in the palace. The Romans still occupied – and terrorized – Palestine.
But the world was ready for Christ. That was the perfect time for his coming.
So this handful of hay is my imperfection, my clumsy attempt to be what Christ wants me to be, and this manger is my life, my heart, and I want to make myself ready for what God would have me do, even as I know he has led me this far, with this I’m saying to him, whatever comes next, whatever you ask, with your help, I will do it.
As we close this morning, I would invite you to come forward, if you want to do it during the hymn of response, that's fine, or if you'd rather wait and do it after, on your own, that's okay as well, and take a handful of hay and place it in the manger, by way of saying ‘Yes, Lord, prepare my heart. May it be your resting place, your home.”
Let’s pray.
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