Year B, Advent 2.

Sorry for the long gap between postings, had computer troubles and got behind.

Following is my Sermon from 2 Advent, Dec. 7th, given at St. Mark's and St. James.

We are well into December, heading towards Christmas, a season of joy and light. The hustle and bustle of the holidays energizes us. And there’s some Christmas song that talks of this being the hap=happiest season of all! Joy to the World!!

And yet perhaps the continuous Christmas music we are bombarded with in the stores and the malls feels a bit artificial. Maybe we don’t really feel this great joy and happiness. Maybe we’ve got the blaahs. Tired of winter—and it’s not even here yet. Or perhaps we are discouraged that we can’t do—or buy—everything we want to this year, and we are struggling just to get by, just to make it. Perhaps our retirement nest egg has shrunk considerably. Perhaps we are dealing with loss—of a relationship, of a loved one. And maybe, just maybe we are discouraged about our church. Things just aren’t going as well as we wish they were. Some of us are feeling helpless, hopeless.

And it’s to people like us that Isaiah wrote, to people who have lost hope. Everything they feared has happened. Their nation fell to Babylon, the great Temple had been destroyed, and God had let them down. To make things worse, the Israelites had been prisoners in Babylon for some 40 years. They probably thought that their future held nothing but regret and disappointment. “Yes, God may have acted in the past, for other people, but this situation is beyond him. It is beyond his compassion . . . and beyond his power.”[1] But the time of discipline is over and now it’s time for comfort. Yes, they have been crushed under the weight of their sins and troubles. They feel all is lost and God has abandoned them, but the message of Isaiah is that this is not so. The punishment is over and God speaks words of hope.

God speaks not of judgment or punishment but of comfort. “Comfort, Comfort my people,” says your God. Comfort, comfort!! Urgently comfort! You are my people, and I am your God!! Speak tenderly, like a mother soothing her child, you have served your punishment.

And a voice cries out “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level and the rough places a plain. Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

There is a highway in the desert—for God. The people who heard Isaiah expected God to come to helpless Israel to set her free. And nothing can prevent his swift coming to his people’s aid, neither mountains nor valleys. The highway will be level and straight, so that God can come quickly. If there is to be deliverance and salvation for God’s people—for all people, it must be from God’s direct intervention. There was and is no other hope.

There is no other hope, because all flesh is like grass. There is no permanence in flesh, there is nothing they can do to help themselves. There is nothing permanent about humanity, for all flesh is like grass, withering and dying, but if God speaks, he will do what he promises. Nothing on earth can prevent God from fulfilling his promises.

And that is the good news, glad tidings. Israel, Jerusalem, Zion are not just recipients of God’s grace, but are messengers of grace to the world. God will intervene. He will break the power of evil with his strong arm, and like a shepherd he will gently gather the lambs in his arms, and gently lead his sheep.

God acts in time and in history, and about 700 years later, there’s another voice. Mark writes, The Beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

This way leads us to the desert, This way leads to a wild prophet in the wilderness, a man named John. This prophet of God reminds us of the Old Testament prophets— Mark quotes our Isaiah passage, and John prepares the way by leveling the ground and calling all Israel to repentance.

All four gospels prominently discuss John the Baptist as the predecessor of Jesus, the one who prepares the way. Luke places the setting in time and in history. This should not be surprising—God works in human history! The whole bible tells of his involvement in human history.

In a complex setting the Word of God came to John, just as in years past the Word of the Lord came to Abraham, Samuel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and other prophets. This is the sign of a prophet. And John was in the wilderness, the desert. In Israel’s history, the desert was an important place. The desert was where Israel first encountered God and faithfully responded to Him. The law was given in the Desert of Sinai, the prophets went to the desert to commune with God, and the Israelites spent 40 years in the desert—before they crossed the Jordon River into the Promised Land. And now we find John at the Jordan.

John preaches a baptism for repentance and forgiveness of sins. This baptism is unprecedented. This was a call to prepare for the arrival of salvation, a one-time baptism in honor of the arrival of salvation—for all people! Revolutionary! What was radical was not forgiveness of sins, but that he, John, offered baptism as a means of obtaining it! The religious leadership would have said that rites for forgiveness belonged to the temple and the priests. And then John calls Israel to repent. The Greek word for repentance means most commonly a change of mind. But the Hebrew concept of repentance is the idea of turning—turning toward God!! To be prepared for God’s salvation, one must turn away from sin and self, and turn to God. One must be open to hear and receive his message. One must turn to God and have faith in Christ in order to have hope.

John’s way was not mainstream. To go out to someone like this in the desert required a break with the institution and culture of Jerusalem and the traditions of Judaism. It was not an easy path! Those who responded to John’s call were heeding the call to prepare for the arrival of salvation—the arrival of the One for whom John was preparing the way!

Their hope was for the Messiah, and this is our hope, too. The hope of Israel and the hope of the Church is Jesus. And God who acted in time and history by sending his Son, is willing and able to act in our time to comfort us and to change our circumstances. We are called to “a life of faith in God, a life where we truly release ourselves into his hands without any reservation, a life where we are constantly giving ourselves and our concerns into the caring Creator’s hands.”[2]

800 years earlier, Israel didn’t trust in God but in other nations, and that led to their capture and exile in Babylon. But when they cried out to God, he spoke tenderly, with words of comfort and hope. They heard him in new ways, ways that changed their thinking.

“That is what we need too. We need lives of faith that are shaped by the Word of God, its view of reality, and the principles that emerge from it. If I cannot ‘believe’ God and ‘hope’ in him in the sense of surrendering my life to him . . . then his power cannot transform me. But if I will actively believe his Word, there really are no limits to what he can do for me, for my family, for my society.”[3]

The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of our God will stand for ever. His promises will never fail. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And He is our only hope. Comfort, comfort my people says our God. Amen.


[1] Oswalt, John. The NIV Application Commentary: Isaiah. Zondervan p. 454.
[2] Ibid, 454
[3] Ibid, 455