Isaiah 64:1-9
The calendar still reads November, yet the familiar strains of O Come, O Come Emmanuel have announced we are entering that mystical season of Advent. Once a year, as the days grow shorter and our psyches darken, Advent arrives upsetting our December festivities with a plea to take seriously the Christ event.
We all know Christmas is around the corner. One cannot turn without being overwhelmed by the holidays. My favorite radio station has already been replaced with the sounds of the season. Yesterday I was listening to Miles Davis play selections from the album Kind of Blue when suddenly, without warning, I was subjected to Alvin and the Chipmunks singing Blue Christmas.
That was as startling as the last time Deb took me Christmas shopping at Short Pump. To paraphrase the Apostle’s Creed, “I descended into hell.” It was awful. People flying from one store to another trying to get a bargain on some trinket they should have been bought on-line. Children were screaming as parents dragged them to sit on the laps of suspicious looking old men. Music blared through the speakers in a vain attempt to drown out customers fighting over the last Talking Elsa Doll……..OK the music was drowning me out but it was the last doll on the shelf. That woman should have acted her age.
Of course, it is not fair to make commercialism the Christmas scapegoat. Deep down we really don’t want to admit why the birth of Jesus was necessary. Listen to the words of the ancient song that opened our service: O Come, O Come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel that mourns in lonely exile here, until the Son of God appears.
These words come from twelfth century Latin poems written specifically for Advent. Each verse is a plea for freedom from tyranny, captivity, and sin. The music was added six centuries later when Thomas Helmore discovered a French tune used at funerals called “Libera”. How perfect to link a tune desiring liberation from death with poems mourning one’s exile.
Singing about exile and death seems inappropriate during this season of parties, lights, decorations, and gifts all concluding with the big Christmas dinner. Yet how often, at the end of the season, do you find yourself completely exhausted and wishing for a little peace and quiet. How often, the night after Christmas, have you wondered if maybe we lost Christ somewhere along the way?
Christmas has definitely expanded beyond the faithful. Almost everyone celebrates Christmas regardless of their religious affiliation. Don’t mistake me for Scrooge. I am still a kid at heart on Christmas morning. I anxiously anticipate what might be wrapped in gifts bearing my name. I love turkey, cranberry sauce, and I have never turned down a piece of homemade sweet potato pie. I will even let you in on a huge secret. Once the Christmas Eve service is over, I really don’t want to think about anything related to Jesus until the following year. Christmas Day is my holiday from God. I love the festivities, the company, the football games, even the mess in the middle of the room. Just don’t ask me why Jesus had to come. That’s too painful a subject for such a glorious day.
That is why Advent is so important. Advent is when we raise those unspeakable questions. Advent is when we expose our most secret yearnings. Advent is when we cry “Come Lord Jesus,” even though we doubt he will. Christmas Day comes and goes, comes and goes, and comes and goes. The presents change with the ages of the children. The food is always wonderful and the stories delightful. The reason for Christmas hardly matters as we celebrate family and cherish how much we have been blessed. We NEED this one day as a respite, a break, from the tragedies of our world.
But the faithful also need Advent. We need Isaiah to ask those dangerous questions that haunt our souls. We need godly responses that sober our minds. Representing the holy people, Isaiah prays, “O God, come down to us so that even the mountains might quake. Make your name known to our enemies so that they might tremble.”
Ever prayed this prayer? Ever called on God to bring down fire upon those who don’t think like you? Ever wished God would step into our world and make things right with a dramatic response. What a day that would be. So before you do, let me raise a red flag of caution. Be careful when you mess around with Old Testament poets. They will tease your malicious appetite and then pluck the candy from your lips before you can take the first bite. Listen to the rest of Isaiah’s words. “God, have you been silent because we have been negligent? Have you been absent because we have forgotten your ways? Have you become angry because we have sinned? What about everyone else? Will you remember only our sin?” (Stop)
With only 26 shopping days left until Christmas, nobody wants to hear a sermon about the memory of God. Nobody wants want to hear the preacher suggest our sin has left God deaf to our prayers demanding holy retribution. Yet in a nutshell, this reveals the paradox of Advent.
The prayers of Isaiah fascinate me. Its inspiration comes from a people complaining it had been too long since God made a house call. The cynical prophet prays, “My flaws may be many, but how can they compare with the sins of my enemy? Come down from heaven….Do something…..NOW!”
The hardest job many of us ever attempted was being a parent. Remember encountering our children’s “active resistance”. Remember being called the worst parents in the world. Remember our high expectations not being met. Remember when they claimed it was somebody else’s fault. Remember telling them that offering excuses or blaming others was not acceptable.
I remember occasionally getting angry with my children. I remember being terribly disappointed in the choices they made. I remember thinking I could have stepped in and smoothed things out. But what would they have learned? What responsibility would they have taken for their inappropriate behavior? As parents we would seethe, we cool each other down, and then we try to initiate the proper discipline to motivate different behavior. Looking back sometimes it was our anger, not our love, which helped our children become who they are today.
Imagine how God must seethe at our behavior? Imagine how angry God must be over the chaos and unrest that exist in our very nation? Some folks scream, “Where is God? Why doesn’t God step forward?” My fear is that God might.
Imagine what God would say. Actually we would not have to imagine because we practiced the words on our children. “What were you thinking?” “Did you actually believe we had no idea what you were doing?” Or my personal favorite, “Have you lost your ever-loving mind?”
Could it be God the parent has become really tired of our excuses and inability to share in the responsibility of our personal and global problems? Could God’s greatest pain come from good folks doing too little? Could Advent be a holy timeout where a bit of honest confessing is expected?
For most of the world Christmas Day has become a truce on having to think about any of the ungodliness that soils our lives. That’s why folks want every day to be Christmas. No more thinking. No more responsibility. Only Advent dares to highlights the love and anger of a righteous parent with holy expectations.
Advent proclaims that God once saved us. Perhaps now it is time for us to save ourselves.
Advent reminds us that until Emmanuel comes again,
GOD IS WAITING and GOD IS COUNTING ON US!
Light a candle
But don’t hold it close.
Lift it up against the darkness.
With the birth of Jesus, God took the first step.
The second step begins with us.
Amen.
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