Perhaps like me, you have experienced a mix of emotions this week.
Amidst the joy of decorating this sanctuary, putting lights on our Christmas tree at home,
and enjoying the simple pleasure of another exciting sports game on TV,
we are also keenly aware of killer forest fires and threatening tornadoes,
infants in ICU and families falling apart, airstrikes in Aleppo and genocide in Sudan.
What is the Word from the Lord on this second Sunday of Advent?
Friends, hear these timeless words from the prophet of old…
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.
His 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;
but 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.
Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist, and faithfulness the belt around his loins.
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.
The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp,
and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.
They 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.
On 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.
This past Wednesday morning, I gave a tour of our facilities to a dozen or so first-year seminary students. Their class has been analyzing local congregations and the connections of those congregations to the community. I have to tell you – it is quite something to be the witness to what all is going on in our facilities on an average Wednesday morning!
After the students walked around the neighborhood surrounding the church, we started our tour in the sanctuary and talked a bit about our intergenerational worship. We proceeded to the chapel where they heard about our upcoming Longest Night service of prayer and comfort.
We visited the Threshold room next, and one of the students, who volunteers with us at Threshold, told her classmates of the many ways that we connect people in need to services. We went downstairs in the McGeachy Building where Lucy Strong and Matt Conner met us. They described for the students their ministry with Agnes Scott College students as we sat in the gathering space where every Sunday evening
college students gather with a heartfelt desire for Christian fellowship and Bible study. Next, Jamie Butcher spoke to our visitors about our ministries with children and their families, how it is at the forefront of our evangelism and discipleship efforts as a congregation, In the hallway, Connie Perry had recruited Jack Brooks and Jim Keith to load large boxes of Angel Tree gifts, and in the background were the sweet sounds of children’s voices, singing joyfully, as Mrs. Mac led a DPCC music class.
Next, the seminary students and I we walked up the stairs and stepped into the parlor where we interrupted Vernon Gramling and Alex Rodgers leading the Faith in Real Life group, where they were in deep discussion over the Isaiah text we have read today. Then, we proceeded up another flight of stairs to meet Amy Pelissero and the Global Village students. Young refugee girls, from all over the world, were singing and dancing together, preparing for their Author’s Tea that was held this past Friday in our packed Fellowship Hall. Finally, we walked down the DPCC hallway in the Bradley Building, past classrooms full of joyful children, and met with Ellen McClure, our long-time director, who told the seminary students how for many decades DPC has nurtured preschoolers, providing a place of love and welcome for them and their parents.
You may have noticed that for this Advent season, we have been asking two questions – “What is the world waiting for?” and “What do we do while we wait?” We have a large chalkboard which displays these two questions for the season. Our intention is to display the board in front of the church on the sidewalk, as weather permits, so the community can participate in our Advent reflections. The board was displayed at the Advent festival Wednesday evening and to the second question: What shall we do while we wait?, I loved the answer on the board from Rosie Ellis which simply said: “Be nice”. I also loved the sincere response from Henry Toole, one of elementary students: “Pray”, he wrote. And thanks to his wonderful parents and grandparents and the ministry of this church, Henry is learning how to pray and what it means to pray.
To the first question: “What is the world waiting for?”, my favorite response on the board Wednesday night was from another of our elementary students. His reply in that space was simply his name: “Ben”.
What is the world waiting for? “Ben!” Ben Alexander is a great kid, but how preposterous it could seem for the whole world to be waiting just for Ben! Can you imagine such talk? The whole world waiting for one child?!
But, of course, we are. We are waiting for one child, the Christ-child. Every year, the Church throughout the world practices four weeks of waiting and preparation, waiting for the Christ-child to be born again in our midst, born again in our hearts, born again in the Church. We are waiting for the One on whom the Spirit of the Lord will rest, the One born to be King will rule with the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.
We talk often during Advent about the child to be born, and many of our images and Christmas plays are about Mary, Joseph, and the child born in Bethlehem. But another important theme of Advent is the second coming of Christ. This theme refers not to the sweet infant born in the manger, but to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords descending to earth to judge the world and its peoples. The Righteous King is coming again to set things right, to turn the world upside down, to ensure the widow and the orphan have enough to eat, to ensure the poor man gets a fair trial in the courts.
The classic play, “A Christmas Carol” written by Charles Dickens in 1843, retelling Ebenezer Scrooge’s harrowing Christmas Eve night,
hails directly from the themes of judgment present in Isaiah and the other prophets. Ebenezer Scrooge experiences fearful judgment of the angels of Christmas past, present, and future because of his selfishness and lack of concern. Scrooge is so caught up with his anxious greed that he mistreats the hard working, but poor Bob Cratchit, he gives no thought to the disabled Tiny Tim, and Scrooge even ignores his own family. These themes of judgment at Christmas-time warn that when the righteous One arrives, the first shall be moved to the end of the long line where they will have to wait and go without, perhaps for the first time in their lives, and the last shall be lifted to the first, where they will finally be noticed, where they will finally have enough to live.
“The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon the (Righteous One),
and his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.”
Have you read the wonderful Frederick Buechner novel called “The Son of Laughter”? The book, set during Old Testament times, recalls the story of Jacob, and the only name used for God in the book is “The Fear.” The “fear of the Lord” is an ancient phrase, but not one to be quickly dismissed. Thankfully, most of us have moved away from a fear-based faith, in which pulpits are pounded and people get themselves to church and try to act right in order to avoid the fires of hell. Thankfully, we have moved towards a more grace-based faith in which all we do is a thankful response to the mercy, love and grace we have been shown. Even so, we should not lose the sense that being in the presence of Almighty God will elicit the natural human response of fear. We should not lose the sense that the second coming of Christ, celebrated at Christmas, is less about Santa Claus and shimmering lights and showering ourselves and others with gifts, and more about the economic redistribution of the world’s wealth.
In the coming kingdom of God, the poor and the meek shall be treated with equity.
In the coming kingdom of God, there shall be no hurting or destroying on God’s holy mountain.
In the coming kingdom, there shall be no predatory lenders and hopeless borrowers.
There shall be no one taken advantage of in the courts, no one paid less than a fair, livable wage.
Imagine such a world… Imagine a world with no war.
Imagine a world with no one dying from gunshot wounds,
Imagine a world with no abuse – ever – of spouse or of child.
Imagine a world where no one would be labeled a bully and no one would be bullied.
The best way the prophet could describe this kind of world was to imagine the natural world in a whole new way: The wolf will lie down with the lamb, the lion will lie down with the calf, and the young child shall play near the cobra’s den. This vision is so stark, so surprising, so “unnatural”, that it begs our attention, and for centuries artists have worked to represent its beauty. The prophet describes a transformed natural world in order to help us envision a transformed human society, which begs the question: What is our “natural” state as human beings? Are we created for violence? Were we built to make war? Or are these things antithetical to our true being? Could our true being, our “natural” human state, be one of peace, hope, love, and joy?
Shirley Guthrie, who taught theology at Columbia Theological Seminary for 40 years, always included a lecture each year on the “natural” state of humankind. He argued that Jesus, the Righteous One for whom we wait, was the “natural” man. Jesus was created in God’s image, as we are, but he wholly lived according to that image. The sinless state of Jesus, his ability to live in right relationship, always, with God and with others, is how we were all created to be and to live. Any sin, any brokenness, any violence of word or of deed, anything that separates us from God or from others, is what is “unnatural” for us.
Can we believe this?
Can we live this?
Can we live as if our “natural” state is one of blessedness, as in the garden of Eden? And that our “un-natural state” is the one which results in killing and warfare, in corruption and inequities, in violence of words and deeds?
When Jesus died on the cross, he forever condemned violence as a means to an end.
In giving his body and blood on the cross, he showed us a still more excellent way,
the way of self-giving love and sacrifice.
So what does all this mean for your December 2016? In Atlanta that is marked by so many “haves” and so many more “have not’s”, in our nation that is still ravaged by racism, in our troubled world always at war? So what if Jesus’ delight was in the fear of the Lord? So what if the Spirit of the Lord rested upon Jesus, the spirit of council and might, the spirit of wisdom and understanding? In this December of 2016, what is the best that we can hope for in the world and in our daily lives?
The message from Isaiah is that we still hope for the ideal, we still strive for the ideal,
we do our best to live as “natural” human beings,
ones for whom sin and brokenness and violence is unnatural.
What we do while we wait for the coming the Lord?
We do exactly what we’re doing, what DPC is doing every week!
We help people in need. We care for people who are hurting.
We teach people the ways of Jesus Christ. We provide people means of worthwhile service.
We nurture the next generation in faith, hope, and love.
And we pray fervently, just as Henry Toole suggested.
We pray that the Spirit of the Lord will come to rest upon all people,
and that you and I and our neighbors may live together as a hopeful sign of that possibility.
We pray that the humble fear of the Lord will become the delight of all the world,
and that you and I will be open-minded enough for that delight to begin with us.
We pray that there will one day be peace upon this troubled earth, even in places like Aleppo and Sudan,
and that the deep peace of the coming Christ-child, the peace that passes all understanding,
will begin right here, in this sanctuary,
with those who are waiting patiently and praying fervently for that peace to come.
One day, the prophet foretells, they will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord;
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
Amen.
Rev. Dr. Todd Speed
Decatur Presbyterian Church
Decatur, Georgia
December 4, 2016
