The day is the way!
Commentary
Adventus, "Coming!" That Latin word sounds like the theme for the four weeks ahead of us. But the world has gotten a jump on that announcement made by the church and already has begun its own preparations for what is approaching. And it is doing so with a single-minded fervor, and in some frenzied ways.
Since September in some locals, surely by October, the stores and shopping malls have begun sprouting evergreens and Christmas ornaments. The Santa parades have gone down our streets, with Thanksgiving Day television coverage of the "really big ones" as their crowning event. All of them have a coordinated and orchestrated message about the purpose of the season. "It is 'Empty that "sock" and put your credit to the test!' for now is the 'appointed time' to buy what is needed to celebrate 'the day' in style! Rush right out and pick up...." "Only a few more shopping days left until...." "Don't be disappointed, get your wish list phoned in...." are pleadings incessantly played over and around "O, Come All Ye Faithful," and "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer." "Pick up the cheer, and get in gear" because you are the one who has to provide what is needed to make "the day" the success it ought to be. And that is going to be accomplished with things! Boxes of candy on the coffee table, stockings stuffed to overflowing hung from the mantle, and as many purchases as you can wrap up and pile around the Christmas tree, are what is needed to make "the day" a smash. Come up empty on them and the day will arrive as a "downer," and another depression and disillusion bringer.
Advent is the inevitable lead-in to disappointment for most of the holiday crowd. For the majority of them it never really measures up to the expectations their fantasies constructed. Even for those who have some of the hoped-for needs met it is over so fast that the blahs of new year resolutions to get on with your diet, and the focus on all of the other things wrong with them that they must change, set in with a bang before the decorations around the house come down!
The Latin call, and the promise of God it proclaims are built on a different footer! It does not rest on things but a Being, not on something of our own production, but of God's marvelous creating toward which the eyes and hearts of humanity are being pulled. "The days are coming ... when the Lord shall establish," promises Isaiah. "Salvation is nearer to us now ..." Paul proclaims to the believers in Rome. "Therefore, you also must be ready ... warns Matthew. Getting the vision clear, and the expectations properly aligned, is the purpose of these four Lord's Days in Advent. It is God himself who is in the Gift-giving mode! And what he is coming to deliver is One who alone ultimately can turn despair into hope, and disillusion into joy. Today is Act One in the drama, The Blessing of the Planet, written, produced, directed and acted by the Lord!
OUTLINE I
The day is on the way!
Isaiah 2:1-5
A. vv. 1-2. Salvation is a human hunger that has eaten away inside of every human being beginning in the Garden of Eden. Wherever we live, if it is without God it is a wilderness, desolate and filled with loneliness and grief. Adam and Eve learned it. So did their offspring. The hunger to be in the arms of God, cannot be satisfied by us. If it is to happen God must be the arm-opener.
God gives Isaiah the "vision" (a picture is worth a thousand words) of how that is to happen, and the assurance that it will! God will accomplish it ... note that there is nothing that human beings do in that reunion except go to "the house of the Lord" where God awaits them with his gifts. God will see to it that the place where he is to be found will be visible so that no one can miss it ... "raised above the hills."
B. v. 3. Like Jesus was later to do with his disciples in his "Sermon on the Mount," God sits as a Teacher for what the people have forgotten about him, and life, and themselves. What he will teach them is his "ways" so they can walk in his "paths." The result of the encounter will be that out of the gathering will go the "word," a term often used for the 10 commandments (see Exodus 20:1), and the "law." That term translated "law" is torah. Its root meaning is "to bring light to the eyes, to open, enlighten a person's control center," which for the Hebrews was the heart rather than the brain! It is not a synonym for a legal code, imposed on unfortunate captives. Torah is good news given by a loving God to help, not burden, ones he cares about.
C. vv. 4-5. When that day arrives, God will once again have a relationship with his people that the rebellion in Eden ended ... he will "judge" between the nations, who presumably are then willing to acknowledge him as Lord, and he will "arbitrate" when the places of conflict are reached. Even "paradise" has its challenges!
Since war will no longer be necessary, energy once turned to human slaughter can be refocused on useful endeavors, "swords" being bent into plow blades and "spear heads" into gardening tools!
When those days will come is not nailed down with precision. Isaiah simply states, yamim aharim, "later, down the road." But just knowing that God has promised that they are on the way can make all the difference in holding on to hope in these days when injustice is still in the saddle, and cities are ready to explode in conflict, and all of us are fragmented to one degree or another, longing to be made whole!
OUTLINE II
For whom the bell tolls!
Romans 13:11-14
A. vv. 11-12. This passage from Romans sounds like a town-crier calling the citizenry out of bed from the depths of a sound sleep ... "the night is far gone, the day is at hand! Get up!" What has set him on them is not a fire, or an invading horde, or even an earthquake. It is something more important than any of them. It is the reminder that their "salvation is nearer" than when they first believed. How often has that fact gotten you out of bed and on your feet in the middle of the night?
There is a sluggishness that seeps into us where salvation, and eternity, and even God are concerned. They are so far in the future, or so vague, or so "spiritual," that we have a tendency to "bag" them and store them in the hinder-lands of our consciousness. But the fact is that as any morning's newscast, or newspapers, blare out at us, a sharp curve in a highway, or a heart attack, or a mugger or thief, can get us up against all of the above in a way we thought was reserved for a distant tomorrow. The end of life for you may be a clock-beat away. Still, even if no timepiece determines it, God may chose to call an end to this world before your eyes blink again!
B. vv. 13-14. Think of that! Are you ready for it? Or is your life, like so many of the Advents you have seen come and go, just a routine that you meander through half sleep? Wake up! Even the calendar on the wall should tell you that you are closer to that date with eternity than you were last year on this day. Crank that into your living-quotient! Get your life swept, and rearranged!
OUTLINE III
Watching and waiting at the ready
Matthew 24:36-41
A. vv. 36-41. "Joy to the world ..." oh, really? Is Advent, and the Day toward which it points, a happy occasion, eagerly awaited, and filled with good tidings and peace for everybody? Not on your life! As Jesus reminds the people gathered around him, for some of them what is coming is an occasion of annihilation, just as for others it will mark their entrance into a realm of fulfillment that no human imagery or mind can encompass.
When Noah built the ark, there were plenty of folks who saw the hull laid, and watched as the vessel was caulked, and even were on hand, or at least passed by, no doubt to shake their heads and smile to one another, as Noah fitted the boat with its cargo in a land where even a small row boat was land bound most of the time. Yet all the while that they saw with their eyes what was going on in their midst, they were blind to its significance, even though their destinies were being decided in the event that was on its way.
What does it take to hook people's attention, even for life-saving announcements? Warnings on billboards don't seem to do it. Labels on packages go ignored. Can decorations that pop up on lamp posts, religious music that takes over our airwaves these weeks we are in, jerk awake the average individual who has heard and seen it all before to the fact that they may never see it again? Advent is a warning that what is in store is not just a series of gathering times in office parties, or family get-togethers, or religious celebrations that come once a year. It is a reminder that what is in store for us is a separation time, when some of those who are passing by will be "left" to die, while others will be "taken" to live. The difference between the two is that the ones left were nonchalant, and unprepared for what the time of preparation was all about! Just like in the days of Noah they chose to let the "good times roll" ... when what they should have been getting was a fix on what God was doing right under their noses!
B. vv. 43-44. "Watch!" "Be ready!" These are the "bellringers" of Advent. "You do not know on what day your Lord is coming." That being so, ask yourself what needs doing in your life to be ready to meet him at the door ... and get on that. In love pass on that word to the ones God has entrusted to your care.
Since September in some locals, surely by October, the stores and shopping malls have begun sprouting evergreens and Christmas ornaments. The Santa parades have gone down our streets, with Thanksgiving Day television coverage of the "really big ones" as their crowning event. All of them have a coordinated and orchestrated message about the purpose of the season. "It is 'Empty that "sock" and put your credit to the test!' for now is the 'appointed time' to buy what is needed to celebrate 'the day' in style! Rush right out and pick up...." "Only a few more shopping days left until...." "Don't be disappointed, get your wish list phoned in...." are pleadings incessantly played over and around "O, Come All Ye Faithful," and "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer." "Pick up the cheer, and get in gear" because you are the one who has to provide what is needed to make "the day" the success it ought to be. And that is going to be accomplished with things! Boxes of candy on the coffee table, stockings stuffed to overflowing hung from the mantle, and as many purchases as you can wrap up and pile around the Christmas tree, are what is needed to make "the day" a smash. Come up empty on them and the day will arrive as a "downer," and another depression and disillusion bringer.
Advent is the inevitable lead-in to disappointment for most of the holiday crowd. For the majority of them it never really measures up to the expectations their fantasies constructed. Even for those who have some of the hoped-for needs met it is over so fast that the blahs of new year resolutions to get on with your diet, and the focus on all of the other things wrong with them that they must change, set in with a bang before the decorations around the house come down!
The Latin call, and the promise of God it proclaims are built on a different footer! It does not rest on things but a Being, not on something of our own production, but of God's marvelous creating toward which the eyes and hearts of humanity are being pulled. "The days are coming ... when the Lord shall establish," promises Isaiah. "Salvation is nearer to us now ..." Paul proclaims to the believers in Rome. "Therefore, you also must be ready ... warns Matthew. Getting the vision clear, and the expectations properly aligned, is the purpose of these four Lord's Days in Advent. It is God himself who is in the Gift-giving mode! And what he is coming to deliver is One who alone ultimately can turn despair into hope, and disillusion into joy. Today is Act One in the drama, The Blessing of the Planet, written, produced, directed and acted by the Lord!
OUTLINE I
The day is on the way!
Isaiah 2:1-5
A. vv. 1-2. Salvation is a human hunger that has eaten away inside of every human being beginning in the Garden of Eden. Wherever we live, if it is without God it is a wilderness, desolate and filled with loneliness and grief. Adam and Eve learned it. So did their offspring. The hunger to be in the arms of God, cannot be satisfied by us. If it is to happen God must be the arm-opener.
God gives Isaiah the "vision" (a picture is worth a thousand words) of how that is to happen, and the assurance that it will! God will accomplish it ... note that there is nothing that human beings do in that reunion except go to "the house of the Lord" where God awaits them with his gifts. God will see to it that the place where he is to be found will be visible so that no one can miss it ... "raised above the hills."
B. v. 3. Like Jesus was later to do with his disciples in his "Sermon on the Mount," God sits as a Teacher for what the people have forgotten about him, and life, and themselves. What he will teach them is his "ways" so they can walk in his "paths." The result of the encounter will be that out of the gathering will go the "word," a term often used for the 10 commandments (see Exodus 20:1), and the "law." That term translated "law" is torah. Its root meaning is "to bring light to the eyes, to open, enlighten a person's control center," which for the Hebrews was the heart rather than the brain! It is not a synonym for a legal code, imposed on unfortunate captives. Torah is good news given by a loving God to help, not burden, ones he cares about.
C. vv. 4-5. When that day arrives, God will once again have a relationship with his people that the rebellion in Eden ended ... he will "judge" between the nations, who presumably are then willing to acknowledge him as Lord, and he will "arbitrate" when the places of conflict are reached. Even "paradise" has its challenges!
Since war will no longer be necessary, energy once turned to human slaughter can be refocused on useful endeavors, "swords" being bent into plow blades and "spear heads" into gardening tools!
When those days will come is not nailed down with precision. Isaiah simply states, yamim aharim, "later, down the road." But just knowing that God has promised that they are on the way can make all the difference in holding on to hope in these days when injustice is still in the saddle, and cities are ready to explode in conflict, and all of us are fragmented to one degree or another, longing to be made whole!
OUTLINE II
For whom the bell tolls!
Romans 13:11-14
A. vv. 11-12. This passage from Romans sounds like a town-crier calling the citizenry out of bed from the depths of a sound sleep ... "the night is far gone, the day is at hand! Get up!" What has set him on them is not a fire, or an invading horde, or even an earthquake. It is something more important than any of them. It is the reminder that their "salvation is nearer" than when they first believed. How often has that fact gotten you out of bed and on your feet in the middle of the night?
There is a sluggishness that seeps into us where salvation, and eternity, and even God are concerned. They are so far in the future, or so vague, or so "spiritual," that we have a tendency to "bag" them and store them in the hinder-lands of our consciousness. But the fact is that as any morning's newscast, or newspapers, blare out at us, a sharp curve in a highway, or a heart attack, or a mugger or thief, can get us up against all of the above in a way we thought was reserved for a distant tomorrow. The end of life for you may be a clock-beat away. Still, even if no timepiece determines it, God may chose to call an end to this world before your eyes blink again!
B. vv. 13-14. Think of that! Are you ready for it? Or is your life, like so many of the Advents you have seen come and go, just a routine that you meander through half sleep? Wake up! Even the calendar on the wall should tell you that you are closer to that date with eternity than you were last year on this day. Crank that into your living-quotient! Get your life swept, and rearranged!
OUTLINE III
Watching and waiting at the ready
Matthew 24:36-41
A. vv. 36-41. "Joy to the world ..." oh, really? Is Advent, and the Day toward which it points, a happy occasion, eagerly awaited, and filled with good tidings and peace for everybody? Not on your life! As Jesus reminds the people gathered around him, for some of them what is coming is an occasion of annihilation, just as for others it will mark their entrance into a realm of fulfillment that no human imagery or mind can encompass.
When Noah built the ark, there were plenty of folks who saw the hull laid, and watched as the vessel was caulked, and even were on hand, or at least passed by, no doubt to shake their heads and smile to one another, as Noah fitted the boat with its cargo in a land where even a small row boat was land bound most of the time. Yet all the while that they saw with their eyes what was going on in their midst, they were blind to its significance, even though their destinies were being decided in the event that was on its way.
What does it take to hook people's attention, even for life-saving announcements? Warnings on billboards don't seem to do it. Labels on packages go ignored. Can decorations that pop up on lamp posts, religious music that takes over our airwaves these weeks we are in, jerk awake the average individual who has heard and seen it all before to the fact that they may never see it again? Advent is a warning that what is in store is not just a series of gathering times in office parties, or family get-togethers, or religious celebrations that come once a year. It is a reminder that what is in store for us is a separation time, when some of those who are passing by will be "left" to die, while others will be "taken" to live. The difference between the two is that the ones left were nonchalant, and unprepared for what the time of preparation was all about! Just like in the days of Noah they chose to let the "good times roll" ... when what they should have been getting was a fix on what God was doing right under their noses!
B. vv. 43-44. "Watch!" "Be ready!" These are the "bellringers" of Advent. "You do not know on what day your Lord is coming." That being so, ask yourself what needs doing in your life to be ready to meet him at the door ... and get on that. In love pass on that word to the ones God has entrusted to your care.
