Imagining possibilities
Commentary
There is no prescription for how people change. In spite of our best psychology and all the rest, it still remains a mystery as to how individuals significantly alter their lives and their self-understanding. Clergy certainly know firsthand the mystery of how individuals are transformed. However, one theory holds some promise, we believe, of enlightening this mystery. Some have said that people change only after they have imagined a new possibility for themselves. This is to say that imagination is crucial in effecting change and that the human capacity to imagine is instrumental in change. Moreover, the proposal that people have to imagine themselves differently in order to change means that the concept of possibilities is equally important. In other words, we humans have first to imagine the possibility of being different people before we can ever actually become different.
Change is admittedly far more complicated than this proposal of imagining possibilities for oneself, and most certainly such a proposal is mostly speculative. Still, it seems to us that there is a good deal of truth in this understanding of change in personality. At separate times, both of us have been invited to imagine ourselves as different people. The invitation was in both cases the possibilities inherent within calls to new positions. At those junctures, each of us had to try to imagine ourselves in his or her new position. We needed to create a mental picture of ourselves as individuals in that role. We had to imagine the possibility before we could even take the calls seriously. Only if we could imagine ourselves in those positions could we accept the calls. If we had trouble supposing that we might serve in those roles, we could not in good conscience accept the new positions.
Now "possibility thinking" has been abused and exaggerated by some in recent years. There are those who propose that the power of the mind is such that just thinking something brings it into being. Reality and its limitations seem to have been shoved under the rug. To suggest to a five foot, one inch high school senior that, if he just thinks positively, he could become a professional basketball star seems a gross injustice. Genuine possibilities need to be realistic. They need to be conceivable in the context of what really is. So, imagining possibilities that really change us needs to be accompanied with some sense of how and by what power we are likely to realize such a possibility.
Moreover, in some circles, Christian faith has sometimes almost been reduced to thinking positively. Faith is little more than having a positive outlook on life. Again, there is some truth to such a view of faith, but there are some problems as well. Not least of all, such a view of faith assumes that believing is something we do entirely on our own, and most of us know better.
Consequently, because of "positive thinking" and faith understood as no more than such thinking, there are those who are rightly suspicious of a theme like "imagining possibilities." But we ought not to toss the infant out with the dirty bath water, particularly if there is any truth in the theory that imagining new possibilities for ourselves is the first step toward significant change.
We propose that Advent is a time for imagining possibilities. In this season, we lean into the future and wonder what we might become under the influence of God's grace. Advent is future oriented, as we have proposed, and the future is the realm of the possible. It entices us to imagine what the world would be like if God is gracious to us and if we could appropriate God's will for us. Our three lessons each dance with the concept of imagining possibilities. But each dances a different step.
Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11
The first three Sundays of Advent each call for a reading from Isaiah. We began on the first Sunday with a passage from Third Isaiah; then we moved to Deutero-Isaiah on the second Sunday; now we are back once again to Third Isaiah. In this reading, we have another piece of the material in the book of Isaiah that most scholars believe was written for the people of Israel after many of them had returned from exile. The words were first addressed to people who were in the process of reconstructing their homeland after a prolonged absence.
The restoration of Judah is announced in chapters 59 and 60. The reading itself is complicated by at least three shifts in speakers, and it is none too easy to read because it is so rich with poetic allusions. Chapter 61 begins with someone speaking in the first person singular. Who is the speaker? It may be the prophet and the author of the passage. Or, it may be a servant whom the prophet describes. The language reminds us of the servant of the Lord who figures so prominently in II Isaiah (e.g., 42:1-9). Or, still again, it may be the faithful people, the community of faith (which seems more clearly to be the case in verses 10 and 11).
Whoever the speaker is, the servant in chapter 61 understands her/himself commissioned by God for a special task. That commissioning is done by the empowerment of the Spirit of the Lord and anointing. Those are the two ways in which God has enlisted leaders for the people. The Spirit empowered the judges before there was a king, and anointing inaugurated Israel's kings. Each is important, but each is only the preparation of a mission. The servant is sent to accomplish a number of things pictured in verses 1b-3a. It is clear that the mission is to Israel and that it entails transforming the people, in particular the oppressed, the brokenhearted, the captives and prisoners, and the mourners. This servant reverses the conditions of these groups -- each of which is suffering in some deplorable condition. The mission is to upset the status quo, to invert the circumstances of the hurting. And the servant accomplishes this through bringing good news, proclaiming liberty and the year of the Lord's favor, comforting, and providing.
Two portions of verses 1-4 stand out in this poetic description of the servant's mission. The first is the proclamation of the year of the Lord's favor (v. 2). It is contrasted with the "day of vengeance." Hence, it seems to speak of a time when God acts graciously toward some and with wrath toward others. The second are the images contained in verse 3a. The reversal of the lives of people is pictured in vivid ways as a trading or exchange: ashes for garlands, mourning for gladness, and a faint spirit for praise. All this transforms the whole people, so that in verses 3b-4 the nation is described. Like mighty oak trees they will witness to what God has done for them. They will rebuild their homes and restore the nation from its devastation. This description of a new and rejuvenated nation continues through verse 7.
Verse 8 interrupts this prolonged description of the renewed nation with God's own declaration. It is no longer the servant who acts but now God. The reasons for the transformation of the people and their condition are found in who God is. YHWH is a just God who is faithful and enters into an agreement (i.e., covenant) with the people. The description of the reconstructed nation resumes briefly in verse 9, this time to emphasize how the people will attract the admiration of others and how their condition will witness to what God has done.
The final verses are once again spoken in the first person singular. But in this case, it seems clearly to represent the whole of the people. God is offered the praise for the transformation. The imagery in verse 10 is that of garments and adornments, but it shifts in the final verse. Like a blooming garden, God will cause the nation to bloom "before all the nations."
What are we to make of this delicately constructed poem? The central theme is transformation, but that transformation is pictured in a variety of ways with images that change rapidly. When you read this passage carefully, you may feel as if you are being bombarded with one metaphor piled on top of another until you are overcome with their multiplicity. To use a metaphor to describe this sequence of metaphors: it is like walking through a flower garden and having the distinctive beauty and color of plant after plant leap out at you.
We need to ask two questions: What does this text seem to be doing and what does it do to us? The text seems to be exciting the imaginations of its first readers (and perhaps hearers) to conceive of themselves in new ways -- to see what they might become. Imagine, if you will, the motley collection of returned exiles, digging through the rubble that was once their home, picking up bits of building materials wherever they could to begin the tedious process of making something out of the ruins of their homeland. Today it would be like the television pictures of those who return to what's left of their homes after a tornado has devastated them. Then this prophet puts before the returned exiles this magnificent collection of images of what they might be. The text empowers its readers to rebuild, restore, and renew their homeland. It does so by stimulating the imagination with possibilities.
And what does the passage do to us when we read it? We can only speak for ourselves. It jolts our imaginations with possibilities for our lives -- the possibility that our oil of mourning might be turned into oil of gladness, that our ashes might be exchanged for a garland, and that God might dress us in salvation and righteousness. Imagining what we could be empowers us, as this passage surely empowered its first readers. And it does so through stirring us to imagine possibilities.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-24
Talk about possibilities, the cynic would have a ball with this Pauline passage. These are the apostle's closing words to the Christians in Thessalonica. He first instructs them, giving them a goal and some guidance for their life as a congregation (vv. 16-22). Then he prays for them, offering expressions of his deepest desires for them. He has first told them to do certain things. But now he states what he hopes will be done to them (v. 23). Paul concludes with an affirmation and a promise: God is faithful and God will do this in your lives (v. 24).
Enter the cynic. Does Paul really think the readers can be entirely sanctified? How could their spirit and soul and body -- everything about them -- really be sound and blameless? Paul seems to be asking for more than is humanly possible. Didn't he know the true nature of humanity? Was he so naive to think that humans could be so transformed? How could he ever think that poor fragile human existence could become what Paul imagines here? Is this not like assuring the five foot, one inch high school senior that he can become a star professional basketball player? Paul is offering impossible possibilities!
Yet Paul concludes that all this is possible: "The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it." Paul believes this radical transformation, these outlandish goals for the Thessalonian Christians are possible, because of who God is and what God does. For Paul imagining the possibilities is based on knowing who God is. It is not that Paul's anthropology is faulty or that he is naive about human limitations. It is simply that he has such confidence in God to bring possibilities into reality. To excite the imagining of possibilities is one thing. To bring those possibilities to reality is another. Paul is convinced God can do for us what we could never do for ourselves. Imagining possibilities when they are God's possibilities for us is a new ballgame.
An interesting Advent idea. God stirs up our imaginations and then empowers us to realize them. Is that what God is doing this Advent? Stirring up possibilities and then empowering us for them through the birth of Christ?
John 1:6-8, 19-28
The baptizer invites us to imagine possibilities in a very different way than Isaiah or Paul. The fourth evangelist bends over backwards to make sure we readers understand who John the Baptist is. The beautiful cadence of the prologue (1:1-18) is broken and its singular focus on the Word is blurred by the intrusion of verses 6-8. Don't confuse John with the light! Don't confuse the sign with the reality to which the sign points. Some have speculated that the fourth evangelist was trying to undermine a movement that took John and not Jesus to be the Messiah. Be that as it may, it is certainly the case that this evangelist shows a great interest in assigning John a secondary, although assuredly an important role.
Less than a dozen verses later, the Gospel returns to John, this time to have him say for himself what has already been said of him in verses 6-8 of the prologue. The religious leaders think that by his actions John insinuates he is an important figure. Why else would he be baptizing (v. 25)? John denies that he is any one of those on the religious checklist of celebrities who might presume to baptize others. Notice, however, that he never really answers the question of why he is baptizing. Instead, he points the squad of interrogators to someone else. By his pointing to another, he seems to say, "That's who I am -- the pointer." He is what verse 7 calls a "witness."
The pointer directs our attention to another possibility. The one you expect is already among you, even though you don't know him. It is the unknown possibility, the possibility that needs to be pointed out, shoved in our faces, in order for us to see it, even though it is as close as the nose on our face. John awakens in our imaginations the possibility that Christ himself may be among us, even though we cannot see him. Christ is the unknown one, the disguised one among us. Like Isaiah, John says the transformer is in your midst. Imagine meeting Christ in your next-door neighbor. Imagine confronting Christ on the evening news in the form of a hungry and homeless refugee. Imagine connecting with Christ in the love we experience with other people. Imagine the possibility!
The Gospel lesson inverts our theme of imagining possibilities. It hints that imagining possibilities of who we may become is connected with another imagining. Imagine the possibility of the presence of Christ in our midst. That presence moves our imagining possibilities outside ourselves to Another whose presence makes possibilities possible. Paul asserts that possibilities depend on what God does for us. John the Baptist suggests that our possibilities are realizable only if we know the possibility of Christ's presence already in our midst.
Maybe Advent is about our being awakened to new possibilities for us and for our world, most especially the possibility of encountering Christ in the most unlikely places and being transformed by the encounter. Maybe Advent invites us to look around and suppose for the moment at least that, in the possibility of Christ's presence, the present might be the time in which we can find not only new possibilities for ourselves, but also possibilities for others.
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11
This passage forms the middle chapter of an announcement of salvation that is found in Isaiah 60-62. It comes from a collection of post-exilic prophecy known as Third Isaiah (chs. 56-66), and is directed to the Judean community that has returned from Babylonian exile after 538 B.C. The passage divides itself into four stanzas or strophes, verses 1-3, 4-6, 7-9, and 10-11. Thus, the lectionary's division is not quite accurate, but the proper division is necessary in order to know who is speaking in each stanza.
Verses 1-2a are familiar to us, because our Lord Jesus reads them during a synagogue service in Nazareth, as a description of his own ministry (Luke 4:18-19). In their Old Testament context, however, they are not intended as the words of an individual prophet or person. Rather, they are the words of that faithful community of Levitical priests and prophetic reformers who were responsible for assembling the book of Third Isaiah. That faithful community is envisioned in this book as the Servant of the Lord, of whom Second Isaiah wrote, and here in our passage, they speak as one. (The fact that the New Testament understands Jesus as the final Servant forms the tie with his use of the words to apply to himself.)
The faithful community speaks in verses 1-3, describing its ministry. The words of those verses could therefore be applied to the community of the church. Here we find the description of what the faithful church is to do in the world. As the Hebrew stands, verse 1 should be read: "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me. He has sent me to bring good tidings to the afflicted, to bind up the brokenhearted...."
The faithful community is given the Spirit of the Lord, and it is then sent. Seven infinitives follow "sent," and are dependent upon it -- each a description of what the faithful community of the Lord is to do. In short, it is clear that the church can do nothing on its own. It must be given the Spirit of God, and it must be sent by him. Otherwise, its work is futile and without motivation and power. "Apart from me, you can do nothing," Jesus told his disciples (John 15:5), and that is the thought here also.
What is the sevenfold mission, then, upon which we are sent? First of all, to announce "good tidings," that is, the good news of the gospel to all who are afflicted or poor (v. 1c). The church's message to all in distress is to be good news of God's love and deliverance of them, and surely that includes not only the poverty-stricken but also those who are in any way afflicted, with guilt or anxiety, separation from God or unbelief, suffering or pain. Moreover, this whole passage envisions that announcement to all peoples and not just to those of our kind. And the implication is that we not only announce that good news but put it into effect by our works.
Second, the faithful community is sent to heal those who are brokenhearted for whatever reason or over whatever loss (v. 1d). And there are always those who are brokenhearted, are there not, not only within our fellowship, but among our neighbors and throughout our society?
We are sent to give freedom too, says our text (v. 1e), the freedom that comes from God -- freedom from sin, freedom from fear of dying, freedom from material want, and yes, freedom from the wanton ways and habits of our world that enslave so many in our society. Only Christ can give human beings true freedom, he taught (John 8:31-32), and we in the church are sent to lead all people into that "glorious liberty of the children of God" (Romans 8:21).
We are called in our text to a mission of comfort also (vv. 2c-3c). "Comfort, comfort my people," God has commanded (Isaiah 40:1). Change their mourning into gladness, so that they no longer weep as those who have no hope and no love and companionship in the world. Surely we all can think of the children, of the elderly, of the grieving who need our encircling arms and our comforting presence. Then they can know praise for blessings received, instead of listlessness and despair over their situation (v. 3d). And then they can even have a new name, says our text. Rather than weak and bending boughs of misery, blown about by the winds of fortune, they can be known as firm and mighty "oaks of righteousness," whom God has planted to give glory to himself in the eyes of all (v. 3ef).
Very important among the phrases used in our text to describe our mission, however, is that one that says we are "to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and the vengeance of our God" (v. 2ab). In short, we are to announce that with the birth of Jesus Christ, a new age has entered history -- an age that we now call A.D. and not B.C., because it has changed all time and world. In our Lord Jesus Christ, God has begun his kingdom, in which he is repaying his enemies and bringing to all people his good and love. Heaven has broken upon earth in the birth of our Savior, and that is good news that shall be to all people.
What a mission we have been given, good Christians! But it is not a surprising one, if you look at what we are called in the verses that our reading has omitted. In verse 6, we, the faithful community of the Lord, are called his priests and ministers. And that's the priesthood of all believers, of all of us who sit here this day. We are those set apart by God to take his gospel to all near or far -- that wondrous gospel of healing and freedom, of comfort and praise and gladness. Is there any greater honor that can be given us, or any more important task bestowed upon us?
Our text tells us why God has called us to such a mission -- because, the Lord himself says in the following verses, he loves justice and hates evil, and has taken us into covenant fellowship with himself as those who are blessed as his own (vv. 8-9). We belong to God, good Christians. He has poured out his Spirit upon us. And in the strength of that Spirit, he has sent us to take the gospel to peoples everywhere.
Verses 10 and 11 of our text give our response to that covenant sending. "I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall exult in my God," for he has sent us his Savior, Jesus Christ, and Christ has made us righteous in God's eyes. God's promise, therefore, at the end of our passage, is that as we serve our Lord faithfully on the mission to which he sends us, all nations will come to confess their allegiance to him as their God. Then God's kingdom will have come in its fullness on earth as it is in heaven, and the act which God began with the birth of his Son will have reached its final goal.
Change is admittedly far more complicated than this proposal of imagining possibilities for oneself, and most certainly such a proposal is mostly speculative. Still, it seems to us that there is a good deal of truth in this understanding of change in personality. At separate times, both of us have been invited to imagine ourselves as different people. The invitation was in both cases the possibilities inherent within calls to new positions. At those junctures, each of us had to try to imagine ourselves in his or her new position. We needed to create a mental picture of ourselves as individuals in that role. We had to imagine the possibility before we could even take the calls seriously. Only if we could imagine ourselves in those positions could we accept the calls. If we had trouble supposing that we might serve in those roles, we could not in good conscience accept the new positions.
Now "possibility thinking" has been abused and exaggerated by some in recent years. There are those who propose that the power of the mind is such that just thinking something brings it into being. Reality and its limitations seem to have been shoved under the rug. To suggest to a five foot, one inch high school senior that, if he just thinks positively, he could become a professional basketball star seems a gross injustice. Genuine possibilities need to be realistic. They need to be conceivable in the context of what really is. So, imagining possibilities that really change us needs to be accompanied with some sense of how and by what power we are likely to realize such a possibility.
Moreover, in some circles, Christian faith has sometimes almost been reduced to thinking positively. Faith is little more than having a positive outlook on life. Again, there is some truth to such a view of faith, but there are some problems as well. Not least of all, such a view of faith assumes that believing is something we do entirely on our own, and most of us know better.
Consequently, because of "positive thinking" and faith understood as no more than such thinking, there are those who are rightly suspicious of a theme like "imagining possibilities." But we ought not to toss the infant out with the dirty bath water, particularly if there is any truth in the theory that imagining new possibilities for ourselves is the first step toward significant change.
We propose that Advent is a time for imagining possibilities. In this season, we lean into the future and wonder what we might become under the influence of God's grace. Advent is future oriented, as we have proposed, and the future is the realm of the possible. It entices us to imagine what the world would be like if God is gracious to us and if we could appropriate God's will for us. Our three lessons each dance with the concept of imagining possibilities. But each dances a different step.
Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11
The first three Sundays of Advent each call for a reading from Isaiah. We began on the first Sunday with a passage from Third Isaiah; then we moved to Deutero-Isaiah on the second Sunday; now we are back once again to Third Isaiah. In this reading, we have another piece of the material in the book of Isaiah that most scholars believe was written for the people of Israel after many of them had returned from exile. The words were first addressed to people who were in the process of reconstructing their homeland after a prolonged absence.
The restoration of Judah is announced in chapters 59 and 60. The reading itself is complicated by at least three shifts in speakers, and it is none too easy to read because it is so rich with poetic allusions. Chapter 61 begins with someone speaking in the first person singular. Who is the speaker? It may be the prophet and the author of the passage. Or, it may be a servant whom the prophet describes. The language reminds us of the servant of the Lord who figures so prominently in II Isaiah (e.g., 42:1-9). Or, still again, it may be the faithful people, the community of faith (which seems more clearly to be the case in verses 10 and 11).
Whoever the speaker is, the servant in chapter 61 understands her/himself commissioned by God for a special task. That commissioning is done by the empowerment of the Spirit of the Lord and anointing. Those are the two ways in which God has enlisted leaders for the people. The Spirit empowered the judges before there was a king, and anointing inaugurated Israel's kings. Each is important, but each is only the preparation of a mission. The servant is sent to accomplish a number of things pictured in verses 1b-3a. It is clear that the mission is to Israel and that it entails transforming the people, in particular the oppressed, the brokenhearted, the captives and prisoners, and the mourners. This servant reverses the conditions of these groups -- each of which is suffering in some deplorable condition. The mission is to upset the status quo, to invert the circumstances of the hurting. And the servant accomplishes this through bringing good news, proclaiming liberty and the year of the Lord's favor, comforting, and providing.
Two portions of verses 1-4 stand out in this poetic description of the servant's mission. The first is the proclamation of the year of the Lord's favor (v. 2). It is contrasted with the "day of vengeance." Hence, it seems to speak of a time when God acts graciously toward some and with wrath toward others. The second are the images contained in verse 3a. The reversal of the lives of people is pictured in vivid ways as a trading or exchange: ashes for garlands, mourning for gladness, and a faint spirit for praise. All this transforms the whole people, so that in verses 3b-4 the nation is described. Like mighty oak trees they will witness to what God has done for them. They will rebuild their homes and restore the nation from its devastation. This description of a new and rejuvenated nation continues through verse 7.
Verse 8 interrupts this prolonged description of the renewed nation with God's own declaration. It is no longer the servant who acts but now God. The reasons for the transformation of the people and their condition are found in who God is. YHWH is a just God who is faithful and enters into an agreement (i.e., covenant) with the people. The description of the reconstructed nation resumes briefly in verse 9, this time to emphasize how the people will attract the admiration of others and how their condition will witness to what God has done.
The final verses are once again spoken in the first person singular. But in this case, it seems clearly to represent the whole of the people. God is offered the praise for the transformation. The imagery in verse 10 is that of garments and adornments, but it shifts in the final verse. Like a blooming garden, God will cause the nation to bloom "before all the nations."
What are we to make of this delicately constructed poem? The central theme is transformation, but that transformation is pictured in a variety of ways with images that change rapidly. When you read this passage carefully, you may feel as if you are being bombarded with one metaphor piled on top of another until you are overcome with their multiplicity. To use a metaphor to describe this sequence of metaphors: it is like walking through a flower garden and having the distinctive beauty and color of plant after plant leap out at you.
We need to ask two questions: What does this text seem to be doing and what does it do to us? The text seems to be exciting the imaginations of its first readers (and perhaps hearers) to conceive of themselves in new ways -- to see what they might become. Imagine, if you will, the motley collection of returned exiles, digging through the rubble that was once their home, picking up bits of building materials wherever they could to begin the tedious process of making something out of the ruins of their homeland. Today it would be like the television pictures of those who return to what's left of their homes after a tornado has devastated them. Then this prophet puts before the returned exiles this magnificent collection of images of what they might be. The text empowers its readers to rebuild, restore, and renew their homeland. It does so by stimulating the imagination with possibilities.
And what does the passage do to us when we read it? We can only speak for ourselves. It jolts our imaginations with possibilities for our lives -- the possibility that our oil of mourning might be turned into oil of gladness, that our ashes might be exchanged for a garland, and that God might dress us in salvation and righteousness. Imagining what we could be empowers us, as this passage surely empowered its first readers. And it does so through stirring us to imagine possibilities.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-24
Talk about possibilities, the cynic would have a ball with this Pauline passage. These are the apostle's closing words to the Christians in Thessalonica. He first instructs them, giving them a goal and some guidance for their life as a congregation (vv. 16-22). Then he prays for them, offering expressions of his deepest desires for them. He has first told them to do certain things. But now he states what he hopes will be done to them (v. 23). Paul concludes with an affirmation and a promise: God is faithful and God will do this in your lives (v. 24).
Enter the cynic. Does Paul really think the readers can be entirely sanctified? How could their spirit and soul and body -- everything about them -- really be sound and blameless? Paul seems to be asking for more than is humanly possible. Didn't he know the true nature of humanity? Was he so naive to think that humans could be so transformed? How could he ever think that poor fragile human existence could become what Paul imagines here? Is this not like assuring the five foot, one inch high school senior that he can become a star professional basketball player? Paul is offering impossible possibilities!
Yet Paul concludes that all this is possible: "The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it." Paul believes this radical transformation, these outlandish goals for the Thessalonian Christians are possible, because of who God is and what God does. For Paul imagining the possibilities is based on knowing who God is. It is not that Paul's anthropology is faulty or that he is naive about human limitations. It is simply that he has such confidence in God to bring possibilities into reality. To excite the imagining of possibilities is one thing. To bring those possibilities to reality is another. Paul is convinced God can do for us what we could never do for ourselves. Imagining possibilities when they are God's possibilities for us is a new ballgame.
An interesting Advent idea. God stirs up our imaginations and then empowers us to realize them. Is that what God is doing this Advent? Stirring up possibilities and then empowering us for them through the birth of Christ?
John 1:6-8, 19-28
The baptizer invites us to imagine possibilities in a very different way than Isaiah or Paul. The fourth evangelist bends over backwards to make sure we readers understand who John the Baptist is. The beautiful cadence of the prologue (1:1-18) is broken and its singular focus on the Word is blurred by the intrusion of verses 6-8. Don't confuse John with the light! Don't confuse the sign with the reality to which the sign points. Some have speculated that the fourth evangelist was trying to undermine a movement that took John and not Jesus to be the Messiah. Be that as it may, it is certainly the case that this evangelist shows a great interest in assigning John a secondary, although assuredly an important role.
Less than a dozen verses later, the Gospel returns to John, this time to have him say for himself what has already been said of him in verses 6-8 of the prologue. The religious leaders think that by his actions John insinuates he is an important figure. Why else would he be baptizing (v. 25)? John denies that he is any one of those on the religious checklist of celebrities who might presume to baptize others. Notice, however, that he never really answers the question of why he is baptizing. Instead, he points the squad of interrogators to someone else. By his pointing to another, he seems to say, "That's who I am -- the pointer." He is what verse 7 calls a "witness."
The pointer directs our attention to another possibility. The one you expect is already among you, even though you don't know him. It is the unknown possibility, the possibility that needs to be pointed out, shoved in our faces, in order for us to see it, even though it is as close as the nose on our face. John awakens in our imaginations the possibility that Christ himself may be among us, even though we cannot see him. Christ is the unknown one, the disguised one among us. Like Isaiah, John says the transformer is in your midst. Imagine meeting Christ in your next-door neighbor. Imagine confronting Christ on the evening news in the form of a hungry and homeless refugee. Imagine connecting with Christ in the love we experience with other people. Imagine the possibility!
The Gospel lesson inverts our theme of imagining possibilities. It hints that imagining possibilities of who we may become is connected with another imagining. Imagine the possibility of the presence of Christ in our midst. That presence moves our imagining possibilities outside ourselves to Another whose presence makes possibilities possible. Paul asserts that possibilities depend on what God does for us. John the Baptist suggests that our possibilities are realizable only if we know the possibility of Christ's presence already in our midst.
Maybe Advent is about our being awakened to new possibilities for us and for our world, most especially the possibility of encountering Christ in the most unlikely places and being transformed by the encounter. Maybe Advent invites us to look around and suppose for the moment at least that, in the possibility of Christ's presence, the present might be the time in which we can find not only new possibilities for ourselves, but also possibilities for others.
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11
This passage forms the middle chapter of an announcement of salvation that is found in Isaiah 60-62. It comes from a collection of post-exilic prophecy known as Third Isaiah (chs. 56-66), and is directed to the Judean community that has returned from Babylonian exile after 538 B.C. The passage divides itself into four stanzas or strophes, verses 1-3, 4-6, 7-9, and 10-11. Thus, the lectionary's division is not quite accurate, but the proper division is necessary in order to know who is speaking in each stanza.
Verses 1-2a are familiar to us, because our Lord Jesus reads them during a synagogue service in Nazareth, as a description of his own ministry (Luke 4:18-19). In their Old Testament context, however, they are not intended as the words of an individual prophet or person. Rather, they are the words of that faithful community of Levitical priests and prophetic reformers who were responsible for assembling the book of Third Isaiah. That faithful community is envisioned in this book as the Servant of the Lord, of whom Second Isaiah wrote, and here in our passage, they speak as one. (The fact that the New Testament understands Jesus as the final Servant forms the tie with his use of the words to apply to himself.)
The faithful community speaks in verses 1-3, describing its ministry. The words of those verses could therefore be applied to the community of the church. Here we find the description of what the faithful church is to do in the world. As the Hebrew stands, verse 1 should be read: "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me. He has sent me to bring good tidings to the afflicted, to bind up the brokenhearted...."
The faithful community is given the Spirit of the Lord, and it is then sent. Seven infinitives follow "sent," and are dependent upon it -- each a description of what the faithful community of the Lord is to do. In short, it is clear that the church can do nothing on its own. It must be given the Spirit of God, and it must be sent by him. Otherwise, its work is futile and without motivation and power. "Apart from me, you can do nothing," Jesus told his disciples (John 15:5), and that is the thought here also.
What is the sevenfold mission, then, upon which we are sent? First of all, to announce "good tidings," that is, the good news of the gospel to all who are afflicted or poor (v. 1c). The church's message to all in distress is to be good news of God's love and deliverance of them, and surely that includes not only the poverty-stricken but also those who are in any way afflicted, with guilt or anxiety, separation from God or unbelief, suffering or pain. Moreover, this whole passage envisions that announcement to all peoples and not just to those of our kind. And the implication is that we not only announce that good news but put it into effect by our works.
Second, the faithful community is sent to heal those who are brokenhearted for whatever reason or over whatever loss (v. 1d). And there are always those who are brokenhearted, are there not, not only within our fellowship, but among our neighbors and throughout our society?
We are sent to give freedom too, says our text (v. 1e), the freedom that comes from God -- freedom from sin, freedom from fear of dying, freedom from material want, and yes, freedom from the wanton ways and habits of our world that enslave so many in our society. Only Christ can give human beings true freedom, he taught (John 8:31-32), and we in the church are sent to lead all people into that "glorious liberty of the children of God" (Romans 8:21).
We are called in our text to a mission of comfort also (vv. 2c-3c). "Comfort, comfort my people," God has commanded (Isaiah 40:1). Change their mourning into gladness, so that they no longer weep as those who have no hope and no love and companionship in the world. Surely we all can think of the children, of the elderly, of the grieving who need our encircling arms and our comforting presence. Then they can know praise for blessings received, instead of listlessness and despair over their situation (v. 3d). And then they can even have a new name, says our text. Rather than weak and bending boughs of misery, blown about by the winds of fortune, they can be known as firm and mighty "oaks of righteousness," whom God has planted to give glory to himself in the eyes of all (v. 3ef).
Very important among the phrases used in our text to describe our mission, however, is that one that says we are "to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and the vengeance of our God" (v. 2ab). In short, we are to announce that with the birth of Jesus Christ, a new age has entered history -- an age that we now call A.D. and not B.C., because it has changed all time and world. In our Lord Jesus Christ, God has begun his kingdom, in which he is repaying his enemies and bringing to all people his good and love. Heaven has broken upon earth in the birth of our Savior, and that is good news that shall be to all people.
What a mission we have been given, good Christians! But it is not a surprising one, if you look at what we are called in the verses that our reading has omitted. In verse 6, we, the faithful community of the Lord, are called his priests and ministers. And that's the priesthood of all believers, of all of us who sit here this day. We are those set apart by God to take his gospel to all near or far -- that wondrous gospel of healing and freedom, of comfort and praise and gladness. Is there any greater honor that can be given us, or any more important task bestowed upon us?
Our text tells us why God has called us to such a mission -- because, the Lord himself says in the following verses, he loves justice and hates evil, and has taken us into covenant fellowship with himself as those who are blessed as his own (vv. 8-9). We belong to God, good Christians. He has poured out his Spirit upon us. And in the strength of that Spirit, he has sent us to take the gospel to peoples everywhere.
Verses 10 and 11 of our text give our response to that covenant sending. "I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall exult in my God," for he has sent us his Savior, Jesus Christ, and Christ has made us righteous in God's eyes. God's promise, therefore, at the end of our passage, is that as we serve our Lord faithfully on the mission to which he sends us, all nations will come to confess their allegiance to him as their God. Then God's kingdom will have come in its fullness on earth as it is in heaven, and the act which God began with the birth of his Son will have reached its final goal.
