Theme
Commentary
Object:
Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11
Is there a more beautiful passage in all of scripture than this reading for Advent 3? It is the passage that Jesus turned to when he was handed the scroll in the synagogue in Nazareth. It was, to him, the announcement of the beginning of his ministry. Actually that's exactly the way the men in the synagogue took it too. But their reaction was very different from ours (Luke 4:16-30). This didn't surprise Jesus, who understood that the prophet is never welcomed by the people (see Luke 13:28-34). Yet the prophet is working intimately with God: "The Spirit of the sovereign Lord is on me... the Lord has anointed me…."
Isaiah's prophetic poem applies not only to himself but to all of the prophets. All were called and anointed to speak up and thus turn the people back to the sovereign God. This is the true work of the prophet: not to map horoscopes, not to read tarot cards or the lines on the palm of a hand, but to turn the people away from the sidetrack on which they are wandering and back onto the highway that leads to God.
Isaiah's words are also the basis for the calling of every Christian pastor, for the description of the work of those called to preach, teach, and heal. While the Old Testament prophets were largely men and women who were going about their daily business and preached from a position outside the established priesthood, Isaiah is an example of the priest called to a prophetic ministry.
First every ordained pastor is, like the prophet, called to preach. We search the scriptures, study the words, and apply them to the circumstances of our congregation. We are ordained to turn our people toward the path God has for them, preventing, if possible, the congregation from indulging in the behavior tolerated in the world at large.
For many, preaching is the hardest work in the church. Isaiah thought so at first (see 6:1-8). This burning of his lips was not literal; it signifies refining fire, such as produces gold, silver, and copper from the rock in which it is buried. This purification takes him beyond that reluctance to see himself as a worthy tool that God can use for the redemption of his nation.
That reluctance is a central part in the calling of the prophet. Moses claimed that he could not speak except haltingly, so God allowed him to use his brother Aaron to speak to Pharaoh. Jeremiah begged off, saying that he was "only a boy" (Jeremiah 1:6). In the story of Jonah, he is said to have tried to run away from God by taking the first boat out of town. But to each of these God gave the Holy Spirit so they could preach in spite of their hesitation.
Every pastor is also called to teach. We teach confirmation classes or Bible classes or discipleship classes. We teach as we preach. We teach in our church committees. In all of these settings, we are proclaiming the good news and we are freeing our people (and often at the same time ourselves) from the darkness of prejudice, ignorance, and self-centeredness. We are freeing our communities from the captivity of peer pressure, which makes us conform to the ways of the world. We are also releasing our community of faith from the darkness that sin produces in our souls. We are showing the light that Christ wants to bring to the world.
When we do this, we become healers. The word salvation comes from the Latin salve, from which we get the word "salve" -- an ointment that heals. Salvation and healing are one and the same, and that is the reason the gospels portray Jesus healing everyone who came to him and often turned healings into opportunities to teach (see Matthew 4:24, 8:6, and 9:2-7). Let's take apart this poem so that we can see what Jesus -- and we -- are called to do.
The prophetic pastor is on the side of the poor. Not the rich, who seize the land, despoil the water, and enslave the workers who mine for energy and gems. Not the Pharisees, who were so afraid of God that they invented rules to "protect" the law. Not the Sadducees, dressed in their finest robes, tossing coins to the poor in the temple precincts so everyone could see their generosity. No, the prophetic pastor turns to the poor, those on welfare or working without benefits or at less than minimum wage (like farm workers, big box store clerks, those who work on commission only, and waitresses), to proclaim good news.
We need to remind ourselves always that there was no middle class in ancient times, only those who owned some land and those who did not. The small landholders struggled to make a living, and when they failed to do so their land -- like today -- had to be sold. Those who were more prosperous had an eye open to add to their resources and gobbled up the land from those who could no longer work it. Those left landless had to take up, if possible, some kind of trade or hire themselves out to work for the big landholders. These landless peasants were despised by those in power and often could not get justice in the courts. Widows, especially, were helpless to stop their late husbands' land from being sold by their next of kin -- a male who by law was supposed to take responsibility for the widows in the family, but often did not (see the book of Ruth for an example). If the widows had small children, they had to watch their children dress in rags, starve, or die from illness. Lacking resources, they had to turn to begging on street corners or worse. [A good resource that leads to discussion of the state of the poor and how they become poor might be the film Les Miserables. There are also good resources to be had from Bread for the World, the Hunger Taskforce, Habitat for Humanity, the Heifer Project, and the Asian Rural Institute. All of these organizations have websites. At this time of the year these organizations publish highly attractive materials talking about the needs of the poor around the world and here at home, because they generally get as much as 60% of the total they will receive for the year during this holiday season.]
After this proclamation of his call to preach good news to the poor, Isaiah begins to speak about the work of salvation. He was sent to "bind up the brokenhearted." But who are the brokenhearted?
They include, of course, those who have lost a partner, a child, a parent, or a dear friend, or who are facing their own death. They are also those who are facing the debilitating things that happen to our bodies as we grow older.
They are those who have lost a job, health insurance, pension, and their self-respect.
They are those people forced from their homes and even their native lands by war, famine, or economic collapse.
They are those who have been bloodied, raped, wounded, and even sold into slavery.
They are the women whose husbands or lovers withhold support for them or their children; who beat them and/or their children, and tell them they are worthless, stupid, ugly, and deserve a worse beating than this one.
These and others need our declaration of freedom, our assurance that we can be released from the darkness that we live in every day. They are those who need to know that Jesus has told us that we are loved, and that God has promised to exact vengeance on their tormenters.
Isaiah promises that those who think they have lost (in his case, the Jews had lost a war with Babylonian forces and were carried into captivity) will be given every sign that their grief will not last forever. Each one of the things God will replace (see v. 3) is literally part of the lives of the people to whom he is writing. In times of grieving, whether for a lost loved one or for one's sins [e.g., see Genesis 37:34; 2 Samuel 3:31), the mourners would dust their hair with ashes and did not oil their skin or hair. They would wear sackcloth (made of camel or goat hair or other rough material), which they would tear as a sign of dismay.
Each of these signs of mourning will be replaced with their opposite -- ashes will be replaced by a circlet of leaves, such as a bride might wear; the oil of myrrh (a dark, strongly scented resin used to anoint the dead) will be replaced by the oil one might rub over the skin after a bath or the oil used to groom the hair or beard not myrrh, but a welcome scent; and the sackcloth will be replaced by party clothes. They will be like the biggest trees in their world -- spreading oak trees, such as grow on the high places where the Jews had joined the Canaanites in fertility rituals, except that they will be "oaks of righteousness" rather than the oaks where they had engaged in "lust" (Isaiah 57:5).
The people of God, living as they were in the midst of a foreign country, had none of the culture they had known and loved. They were certain that everything was lost when their temple was destroyed, along with most of the city of Jerusalem. But Isaiah assures them that God will help them to rebuild and restore their ruined cities, and the covenant they had with God will be renewed. In fact, Isaiah says, the Jews will be known among the nations forever.
The last two stanzas of this poem [vv. 10-11] are the response of the prophet, but also is probably part of a song used by the Jews of that day to remind themselves of what God had done for them: "I delight greatly in the Lord; my soul rejoices in my God!" The ultimate promise of the prophet is that, like a well-tilled garden produces food, so "the sovereign Lord will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations."
As we are preaching this Advent, we need to be aware of the rising tide of anti-Semitism that is boiling over as the nation of Israel has again been engaged in a shooting war against the Palestinians. In the United States, we have taken the attitude that Christians stand in the place of the Jews in God's covenant. But this idea is nowhere in scripture. Paul insisted over and over again that Gentiles and Jews alike share in the kingdom of Christ. We are to respect each other, even as we disagree over the doctrine of incarnation (God in flesh). Moreover, if we fall into the trap of self-satisfaction as the "chosen ones of the living God," and fail to realize that these words to the Jews of the exile are likewise an admonishment to those who stand alongside them in God's eyes, we will also find ourselves exiled from the will of God.
So the question is, will we be the people who are like the well-tilled soil, so that righteousness can take root in us? The prophet's message, after all, is not just that God will redeem but that God also intends that we should become godly, holy people. That is the call. That is the reason for the advent of the Christ. The meaning of Christmas is that God has broken through to our world, not by blasting away a wall of separation between us and heaven, but by chipping a small entrance into our world and changing that world one person at a time.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-24
Thessalonians is the oldest piece of the New Testament. It dates to about 50 CE, which means it was written a mere twenty years after the death and resurrection of Jesus. (Mark, the oldest gospel, was written about twenty years after this letter.) Based on what we know from contemporaneous writings, it appears that the early church had a heavy reliance on the movement of the Holy Spirit in their worship. Speaking in tongues was accepted as proof that the speaker had received the Spirit in a divine baptism that followed water baptism [see Acts 19:1-5]. "John's baptism" -- called this because John the Baptist immersed people in water for the repentance of sins. It was considered that the power Jesus had to heal and work miracles came from the Holy Spirit [Acts 10:36-38], and that the original apostles were able to do the same things Jesus did by the power of the Holy Spirit that blew over them on Pentecost. Early worship services often included both speaking in tongues and prophecy, practices that today are considered to be Pentecostal or charismatic but which over the ages have been part of the mystical side of Christianity.
Mystics are those who believe that the spiritual and the physical worlds coexist in the same space and that God can break through into our everyday world and speak to us. Mystics' spirituality includes visions, prophecy, speaking in tongues, spiritual healing, and the like. The stories of the archangel Gabriel announcing to Zechariah and Jesus' mother Mary that they are about to experience miracle births are, at their hearts, mystical stories. Mystics use silence, meditation, and chanting to prepare themselves to hear the voice of God. This strand of Christianity has always lived alongside the rational spirituality of those who do not expect to hear God speak, but who are faithful in worship and service even so. Sometimes one strand is larger than the other, but both have coexisted throughout the history of our faith. Paul is addressing such a group in Thessalonica (pronounced Thes-sa-lone-I-ka), a group of people he had known and worked with for a short but intense time.
Paul has acknowledged that there are some problems in the congregation that need to be addressed. This church is a mix of Christian Jews and Gentiles, with all of the problems that go with mixed congregations. There are, as always, some people who are lazy and who are not as firm in the faith as one would like (v. 14). Paul says that these people need help, not chastisement. How can we keep a congregation working together in these circumstances?
Paul's straightforward recommendation is to "rejoice always." How can we manage this? Paul is not telling them (or us) that we should live in denial of the pain in the world or in our lives. There is always pain in our world, and God also suffers as a result. Rather, Paul is talking about a mindset. We can be the "I am but a miserable worm" form of Christian, full of the woe of being human in the face of God, or we can be the "children of a loving God." Paul is pushing us toward the latter.
It is very much the style of some pastors to preach constantly that we can never, by any means, please God. In this worldview, we must take every opportunity to make people feel bad about themselves so they can be brought to a recognition of their sins and repent. These pastors will even take time away from preaching the hope of the resurrection at a funeral to chastise the people gathered in grief! Rather than talking about the lessons we might learn from the deceased's life and death, and the forgiving nature of God we have come to know through Jesus, they emphasize the sin and death we see in the world. This is an enormous waste of the opportunity to present the love of God to people who never attend church except for weddings and funerals.
As Paul says earlier (in chapter 5), we can gently persuade people to turn to God, especially in times of trouble; preaching about a loving God who reaches down to us in our misery can bring many more of our listeners to a new path in life. "Rejoice always!" can be a clarion call to acknowledge the hand of God in our lives bringing to our minds the many blessings we have received. Rejoicing in this sense always has to do with our relationship with God, not with the nonsense that permeates much of the Christmas season in the secular world. It does mean that we need to remind ourselves that the joy we find in our relationship to God can be had at any moment, in the midst of whatever chaos is threatening. Most of our emotions grow out of our habits of thinking, our expectations of God.
If we have grown up in a family that is unable to express love, if we have endured war or violence, if we feel restricted by our work or we are experiencing disability, we can become used to negative thoughts. We may think that this is the way everyone feels. Paul is encouraging us to reprogram ourselves. "Rejoice always" is not the same as "Have a holly, jolly Christmas!" or "Don't worry, be happy!" We can rejoice no matter the weather or time of year if we can remind ourselves of the joy that comes when we are connected to God through Christ. Brain scientists tell us that usually we receive what we give out: If we show compassion toward another person, that person is more likely to show compassion the next time they have the opportunity. [Go to "AmazingLife247" on YouTube for a visual on this principle.]
"Give thanks in all circumstances" likewise calls us from dwelling on our problems and wallowing in misery. Not that we should never grieve -- grief is a part of everyone's life and being a Christian does not stop that. Not that there is never a reason to be angry -- even at God! (Amazingly, God seems to be able to stand up to our anger.) Not that we are never afraid -- it would be utterly stupid to not be afraid of a person with a gun or a flash flood coming in our direction! But we can be drowned, spiritually, by all the trouble the world is in these days.
The injunction to "pray continually" has produced some interesting spiritual practices. People have tried to incorporate a brief prayer of praise into their consciousness until every breath produces those words. [J.D. Salinger's book Franny & Zooey builds on the practice.] This has fascinated people of many faiths. These phrases may be scripture passages or a phrase as simple as "Thank you, Lord." This practice can produce inner calm in a person no matter how fast-paced their lifestyle may otherwise be.
I have personally found that praying continually has less to do with speaking words and more to do with leaving our hearts open so that God can contact us at any time. This is not an easy spiritual practice, but it does have concrete results: We become more spiritually attuned, more open to the movement of the Spirit, and more able to call on God or reach out to others when we attempt to keep in touch with God every minute rather than at certain prayer times.
The injunctions in verses 19-22 refer to a community that believes in the movement of the Spirit in such things as speaking in tongues and sometimes speaking prophecy in the course of a worship service or prayer group. Paul argues against "quenching the Spirit," which in this context would mean stopping people from engaging in those mystical or charismatic ways of worshiping because they have not been part of our tradition or they seem weird or frightening. It is all too easy to tell people to pay no attention to prophecy that comes in this way; after all, we haven't had prophets in our local congregations in... ever!
But in a world in which we all too often fall into the "Seven Last Words of the Church" ("We've never done it that way before!"), we are all too likely to miss out on true prophecy. Think, for example, of all-white churches located in neighborhoods that are changing. How do we reach out across racial, language, age, or cultural lines to invite and include people in our congregation? Here's the prophecy: If we fail to do this, this congregation will surely die; we will be unable to pay the bills and will have missed the boat in failing to reach out in the name of God.
Paul's orders are that we "test every prophecy" and reject every kind of evil, but also to "hold on to what is good." Let's not give up using our brains, he seems to be saying, but let's not simply reject what others are saying they have heard from God. As Jesus said, "No bad tree ever grew good fruit." Not every scold is a prophet, but those who hear from God are not necessarily insane.
Paul's final words are a blessing: "The God of peace sanctify you." In the Wesleyan tradition, we used to talk about sanctification. It was seen as a "second work" of salvation. First comes "justification" -- are we are lined up with God? Then comes "sanctification" -- are we being made holy? It is not enough to be born again in the Wesleyan tradition. We have to begin to walk, we have to study and learn how to be God's people, and we have to learn to stand up to evil. We have to be "going on toward perfection." Being born again is much like being born physically: It's only the beginning. There is an entire life in Christ that brings us to God, and we are to progress in our ability to walk as Christ walked. Jesus expected his disciples to walk and work as he had done, and he expects the same from us. But we aren't left to do this on our own. God will do this work in us -- if we let him.
John 1:6-8, 19-28
John's gospel begins with an extended hymn in praise of the Logos, a divine emanation, who comes as light into a world shrouded in darkness. But between the stanzas of that hymn we get a piece of the story of John the Baptist, who -- according to Luke -- was related to Jesus [see Luke 1].
The question that we put to any preacher is "By what authority do you say this?" Many denominations require seminary training for this very reason. "Does this pastor teach what our denomination teaches or some other doctrine?" Others require some indication that this pastor has been gifted by the Holy Spirit, which is indicated by the style and content of that person's preaching. In Jesus' day, people would listen to all kinds of teaching as long as the man doing this preached against sin of all kinds. It didn't hurt if that preacher also railed against the Romans and those who co-operated with the Romans.
The Jews of what we call the first century were eager for a messiah, someone who could organize a rebellion against Rome and throw out the trappings of the empire. When John came to the banks of the Jordan River and started dipping people in the water there as a sign of repentance, he certainly filled the bill for a great many people. Even some of the Roman soldiers came to listen to him and wound up being baptized. So it was natural that those who were looking for a messiah would come and question John as to whether he was that anointed one promised by God.
John was an honest man as well as a powerful preacher. It would have been easy to say, "Yes, I am the Messiah." But John was very aware that he had a specific role to play in God's script. The gospel writer makes it plain that the Baptist "came only as a witness to the light." But this did not satisfy those who had been sent by the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem. They demand, "Are you Elijah?"
That question may not make sense to us. Elijah was a prophet back in the time of the Kings [see 1 Kings 16ff]. To ask this question is to give credence to the idea of reincarnation. But to the Jews of his day, it made perfect sense. God might send a prophet back to guide the people through a time like that in which the prophet originally lived. John the Baptist surely knew that the way he was dressed raised this question -- he is clothed exactly as the prophet Elijah was in 2 Kings 1:8. And it had been foretold that Elijah would come before the messiah to prepare the people. Even today, Jews celebrating Passover set aside one chair and a glass of wine for Elijah, in the event he might come through the door and drink from that cup. But again, John answers no.
So they ask him if he is the prophet (the phrase is to be found in Isaiah 4:2-4). "The prophet" is ambiguous to us, as there were many ancient prophets, but to the Jews, the prophet refers to Moses. Again, the answer is no. He says he is the one Isaiah was referring to -- the voice crying out in the wilderness, "Prepare the way of the Lord! Make a straight highway in the desert for our God to travel on!" But that phrase usually was taken to mean the prophet Elijah, in his role as forerunner of the messiah.
What can he possibly mean? The messengers are clearly bewildered. There is a trick to this conversation, which neither the Pharisees nor the Jewish authorities were ready for. Jesus was not the messiah in the usual sense of first-century Judaism. In the gospel writer's view, he was not a man chosen and anointed by God -- Jesus is God incarnate, i.e., God in human flesh (the meaning of the Latin in carne). This is no ordinary messiah; this is God himself coming to repair the breach between heaven and earth. So John is none of the people the authorities have been expecting. Jesus is hidden from the world so far. But John is warning them: If they are disturbed by what John in doing at the river, they should be alarmed by the coming revelation of God.
Now the Jews had practiced baptism for eons. Before the giving of the law on Mount Sinai, the people were ordered to bathe their bodies and their clothing so they would be fit to hear the words of God. So from the very beginning of Yahwistic worship, a form of baptism was known.
In the days of the temple, there was a three-step ritual that included the washing of clothes, being sprinkled with blood, and then a full-immersion bath. The Jewish encyclopedia says, "These three acts [were] the initiatory rites always performed upon proselytes, 'to bring them under the wings of the Shekinah' " [the Spirit of God]. In fact, "Baptism is not merely for the purpose of expiating a special transgression, as is the case chiefly in the violation of the so-called Levitical laws of purity; but it is to form a part of holy living and to prepare for the attainment of a closer communion with God." [See JewishEncyclopedia.com]
This baptism was, by the time of Jesus, required for entry to the courts where sacrifices took place, and the temple charged for the water that was used. We may think this is no great hardship, but for the very poor particularly it was a barrier to worship. So John goes to the other side of the Jordan River and proceeds to baptize. This is the crux of the question, "Why then do you baptize if you are not the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the prophet [Moses, who was the first to teach them to wash themselves completely before coming before God]?" The same question will be turned around on the questioners by Jesus himself later when he is asked by what authority he teaches. His response will be, "I will answer you if you will answer one question for me: Where did John's authority come from?" And they were silenced because if they said "From God," then Jesus would say, "Then why didn't you follow him?" and if they said "From men," then the people would turn on them, because the common folk thought John was a great prophet.
This person who is at that point unknown is about to be revealed. And John the Baptist, who has struck fear in the hearts even of Roman soldiers, who then submitted to baptism, is so lowly in relationship to Jesus it is as though John were a child slave who had the lowly job of untying the sandals of guests in the home and washing their feet.
It's an interesting comparison. One might begin by asking, "By whose authority does the slave take off your sandals and wash your feet when you come into your host's courtyard?" Of course, the slave's authority comes from his master. So then if John is to Jesus as the door slave is to his master, who is Jesus?
Since John does not say he is Elijah -- in fact, he denies that he is -- he is not coming before the messiah. So who is this man who is so much higher than John?
This is the question the gospels constantly pose. Who do you say Jesus is? Advent is the season where we stand with John and say, someone far higher than any of us. He is the master, the Son of God, the very essence of God, who comes to dwell in human flesh. He is the repairer of the breach, the morning star. He is the Christ.
Is there a more beautiful passage in all of scripture than this reading for Advent 3? It is the passage that Jesus turned to when he was handed the scroll in the synagogue in Nazareth. It was, to him, the announcement of the beginning of his ministry. Actually that's exactly the way the men in the synagogue took it too. But their reaction was very different from ours (Luke 4:16-30). This didn't surprise Jesus, who understood that the prophet is never welcomed by the people (see Luke 13:28-34). Yet the prophet is working intimately with God: "The Spirit of the sovereign Lord is on me... the Lord has anointed me…."
Isaiah's prophetic poem applies not only to himself but to all of the prophets. All were called and anointed to speak up and thus turn the people back to the sovereign God. This is the true work of the prophet: not to map horoscopes, not to read tarot cards or the lines on the palm of a hand, but to turn the people away from the sidetrack on which they are wandering and back onto the highway that leads to God.
Isaiah's words are also the basis for the calling of every Christian pastor, for the description of the work of those called to preach, teach, and heal. While the Old Testament prophets were largely men and women who were going about their daily business and preached from a position outside the established priesthood, Isaiah is an example of the priest called to a prophetic ministry.
First every ordained pastor is, like the prophet, called to preach. We search the scriptures, study the words, and apply them to the circumstances of our congregation. We are ordained to turn our people toward the path God has for them, preventing, if possible, the congregation from indulging in the behavior tolerated in the world at large.
For many, preaching is the hardest work in the church. Isaiah thought so at first (see 6:1-8). This burning of his lips was not literal; it signifies refining fire, such as produces gold, silver, and copper from the rock in which it is buried. This purification takes him beyond that reluctance to see himself as a worthy tool that God can use for the redemption of his nation.
That reluctance is a central part in the calling of the prophet. Moses claimed that he could not speak except haltingly, so God allowed him to use his brother Aaron to speak to Pharaoh. Jeremiah begged off, saying that he was "only a boy" (Jeremiah 1:6). In the story of Jonah, he is said to have tried to run away from God by taking the first boat out of town. But to each of these God gave the Holy Spirit so they could preach in spite of their hesitation.
Every pastor is also called to teach. We teach confirmation classes or Bible classes or discipleship classes. We teach as we preach. We teach in our church committees. In all of these settings, we are proclaiming the good news and we are freeing our people (and often at the same time ourselves) from the darkness of prejudice, ignorance, and self-centeredness. We are freeing our communities from the captivity of peer pressure, which makes us conform to the ways of the world. We are also releasing our community of faith from the darkness that sin produces in our souls. We are showing the light that Christ wants to bring to the world.
When we do this, we become healers. The word salvation comes from the Latin salve, from which we get the word "salve" -- an ointment that heals. Salvation and healing are one and the same, and that is the reason the gospels portray Jesus healing everyone who came to him and often turned healings into opportunities to teach (see Matthew 4:24, 8:6, and 9:2-7). Let's take apart this poem so that we can see what Jesus -- and we -- are called to do.
The prophetic pastor is on the side of the poor. Not the rich, who seize the land, despoil the water, and enslave the workers who mine for energy and gems. Not the Pharisees, who were so afraid of God that they invented rules to "protect" the law. Not the Sadducees, dressed in their finest robes, tossing coins to the poor in the temple precincts so everyone could see their generosity. No, the prophetic pastor turns to the poor, those on welfare or working without benefits or at less than minimum wage (like farm workers, big box store clerks, those who work on commission only, and waitresses), to proclaim good news.
We need to remind ourselves always that there was no middle class in ancient times, only those who owned some land and those who did not. The small landholders struggled to make a living, and when they failed to do so their land -- like today -- had to be sold. Those who were more prosperous had an eye open to add to their resources and gobbled up the land from those who could no longer work it. Those left landless had to take up, if possible, some kind of trade or hire themselves out to work for the big landholders. These landless peasants were despised by those in power and often could not get justice in the courts. Widows, especially, were helpless to stop their late husbands' land from being sold by their next of kin -- a male who by law was supposed to take responsibility for the widows in the family, but often did not (see the book of Ruth for an example). If the widows had small children, they had to watch their children dress in rags, starve, or die from illness. Lacking resources, they had to turn to begging on street corners or worse. [A good resource that leads to discussion of the state of the poor and how they become poor might be the film Les Miserables. There are also good resources to be had from Bread for the World, the Hunger Taskforce, Habitat for Humanity, the Heifer Project, and the Asian Rural Institute. All of these organizations have websites. At this time of the year these organizations publish highly attractive materials talking about the needs of the poor around the world and here at home, because they generally get as much as 60% of the total they will receive for the year during this holiday season.]
After this proclamation of his call to preach good news to the poor, Isaiah begins to speak about the work of salvation. He was sent to "bind up the brokenhearted." But who are the brokenhearted?
They include, of course, those who have lost a partner, a child, a parent, or a dear friend, or who are facing their own death. They are also those who are facing the debilitating things that happen to our bodies as we grow older.
They are those who have lost a job, health insurance, pension, and their self-respect.
They are those people forced from their homes and even their native lands by war, famine, or economic collapse.
They are those who have been bloodied, raped, wounded, and even sold into slavery.
They are the women whose husbands or lovers withhold support for them or their children; who beat them and/or their children, and tell them they are worthless, stupid, ugly, and deserve a worse beating than this one.
These and others need our declaration of freedom, our assurance that we can be released from the darkness that we live in every day. They are those who need to know that Jesus has told us that we are loved, and that God has promised to exact vengeance on their tormenters.
Isaiah promises that those who think they have lost (in his case, the Jews had lost a war with Babylonian forces and were carried into captivity) will be given every sign that their grief will not last forever. Each one of the things God will replace (see v. 3) is literally part of the lives of the people to whom he is writing. In times of grieving, whether for a lost loved one or for one's sins [e.g., see Genesis 37:34; 2 Samuel 3:31), the mourners would dust their hair with ashes and did not oil their skin or hair. They would wear sackcloth (made of camel or goat hair or other rough material), which they would tear as a sign of dismay.
Each of these signs of mourning will be replaced with their opposite -- ashes will be replaced by a circlet of leaves, such as a bride might wear; the oil of myrrh (a dark, strongly scented resin used to anoint the dead) will be replaced by the oil one might rub over the skin after a bath or the oil used to groom the hair or beard not myrrh, but a welcome scent; and the sackcloth will be replaced by party clothes. They will be like the biggest trees in their world -- spreading oak trees, such as grow on the high places where the Jews had joined the Canaanites in fertility rituals, except that they will be "oaks of righteousness" rather than the oaks where they had engaged in "lust" (Isaiah 57:5).
The people of God, living as they were in the midst of a foreign country, had none of the culture they had known and loved. They were certain that everything was lost when their temple was destroyed, along with most of the city of Jerusalem. But Isaiah assures them that God will help them to rebuild and restore their ruined cities, and the covenant they had with God will be renewed. In fact, Isaiah says, the Jews will be known among the nations forever.
The last two stanzas of this poem [vv. 10-11] are the response of the prophet, but also is probably part of a song used by the Jews of that day to remind themselves of what God had done for them: "I delight greatly in the Lord; my soul rejoices in my God!" The ultimate promise of the prophet is that, like a well-tilled garden produces food, so "the sovereign Lord will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations."
As we are preaching this Advent, we need to be aware of the rising tide of anti-Semitism that is boiling over as the nation of Israel has again been engaged in a shooting war against the Palestinians. In the United States, we have taken the attitude that Christians stand in the place of the Jews in God's covenant. But this idea is nowhere in scripture. Paul insisted over and over again that Gentiles and Jews alike share in the kingdom of Christ. We are to respect each other, even as we disagree over the doctrine of incarnation (God in flesh). Moreover, if we fall into the trap of self-satisfaction as the "chosen ones of the living God," and fail to realize that these words to the Jews of the exile are likewise an admonishment to those who stand alongside them in God's eyes, we will also find ourselves exiled from the will of God.
So the question is, will we be the people who are like the well-tilled soil, so that righteousness can take root in us? The prophet's message, after all, is not just that God will redeem but that God also intends that we should become godly, holy people. That is the call. That is the reason for the advent of the Christ. The meaning of Christmas is that God has broken through to our world, not by blasting away a wall of separation between us and heaven, but by chipping a small entrance into our world and changing that world one person at a time.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-24
Thessalonians is the oldest piece of the New Testament. It dates to about 50 CE, which means it was written a mere twenty years after the death and resurrection of Jesus. (Mark, the oldest gospel, was written about twenty years after this letter.) Based on what we know from contemporaneous writings, it appears that the early church had a heavy reliance on the movement of the Holy Spirit in their worship. Speaking in tongues was accepted as proof that the speaker had received the Spirit in a divine baptism that followed water baptism [see Acts 19:1-5]. "John's baptism" -- called this because John the Baptist immersed people in water for the repentance of sins. It was considered that the power Jesus had to heal and work miracles came from the Holy Spirit [Acts 10:36-38], and that the original apostles were able to do the same things Jesus did by the power of the Holy Spirit that blew over them on Pentecost. Early worship services often included both speaking in tongues and prophecy, practices that today are considered to be Pentecostal or charismatic but which over the ages have been part of the mystical side of Christianity.
Mystics are those who believe that the spiritual and the physical worlds coexist in the same space and that God can break through into our everyday world and speak to us. Mystics' spirituality includes visions, prophecy, speaking in tongues, spiritual healing, and the like. The stories of the archangel Gabriel announcing to Zechariah and Jesus' mother Mary that they are about to experience miracle births are, at their hearts, mystical stories. Mystics use silence, meditation, and chanting to prepare themselves to hear the voice of God. This strand of Christianity has always lived alongside the rational spirituality of those who do not expect to hear God speak, but who are faithful in worship and service even so. Sometimes one strand is larger than the other, but both have coexisted throughout the history of our faith. Paul is addressing such a group in Thessalonica (pronounced Thes-sa-lone-I-ka), a group of people he had known and worked with for a short but intense time.
Paul has acknowledged that there are some problems in the congregation that need to be addressed. This church is a mix of Christian Jews and Gentiles, with all of the problems that go with mixed congregations. There are, as always, some people who are lazy and who are not as firm in the faith as one would like (v. 14). Paul says that these people need help, not chastisement. How can we keep a congregation working together in these circumstances?
Paul's straightforward recommendation is to "rejoice always." How can we manage this? Paul is not telling them (or us) that we should live in denial of the pain in the world or in our lives. There is always pain in our world, and God also suffers as a result. Rather, Paul is talking about a mindset. We can be the "I am but a miserable worm" form of Christian, full of the woe of being human in the face of God, or we can be the "children of a loving God." Paul is pushing us toward the latter.
It is very much the style of some pastors to preach constantly that we can never, by any means, please God. In this worldview, we must take every opportunity to make people feel bad about themselves so they can be brought to a recognition of their sins and repent. These pastors will even take time away from preaching the hope of the resurrection at a funeral to chastise the people gathered in grief! Rather than talking about the lessons we might learn from the deceased's life and death, and the forgiving nature of God we have come to know through Jesus, they emphasize the sin and death we see in the world. This is an enormous waste of the opportunity to present the love of God to people who never attend church except for weddings and funerals.
As Paul says earlier (in chapter 5), we can gently persuade people to turn to God, especially in times of trouble; preaching about a loving God who reaches down to us in our misery can bring many more of our listeners to a new path in life. "Rejoice always!" can be a clarion call to acknowledge the hand of God in our lives bringing to our minds the many blessings we have received. Rejoicing in this sense always has to do with our relationship with God, not with the nonsense that permeates much of the Christmas season in the secular world. It does mean that we need to remind ourselves that the joy we find in our relationship to God can be had at any moment, in the midst of whatever chaos is threatening. Most of our emotions grow out of our habits of thinking, our expectations of God.
If we have grown up in a family that is unable to express love, if we have endured war or violence, if we feel restricted by our work or we are experiencing disability, we can become used to negative thoughts. We may think that this is the way everyone feels. Paul is encouraging us to reprogram ourselves. "Rejoice always" is not the same as "Have a holly, jolly Christmas!" or "Don't worry, be happy!" We can rejoice no matter the weather or time of year if we can remind ourselves of the joy that comes when we are connected to God through Christ. Brain scientists tell us that usually we receive what we give out: If we show compassion toward another person, that person is more likely to show compassion the next time they have the opportunity. [Go to "AmazingLife247" on YouTube for a visual on this principle.]
"Give thanks in all circumstances" likewise calls us from dwelling on our problems and wallowing in misery. Not that we should never grieve -- grief is a part of everyone's life and being a Christian does not stop that. Not that there is never a reason to be angry -- even at God! (Amazingly, God seems to be able to stand up to our anger.) Not that we are never afraid -- it would be utterly stupid to not be afraid of a person with a gun or a flash flood coming in our direction! But we can be drowned, spiritually, by all the trouble the world is in these days.
The injunction to "pray continually" has produced some interesting spiritual practices. People have tried to incorporate a brief prayer of praise into their consciousness until every breath produces those words. [J.D. Salinger's book Franny & Zooey builds on the practice.] This has fascinated people of many faiths. These phrases may be scripture passages or a phrase as simple as "Thank you, Lord." This practice can produce inner calm in a person no matter how fast-paced their lifestyle may otherwise be.
I have personally found that praying continually has less to do with speaking words and more to do with leaving our hearts open so that God can contact us at any time. This is not an easy spiritual practice, but it does have concrete results: We become more spiritually attuned, more open to the movement of the Spirit, and more able to call on God or reach out to others when we attempt to keep in touch with God every minute rather than at certain prayer times.
The injunctions in verses 19-22 refer to a community that believes in the movement of the Spirit in such things as speaking in tongues and sometimes speaking prophecy in the course of a worship service or prayer group. Paul argues against "quenching the Spirit," which in this context would mean stopping people from engaging in those mystical or charismatic ways of worshiping because they have not been part of our tradition or they seem weird or frightening. It is all too easy to tell people to pay no attention to prophecy that comes in this way; after all, we haven't had prophets in our local congregations in... ever!
But in a world in which we all too often fall into the "Seven Last Words of the Church" ("We've never done it that way before!"), we are all too likely to miss out on true prophecy. Think, for example, of all-white churches located in neighborhoods that are changing. How do we reach out across racial, language, age, or cultural lines to invite and include people in our congregation? Here's the prophecy: If we fail to do this, this congregation will surely die; we will be unable to pay the bills and will have missed the boat in failing to reach out in the name of God.
Paul's orders are that we "test every prophecy" and reject every kind of evil, but also to "hold on to what is good." Let's not give up using our brains, he seems to be saying, but let's not simply reject what others are saying they have heard from God. As Jesus said, "No bad tree ever grew good fruit." Not every scold is a prophet, but those who hear from God are not necessarily insane.
Paul's final words are a blessing: "The God of peace sanctify you." In the Wesleyan tradition, we used to talk about sanctification. It was seen as a "second work" of salvation. First comes "justification" -- are we are lined up with God? Then comes "sanctification" -- are we being made holy? It is not enough to be born again in the Wesleyan tradition. We have to begin to walk, we have to study and learn how to be God's people, and we have to learn to stand up to evil. We have to be "going on toward perfection." Being born again is much like being born physically: It's only the beginning. There is an entire life in Christ that brings us to God, and we are to progress in our ability to walk as Christ walked. Jesus expected his disciples to walk and work as he had done, and he expects the same from us. But we aren't left to do this on our own. God will do this work in us -- if we let him.
John 1:6-8, 19-28
John's gospel begins with an extended hymn in praise of the Logos, a divine emanation, who comes as light into a world shrouded in darkness. But between the stanzas of that hymn we get a piece of the story of John the Baptist, who -- according to Luke -- was related to Jesus [see Luke 1].
The question that we put to any preacher is "By what authority do you say this?" Many denominations require seminary training for this very reason. "Does this pastor teach what our denomination teaches or some other doctrine?" Others require some indication that this pastor has been gifted by the Holy Spirit, which is indicated by the style and content of that person's preaching. In Jesus' day, people would listen to all kinds of teaching as long as the man doing this preached against sin of all kinds. It didn't hurt if that preacher also railed against the Romans and those who co-operated with the Romans.
The Jews of what we call the first century were eager for a messiah, someone who could organize a rebellion against Rome and throw out the trappings of the empire. When John came to the banks of the Jordan River and started dipping people in the water there as a sign of repentance, he certainly filled the bill for a great many people. Even some of the Roman soldiers came to listen to him and wound up being baptized. So it was natural that those who were looking for a messiah would come and question John as to whether he was that anointed one promised by God.
John was an honest man as well as a powerful preacher. It would have been easy to say, "Yes, I am the Messiah." But John was very aware that he had a specific role to play in God's script. The gospel writer makes it plain that the Baptist "came only as a witness to the light." But this did not satisfy those who had been sent by the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem. They demand, "Are you Elijah?"
That question may not make sense to us. Elijah was a prophet back in the time of the Kings [see 1 Kings 16ff]. To ask this question is to give credence to the idea of reincarnation. But to the Jews of his day, it made perfect sense. God might send a prophet back to guide the people through a time like that in which the prophet originally lived. John the Baptist surely knew that the way he was dressed raised this question -- he is clothed exactly as the prophet Elijah was in 2 Kings 1:8. And it had been foretold that Elijah would come before the messiah to prepare the people. Even today, Jews celebrating Passover set aside one chair and a glass of wine for Elijah, in the event he might come through the door and drink from that cup. But again, John answers no.
So they ask him if he is the prophet (the phrase is to be found in Isaiah 4:2-4). "The prophet" is ambiguous to us, as there were many ancient prophets, but to the Jews, the prophet refers to Moses. Again, the answer is no. He says he is the one Isaiah was referring to -- the voice crying out in the wilderness, "Prepare the way of the Lord! Make a straight highway in the desert for our God to travel on!" But that phrase usually was taken to mean the prophet Elijah, in his role as forerunner of the messiah.
What can he possibly mean? The messengers are clearly bewildered. There is a trick to this conversation, which neither the Pharisees nor the Jewish authorities were ready for. Jesus was not the messiah in the usual sense of first-century Judaism. In the gospel writer's view, he was not a man chosen and anointed by God -- Jesus is God incarnate, i.e., God in human flesh (the meaning of the Latin in carne). This is no ordinary messiah; this is God himself coming to repair the breach between heaven and earth. So John is none of the people the authorities have been expecting. Jesus is hidden from the world so far. But John is warning them: If they are disturbed by what John in doing at the river, they should be alarmed by the coming revelation of God.
Now the Jews had practiced baptism for eons. Before the giving of the law on Mount Sinai, the people were ordered to bathe their bodies and their clothing so they would be fit to hear the words of God. So from the very beginning of Yahwistic worship, a form of baptism was known.
In the days of the temple, there was a three-step ritual that included the washing of clothes, being sprinkled with blood, and then a full-immersion bath. The Jewish encyclopedia says, "These three acts [were] the initiatory rites always performed upon proselytes, 'to bring them under the wings of the Shekinah' " [the Spirit of God]. In fact, "Baptism is not merely for the purpose of expiating a special transgression, as is the case chiefly in the violation of the so-called Levitical laws of purity; but it is to form a part of holy living and to prepare for the attainment of a closer communion with God." [See JewishEncyclopedia.com]
This baptism was, by the time of Jesus, required for entry to the courts where sacrifices took place, and the temple charged for the water that was used. We may think this is no great hardship, but for the very poor particularly it was a barrier to worship. So John goes to the other side of the Jordan River and proceeds to baptize. This is the crux of the question, "Why then do you baptize if you are not the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the prophet [Moses, who was the first to teach them to wash themselves completely before coming before God]?" The same question will be turned around on the questioners by Jesus himself later when he is asked by what authority he teaches. His response will be, "I will answer you if you will answer one question for me: Where did John's authority come from?" And they were silenced because if they said "From God," then Jesus would say, "Then why didn't you follow him?" and if they said "From men," then the people would turn on them, because the common folk thought John was a great prophet.
This person who is at that point unknown is about to be revealed. And John the Baptist, who has struck fear in the hearts even of Roman soldiers, who then submitted to baptism, is so lowly in relationship to Jesus it is as though John were a child slave who had the lowly job of untying the sandals of guests in the home and washing their feet.
It's an interesting comparison. One might begin by asking, "By whose authority does the slave take off your sandals and wash your feet when you come into your host's courtyard?" Of course, the slave's authority comes from his master. So then if John is to Jesus as the door slave is to his master, who is Jesus?
Since John does not say he is Elijah -- in fact, he denies that he is -- he is not coming before the messiah. So who is this man who is so much higher than John?
This is the question the gospels constantly pose. Who do you say Jesus is? Advent is the season where we stand with John and say, someone far higher than any of us. He is the master, the Son of God, the very essence of God, who comes to dwell in human flesh. He is the repairer of the breach, the morning star. He is the Christ.
