Wait till it's over
Commentary
We admire those who seem able to maintain their faith in the midst of the most impossible circumstances. And we even think well of ourselves after we have been tested, averring that it was good for our faith. We tend to forget the deep despair we felt at the time. And when we examine their stories more closely, we often find that even the greatest of saints admits to "dark nights of the soul" when God seems to have forgotten them.
With Christmas Day only a bit more than a week away, our people are all caught up in lighthearted preparation. Our task as preachers of the Word is to get beneath all that apparent frivolity and speak to the aching hearts of those who need to hear the Good News that God has not abandoned them. Psychologists remind us that behind the holiday facade there often is a good deal of sadness. Suicide rates tend to soar at Christmastime. After imbibing at office parties, opening gifts they don't need, and weeks of superficial "Merry Christmas" greetings, many find themselves already weary of the "Christmas spirit" and in desperate need to hear a word of hope.
This is the day to try to catch the attention of those who wonder if there is a word from God for them. To hear it, they must face their sense of hopelessness. Only then will they be ready to welcome the Good News of the coming of the Christ child. It is a day to call for trust in God's sure promise.
"How is it proved?" asks Studdert Kennedy. "It isn't proved, you fool! How can you prove a victory before it's won? How can you prove a man who leads to be a leader worth following unless you follow to the death, and out beyond mere death .... And you? You want to argue. Well, I won't. It's a choice, and I choose Christ." (As quoted in Frank C. Laubach, Letters By A Modern Mystic, Fleming H. Revel Company, 1958, p. 55.)
Grist For The Mill
Isaiah 35:1-10
For those who, like von Rad, believe that "the preaching of Isaiah represents the theological high-water mark of the whole Old Testament" (Gerhard von Rad, The Message of the Prophets, Harper and Row, 1965, p. 118), Isaiah 35 is another prime example of the skill of this remarkable prophet. The cadence is that of a choral symphony. Beginning with a burst of joyful song (vv. 1-2), it continues with subdued and tender sympathy for the suffering and the faint-hearted (vv. 3-6a), and ends with a crescendo of assurance for the future of God's people.
And if difficult circumstances bring out the best in a preacher, then the setting for this chapter is appropriate. Chapters 34 and 35 belong together. The contrast between judgment and hope could not be more poignant. What could be a more graphic description of judgment: "The Lord has a sword; it is sated with blood" (34:5)? What could be a more exquisite expression of hope: "The ransomed of the Lord shall return ... with singing ... Sorrow and sighing shall flee away" (35:10)?
In every congregation of listeners -- even as they rush the season with carols of joy -- there are those who are ready to go over the edge. They feel themselves under judgment, wondering how others can be so upbeat when they wonder if they want another day to dawn. Our task, indeed, our privilege and responsibility, is to give them the sure and certain promise that the last word for those who turn to God is a word of hope and reassurance. We may not have the poetic skills of Isaiah. But a simple, compassionate word of grace will be sufficient.
James 5:7-10
It is one thing to speak words of grace, hope and reassurance. But what shall we say to those for whom the night seems endless? What word for those for whom the dawn never seems to come? James answers, "Be patient." Four times this word recurs in these few verses.
At first blush a word from The Letter of James seems out of place for the Advent season. Some would say, for any season of the church's year. Luther and many others, while not denying that James belongs in the canon of Scripture, push it to the outer edge: an "epistle of straw," doctrinally inferior. But James is getting better press in recent years. While "short on Christology, it has become increasingly apparent that James is among the richest of the NT writings in its reflection upon God -- its theology," writes Gench. (Francis Taylor Gench, The General Letters, Gerhard Krodel, ed., Fortress Press, 1995, p. 30.)
When James appeals for "patience," he is not speaking about something superficial. This is patience rooted in the certainty that God will not abandon us, that God will not forget us, that God will come. Patience is rooted in God, who is "slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness" (Exodus 34:6). "Christian patience," writes Barclay, "is not a grim, bleak acceptance of a situation. The Christian waits, not as one who waits for the night, but as one who waits for the morning. It may be that this is the hardest task of all for an age which has made a god of speed." (William Barclay, Flesh and Spirit, Abingdon Press, 1962, p. 96.)
Matthew 11:2-11
For the last two Sundays we have struggled with the question, "When will he come?" But there is another, deeper, more enigmatic question. "Will he come?" or even more profoundly, "Is he the One?" John the Baptist languishes in prison, wrestling with despair, wondering if the One whose sandal he was unworthy to untie is really the promised Messiah. Until now Jesus has been the popular Jesus of Nazareth. He has healed the sick, lifted up the lame, enlightened with words of wisdom. Crowds have felt drawn to him.
Prisons in that day were often little more than pits where prisoners were thrown together with no regard for the seriousness of their crime. Bread and water were standard fare. Sanitation was primitive. For a man who loved the fresh, pure breezes of the open spaces and who savored the good, natural taste of locusts and wild honey, this had to be hell. Little wonder that John wonders if he may have been mistaken about him.
How does one make it through the night? Frank Sinatra suggests, "It makes no difference -- some use Scotch, some use religion." Jesus knows how John will make it. No matter what winds may be blowing across the surface of the waters, he knows that John, hearing words of reassurance about the kingdom, would not be shaken.
John Henry Newman wrote the lines for "Lead, Kindly Light" after emerging from a prison of doubt.
The night is dark, and I am far from home;
Lead thou me on.
Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene, one step enough for me.
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By James A. Nestingen
Isaiah 35:1-10
Living hand to mouth in a hostile environment can make a person wary, trimming hopes and keeping expectations to a minimum. When promise finally does break loose, it quickly boils into ecstasy.
The Masai people of the East African plains, living on the edges of the Serengeti in Tanzania and up into Kenya, have been rendered conservative by their surroundings. It is hard land, climate and topography coming together to produce a zoo for western tourists and a struggle for those who live there. Rains are spotty, pastures are hard to find and then become hunting grounds for lions who prey on the cattle.
Adapting over the centuries since their migration further down the Nile, the Masai have learned to deal with the difficulties. They have developed rigid structures of life, stratifying age groups and the sexes, ritualizing movements through the stages of life, preserving life and riches in the blood of their cattle. They are some of the great people of the earth, standing tall, thin and noble in clothing familiar from biblical times. David would be at home amongst them, fending off the lions with his spear. He would also be at home in the Masai villages at night, where sexual exploitation and cattle thieving threaten the people's stability.
Masai tradition, so important to their survival, has also made them all but impervious to mission. For over a century and a half, movement was slow and uncertain.
But the good Lord broke through, opening the eyes of a Masai leader much as Isaiah's eyes were opened in a vision. Since then, twice a year African church leaders have set out for Masailand. Crossing roadless, open land they have gone deep into the bush, there baptizing women, children and men. Challenged to explain what they were doing by a skeptical old man, one of the elders, a church leader replied, "God is tired of the way you treat your women and fight with one another over stolen cattle. He has sent us to wash you up so that he can take you home." Each time there has been such a mass baptism, it has rained -- the creation itself joining the creature in celebration.
The path to Masailand, such as it is, has become the road of salvation. The one who in the church's eyes fulfilled Isaiah's hope has traveled over it to reclaim an exiled people in a magnificent homecoming. So the land, a dry plains kinder to animals than to humanity, bears testimony to a future transformation. And the lion's roar which now terrifies an African night will become a greeting to the one whose coming shapes the hope of Christmas and the world beyond, as creation and creature are joined in ecstasy.
With Christmas Day only a bit more than a week away, our people are all caught up in lighthearted preparation. Our task as preachers of the Word is to get beneath all that apparent frivolity and speak to the aching hearts of those who need to hear the Good News that God has not abandoned them. Psychologists remind us that behind the holiday facade there often is a good deal of sadness. Suicide rates tend to soar at Christmastime. After imbibing at office parties, opening gifts they don't need, and weeks of superficial "Merry Christmas" greetings, many find themselves already weary of the "Christmas spirit" and in desperate need to hear a word of hope.
This is the day to try to catch the attention of those who wonder if there is a word from God for them. To hear it, they must face their sense of hopelessness. Only then will they be ready to welcome the Good News of the coming of the Christ child. It is a day to call for trust in God's sure promise.
"How is it proved?" asks Studdert Kennedy. "It isn't proved, you fool! How can you prove a victory before it's won? How can you prove a man who leads to be a leader worth following unless you follow to the death, and out beyond mere death .... And you? You want to argue. Well, I won't. It's a choice, and I choose Christ." (As quoted in Frank C. Laubach, Letters By A Modern Mystic, Fleming H. Revel Company, 1958, p. 55.)
Grist For The Mill
Isaiah 35:1-10
For those who, like von Rad, believe that "the preaching of Isaiah represents the theological high-water mark of the whole Old Testament" (Gerhard von Rad, The Message of the Prophets, Harper and Row, 1965, p. 118), Isaiah 35 is another prime example of the skill of this remarkable prophet. The cadence is that of a choral symphony. Beginning with a burst of joyful song (vv. 1-2), it continues with subdued and tender sympathy for the suffering and the faint-hearted (vv. 3-6a), and ends with a crescendo of assurance for the future of God's people.
And if difficult circumstances bring out the best in a preacher, then the setting for this chapter is appropriate. Chapters 34 and 35 belong together. The contrast between judgment and hope could not be more poignant. What could be a more graphic description of judgment: "The Lord has a sword; it is sated with blood" (34:5)? What could be a more exquisite expression of hope: "The ransomed of the Lord shall return ... with singing ... Sorrow and sighing shall flee away" (35:10)?
In every congregation of listeners -- even as they rush the season with carols of joy -- there are those who are ready to go over the edge. They feel themselves under judgment, wondering how others can be so upbeat when they wonder if they want another day to dawn. Our task, indeed, our privilege and responsibility, is to give them the sure and certain promise that the last word for those who turn to God is a word of hope and reassurance. We may not have the poetic skills of Isaiah. But a simple, compassionate word of grace will be sufficient.
James 5:7-10
It is one thing to speak words of grace, hope and reassurance. But what shall we say to those for whom the night seems endless? What word for those for whom the dawn never seems to come? James answers, "Be patient." Four times this word recurs in these few verses.
At first blush a word from The Letter of James seems out of place for the Advent season. Some would say, for any season of the church's year. Luther and many others, while not denying that James belongs in the canon of Scripture, push it to the outer edge: an "epistle of straw," doctrinally inferior. But James is getting better press in recent years. While "short on Christology, it has become increasingly apparent that James is among the richest of the NT writings in its reflection upon God -- its theology," writes Gench. (Francis Taylor Gench, The General Letters, Gerhard Krodel, ed., Fortress Press, 1995, p. 30.)
When James appeals for "patience," he is not speaking about something superficial. This is patience rooted in the certainty that God will not abandon us, that God will not forget us, that God will come. Patience is rooted in God, who is "slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness" (Exodus 34:6). "Christian patience," writes Barclay, "is not a grim, bleak acceptance of a situation. The Christian waits, not as one who waits for the night, but as one who waits for the morning. It may be that this is the hardest task of all for an age which has made a god of speed." (William Barclay, Flesh and Spirit, Abingdon Press, 1962, p. 96.)
Matthew 11:2-11
For the last two Sundays we have struggled with the question, "When will he come?" But there is another, deeper, more enigmatic question. "Will he come?" or even more profoundly, "Is he the One?" John the Baptist languishes in prison, wrestling with despair, wondering if the One whose sandal he was unworthy to untie is really the promised Messiah. Until now Jesus has been the popular Jesus of Nazareth. He has healed the sick, lifted up the lame, enlightened with words of wisdom. Crowds have felt drawn to him.
Prisons in that day were often little more than pits where prisoners were thrown together with no regard for the seriousness of their crime. Bread and water were standard fare. Sanitation was primitive. For a man who loved the fresh, pure breezes of the open spaces and who savored the good, natural taste of locusts and wild honey, this had to be hell. Little wonder that John wonders if he may have been mistaken about him.
How does one make it through the night? Frank Sinatra suggests, "It makes no difference -- some use Scotch, some use religion." Jesus knows how John will make it. No matter what winds may be blowing across the surface of the waters, he knows that John, hearing words of reassurance about the kingdom, would not be shaken.
John Henry Newman wrote the lines for "Lead, Kindly Light" after emerging from a prison of doubt.
The night is dark, and I am far from home;
Lead thou me on.
Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene, one step enough for me.
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By James A. Nestingen
Isaiah 35:1-10
Living hand to mouth in a hostile environment can make a person wary, trimming hopes and keeping expectations to a minimum. When promise finally does break loose, it quickly boils into ecstasy.
The Masai people of the East African plains, living on the edges of the Serengeti in Tanzania and up into Kenya, have been rendered conservative by their surroundings. It is hard land, climate and topography coming together to produce a zoo for western tourists and a struggle for those who live there. Rains are spotty, pastures are hard to find and then become hunting grounds for lions who prey on the cattle.
Adapting over the centuries since their migration further down the Nile, the Masai have learned to deal with the difficulties. They have developed rigid structures of life, stratifying age groups and the sexes, ritualizing movements through the stages of life, preserving life and riches in the blood of their cattle. They are some of the great people of the earth, standing tall, thin and noble in clothing familiar from biblical times. David would be at home amongst them, fending off the lions with his spear. He would also be at home in the Masai villages at night, where sexual exploitation and cattle thieving threaten the people's stability.
Masai tradition, so important to their survival, has also made them all but impervious to mission. For over a century and a half, movement was slow and uncertain.
But the good Lord broke through, opening the eyes of a Masai leader much as Isaiah's eyes were opened in a vision. Since then, twice a year African church leaders have set out for Masailand. Crossing roadless, open land they have gone deep into the bush, there baptizing women, children and men. Challenged to explain what they were doing by a skeptical old man, one of the elders, a church leader replied, "God is tired of the way you treat your women and fight with one another over stolen cattle. He has sent us to wash you up so that he can take you home." Each time there has been such a mass baptism, it has rained -- the creation itself joining the creature in celebration.
The path to Masailand, such as it is, has become the road of salvation. The one who in the church's eyes fulfilled Isaiah's hope has traveled over it to reclaim an exiled people in a magnificent homecoming. So the land, a dry plains kinder to animals than to humanity, bears testimony to a future transformation. And the lion's roar which now terrifies an African night will become a greeting to the one whose coming shapes the hope of Christmas and the world beyond, as creation and creature are joined in ecstasy.
