The Promise of Emmanuel
Sermon
Promise of Peace, Call for Justice
SERMONS FOR ADVENT, CHRISTMAS AND EPIPHANY
This is a strange season in which we are now living. Children have been bugging parents about putting up the Christmas tree and decorations. Since late November we have been bombarded with jingles and signs and advertisements imploring us to buy and buy and buy gifts so we shall be ready for Christmas.
Children have long lists of what Santa is to bring: dolls, race car sets, bikes, books, computers, televisions, and a thousand other wants. There is a heightened sense of anticipation present in our lives. We are eagerly looking forward in our Advent hope for Christmas.
People with whom I have visited talk of vacations in the next week. Students have been excited about their break from school. Many of us, I suspect, have looked forward to parties, the family gatherings, the break in the routine of our lives. There is anticipation abroad for us just now.
But are we aware of the full depth and significance of our anticipation? For some students examinations lie just beyond the break. Bills will arrive for all of those gifts purchased. The day-to-day problems of being a child still will face those awaiting Santa's coming. There will still be adjustment to playmates, family tensions, sharing love and gifts with family members.
There is, if only we are aware of it, a kind of apprehension lurking behind and beneath our anticipation, which is the word of the Lord in today's text. The Emmanuel passage in Isaiah 7 is not a Messianic text. The text speaks of God's activity apart from the child. God's activity is imminent and it will take place in a concrete historical situation.
Jerusalem and King Ahaz are threatened by a coalition of Israel and Syria. Ahaz is faced with loss of his throne and Jerusalem with defeat. But Isaiah the prophet says God will act to bring freedom from the pressures of the present. The future of Jerusalem and Ahaz is in God's hands and will be protected.
But there is another word in this text. It is a word of judgment, a word of threat for Jerusalem and Ahaz. The divine activity will, also, bring with it death, destruction, and defeat for a disobedient king in the future. Assyria will arise and be the instrument of God to judge Ahaz for his unfaithfulness. It is this dual anticipation, this enigmatic expectation that we rarely apprehend. Or if we do sense it, we quickly push it into the deepest recesses of our hearts and minds, because it is not at all pleasant.
Advent is anticipation. It is anticipation of God's coming to us. And on the Fourth Sunday in Advent it is anticipation of the birth of Jesus, the sign of God with us. But in the baby born and placed in a straw-filled feed trough, in the young child whom we rhapsodically call Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, there is the one who shatters sham and hypocrisy. There is the one who overturns money tables in the Temple. There is the one who dies and turns the whole cosmic order upside down; for out of the death of Jesus, God raises him to new life.
We stand today under God's activity in our lives. God is with us. God is with us now, opening our future, calling into question our unfaithful present and self-secured future. This dual activity of our God: judging and freeing, killing and making alive, forgiving and calling into question is present in our life and world now.
God is with us. God is with us calling us into question and judging us for the thousands upon thousands of poor and hungry and homeless people who are with us in the United States. God is with us holding us accountable for our support of racism at home and abroad. God is with us judging us for our giving higher priority in our lives to machines for war and destruction than to those things which make for peace.
You will never in a million years convince me that our God is not with us holding us accountable and under judgment for our systems of injustice and inequality, for our spreading a genteel veneer of perfume over the rottenness of life at its worst so the stench will not offend us, for our blindness and deafness to the cries of the weak and the dispossessed and the powerless.
The coming of God to be with us in judgment is part of our Advent anticipation. God is a God who hears and knows the cries of the oppressed and the enslaved. And God's coming which we anticipate is a coming in concern for those persons whom we forget and deny and overlook.
But God is with us, also, to free us from our unconcern, to forgive us for our sins of omission and commission, to open our futures so we might live hopefully and faithfully. In the coming of our God there is a creative power set loose. This power of God with us calls us beyond ourselves to be aware of our sisters and brothers in need. God with us challenges us and enables us to let our lives become a source of life for others. God with us is the promise of God that calls us to take our present life and world with utmost seriousness and concern.
I was at Duke University in the year Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot to death. Students at Duke moved to the aid of the non-academic employees at the university, most of whom were black. The students held a vigil in which they asked the university to pay these employees the minimum wage. The university had to re-evaluate its total hiring practices. The university was called into question, but those students demonstrated concrete care and concern for brothers and sisters in need. Many students in that event acted out of a deep sense of Christian commitment and motivation. God was with them, freeing and empowering them to be faithful in their present time.
Basically I am not an optimist. I do not look for people to act for the welfare of others in and of themselves. I do not think the Gospel does either. The Gospel is the good news that God loves us, that God calls us into fellowship with our Lord and with each other. In that relationship our God is present among us, enabling us to see the present differently because we have been seen differently by God through Christ Jesus. Our God comes to us and calls us into our present time to act faithfully for justice and righteousness in the human community. And we do not go alone, for God is with us as we help a friend in crisis, our spouse through a traumatic change, as we express our political action to aid the deprived, despairing, dying ones.
In this Advent season our loving God is with us. Our God is present and coming to us to call our petty gods and goddesses into question, to call us radically into question for our self-seeking securities, and to free us from all that would close our futures and destroy life.
Isaiah spoke of a pregnant woman who was about to give birth to a child. That child was the sign of God's promised help for King Ahaz. Centuries later another pregnant woman, named Mary, gave birth to a baby boy. That child born in Bethlehem is God with us. In Jesus the mighty, exalted, holy God became like us and continues to be with us. Because our God is with us, we can apprehend the dual nature of our Advent anticipation and deal with this duality in our own lives and world.
The advent promise is that God is coming to us ever new and ever fresh. And yet the Advent promise is, also, that God is with us, freeing us to cast away the works of darkness because we are God's people.
Isaiah 9:2-7
Christmas Eve / Christmas Day
Christmas Vision
Darkness, broken by soft candlelight and electric light somewhat harsher and reflected by shiny surfaces. A cross, two candlesticks, antiseptically clean robes, well-scrubbed faces, finely-dressed, well-mannered, reasonably contented people gathered here in this place, in this building. For what are we here?
Why are we here? To sing favorite carols? To seek forgiveness for guilt? The family always comes together to church on Christmas? To glimpse a vision?
Another dark night when a few stars pierce the black, like tiny bulbs blinking atop a tall pole. Rough countryside whose stillness is broken by the baa's of sheep. Cold, dirty sheep milling together for warmth and comfort. Tired, stinking men huddled around a fire for warmth and comfort. A blinding, flashing light. They glimpse a vision.
Angels singing, directing them to go and see what has happened in a small stable in Bethlehem. There animals and family hover over a feed trough. These shepherds of the fields have glimpsed a vision.
Vision, grandeur, perspective. What else when the Word becomes flesh and dwells among us full of grace and truth? How else do you and I even have the possibility of perceiving, understanding, but vision?
There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,
and a branch shall grow out of his roots.
And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him,
the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the spirit of counsel and might,
the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.
(Isaiah 11:1-3, RSV)
Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her
that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned,
that she has received from the Lord's hand
double for all her sins. (Isaiah 40:1-2, RSV)
Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and
with his stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned every one to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is dumb,
so he opened not his mouth. (Isaiah 53:4-7, RSV)
Arise, shine; for your light has come,
and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.
For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and
thick darkness the peoples;
but the Lord will arise upon you, and his glory will be seen upon you.
And nations shall come to your light, and kings to
the brightness of your rising. (Isaiah 60:1-3, RSV)
The Vision. God wrapped in a baby, in human flesh, opens history and changes circumstances. How else do we see a newborn babe in billowing straw as God? How else do we see the most impossible of all impossibilities, life out of death? When we are grasped by the vision of God in human form our whole perspective changes. The way we view the world, the way we view things is different. The vision of God in human flesh turns the whole crazy, mixed-up mess on its ear. The drunk lying in his vomit is a figure hiding the Babe of Bethlehem. A young, punk kid, mouthing profanities and oozing hatred for all, shields a dying form on a tree. An old lady, wracked in cancerous pain, wraps a risen life in death.
Vision. How else shall we see God at work in our world now? See God in darkness and light? See God in bread and wine? See God wrapped around us here as we share peace and love with one another?
Did you come here to see candles, a tree, people, a church, God? There are mixed-up motives for our being here, for our existing and working and living. But the word of the angels to those smelly shepherds is the word of God to ancient Israel and comes rolling down the years to us, ever new, ever fresh.
The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light;
those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness,
on them has light shined.
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
and his name will be called
"Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."
(Isaiah 9:2, 6, RSV)
The coronation oracle for a king of the house of David speaks of God's action to bring peace and well-being for all of God's people.
In the midst of tinsel, the trappings, the titillating gaiety, a haunting vision. The vision of a messianic king from God, the vision of a child in the straw, the vision of God in our midst in the Child of Christmas and in the Christ of the Cross.
The architect creates a concrete and steel structure that lays open something hidden and real. Vision. The artist points toward life in color and line and form. Vision. The musician with dissonanance and harmony, brass and strings and percussion shows us life in depth and emotion. Vision. The poet expresses in concrete, abstract words depth and meaning and joy. Vision.
In the midst of all the glamour and the gaiety and the gifts of this season, entertain the possibility of vision. God is present with us in grandeur and glory. The Messiah in the Manger, the Crucified Christ on the Cross, the Risen and Reigning Lord still comes to us in our world. God still is present and at work, giving of the divine self to us and for us. Open your eyes, throw open your whole self, allow yourself to be grasped by the vision of God present and at work in our world now.
Isaiah 63:7-9
Christmas 1
The Promise of Redemption
Today the glow of Christmas festivity and family gatherings warm and permeate our lives. Still the thrill of carols about the birth of Jesus tickles our imaginations and excites our hearts. The holiday cheer surrounds us and envelops us in glad thoughts of a baby born, whose life is pure gift to us, to put back together all that has been ripped apart. We have, once again, heard the old, old story of God's faithful and steadfast love for us. And who can resist a warm, cuddly baby?
Yet we know deep in our guts that the world in which we live is still rocking and rolling in sheer madness. We know the threat of death from terrorists or nuclear disaster or cancer or traffic accident. We know the possibilities of family fractures, of job lay-off, of crushing poverty, or grinding old age. We know the reality of family farms lost, of being uprooted and homeless, of debilitating despair that weakens and wastes. We know the reality that while God has come to us in Jesus, the world still is not whole and peaceful.
Ancient Israel knew similar realities in her life. She knew God had freed her from Pharoah's Egyptian brickyard and made her God's own people. She knew God had elected and protected her in her past life. She, also, knew her life and world had caved in upon her. The Babylonian Army had defeated them. Jerusalem and the temple, God's dwelling place, were in ruins. There was not a member of the house of David ruling them. Their ordered and secure life was in ruins. Israel was in exile. Everything that had rooted us meaningfully, purposefully, valuably was devastated.
Today's text is the beginning of a community lament that God's defeated and despairing people raised to God, seeking divine help. They cry to God for deliverance, confessing their own sin and rebellion. The basis for the confession and the appeal for help is Israel's remembrance of the past actions of God in her life to deliver and protect them.
The community recalls in worship the steadfast, sure love of God for Israel. God had kept covenant with the people, even though they had broken covenant with God. God had performed praiseworthy deeds and granted great goodness to the house of Israel. Two specific acts of God in Israel's life are recounted. God had called Israel, elected Israel to be faithful sons and daughters, even before the deliverance from Egyptian slavery. God had redeemed Israel from their affliction and had protected them by cuddling and carrying them in the everlasting arms of the Shepherd's love.
In the midst of our own lives today we remember the steadfast, sure love of God manifested to us. In the waters of baptism our God has united us with the death and resurrection of Jesus to elect, to call us to be God's people. God's mercy and loving-kindness has made us, who once were nobodies, into his own somebodies. We have been sealed and marked with the cross of Christ forever. Nothing can separate us then from God's love. No despair, no defeat, no death, no grinding old age, no poverty, no loss, no exile, no terrorist, no horror of holocaust can sever us from the Good Shepherd's loving care.
In the Babe of Bethlehem who is the crucified Jesus and the risen Lord, God has been present with us in our affliction. The glorious good news of Christians is we are not alone. Jesus, born of Mary, is with us to deliver us from all that denies and destroys life. We who once knew no mercy now have been showered with mercy. We have been redeemed from bondage to sin and brought into the freedom of new life as daughters and sons of God.
Yet we know the pain and anguish of tortures, of despair, of exile. We yet cry out to God to forgive us and to deliver us. We, also, lament that our life is hard-pressed and squeezed-in by all the forces which cut us off from God, ourselves, and one another. The promise of redemption has been made flesh by our God in Jesus. We know what God has done. We are united with Jesus and know we are not alone in the pressure cooker of life. We also await, with great anticipation, the final action of God to fully complete the promised salvation. Whenever we gather at the Lord's Table, we are fed food that forgives us, food that revives us, food that empowers us to hope and trust in God. This hope in God enables us to help one another bear our burdens, to share our lives together, and not to allow the present powers which exile us to determine our existence now or in the future.
We do bask in the glow of Christmas joy today because we remember the steadfast love of the Lord who has done marvelous things in showering the divine goodness on us by becoming human and constantly caring for us. Thanks be to God for promising to redeem us and for keeping that promise.
Children have long lists of what Santa is to bring: dolls, race car sets, bikes, books, computers, televisions, and a thousand other wants. There is a heightened sense of anticipation present in our lives. We are eagerly looking forward in our Advent hope for Christmas.
People with whom I have visited talk of vacations in the next week. Students have been excited about their break from school. Many of us, I suspect, have looked forward to parties, the family gatherings, the break in the routine of our lives. There is anticipation abroad for us just now.
But are we aware of the full depth and significance of our anticipation? For some students examinations lie just beyond the break. Bills will arrive for all of those gifts purchased. The day-to-day problems of being a child still will face those awaiting Santa's coming. There will still be adjustment to playmates, family tensions, sharing love and gifts with family members.
There is, if only we are aware of it, a kind of apprehension lurking behind and beneath our anticipation, which is the word of the Lord in today's text. The Emmanuel passage in Isaiah 7 is not a Messianic text. The text speaks of God's activity apart from the child. God's activity is imminent and it will take place in a concrete historical situation.
Jerusalem and King Ahaz are threatened by a coalition of Israel and Syria. Ahaz is faced with loss of his throne and Jerusalem with defeat. But Isaiah the prophet says God will act to bring freedom from the pressures of the present. The future of Jerusalem and Ahaz is in God's hands and will be protected.
But there is another word in this text. It is a word of judgment, a word of threat for Jerusalem and Ahaz. The divine activity will, also, bring with it death, destruction, and defeat for a disobedient king in the future. Assyria will arise and be the instrument of God to judge Ahaz for his unfaithfulness. It is this dual anticipation, this enigmatic expectation that we rarely apprehend. Or if we do sense it, we quickly push it into the deepest recesses of our hearts and minds, because it is not at all pleasant.
Advent is anticipation. It is anticipation of God's coming to us. And on the Fourth Sunday in Advent it is anticipation of the birth of Jesus, the sign of God with us. But in the baby born and placed in a straw-filled feed trough, in the young child whom we rhapsodically call Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, there is the one who shatters sham and hypocrisy. There is the one who overturns money tables in the Temple. There is the one who dies and turns the whole cosmic order upside down; for out of the death of Jesus, God raises him to new life.
We stand today under God's activity in our lives. God is with us. God is with us now, opening our future, calling into question our unfaithful present and self-secured future. This dual activity of our God: judging and freeing, killing and making alive, forgiving and calling into question is present in our life and world now.
God is with us. God is with us calling us into question and judging us for the thousands upon thousands of poor and hungry and homeless people who are with us in the United States. God is with us holding us accountable for our support of racism at home and abroad. God is with us judging us for our giving higher priority in our lives to machines for war and destruction than to those things which make for peace.
You will never in a million years convince me that our God is not with us holding us accountable and under judgment for our systems of injustice and inequality, for our spreading a genteel veneer of perfume over the rottenness of life at its worst so the stench will not offend us, for our blindness and deafness to the cries of the weak and the dispossessed and the powerless.
The coming of God to be with us in judgment is part of our Advent anticipation. God is a God who hears and knows the cries of the oppressed and the enslaved. And God's coming which we anticipate is a coming in concern for those persons whom we forget and deny and overlook.
But God is with us, also, to free us from our unconcern, to forgive us for our sins of omission and commission, to open our futures so we might live hopefully and faithfully. In the coming of our God there is a creative power set loose. This power of God with us calls us beyond ourselves to be aware of our sisters and brothers in need. God with us challenges us and enables us to let our lives become a source of life for others. God with us is the promise of God that calls us to take our present life and world with utmost seriousness and concern.
I was at Duke University in the year Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot to death. Students at Duke moved to the aid of the non-academic employees at the university, most of whom were black. The students held a vigil in which they asked the university to pay these employees the minimum wage. The university had to re-evaluate its total hiring practices. The university was called into question, but those students demonstrated concrete care and concern for brothers and sisters in need. Many students in that event acted out of a deep sense of Christian commitment and motivation. God was with them, freeing and empowering them to be faithful in their present time.
Basically I am not an optimist. I do not look for people to act for the welfare of others in and of themselves. I do not think the Gospel does either. The Gospel is the good news that God loves us, that God calls us into fellowship with our Lord and with each other. In that relationship our God is present among us, enabling us to see the present differently because we have been seen differently by God through Christ Jesus. Our God comes to us and calls us into our present time to act faithfully for justice and righteousness in the human community. And we do not go alone, for God is with us as we help a friend in crisis, our spouse through a traumatic change, as we express our political action to aid the deprived, despairing, dying ones.
In this Advent season our loving God is with us. Our God is present and coming to us to call our petty gods and goddesses into question, to call us radically into question for our self-seeking securities, and to free us from all that would close our futures and destroy life.
Isaiah spoke of a pregnant woman who was about to give birth to a child. That child was the sign of God's promised help for King Ahaz. Centuries later another pregnant woman, named Mary, gave birth to a baby boy. That child born in Bethlehem is God with us. In Jesus the mighty, exalted, holy God became like us and continues to be with us. Because our God is with us, we can apprehend the dual nature of our Advent anticipation and deal with this duality in our own lives and world.
The advent promise is that God is coming to us ever new and ever fresh. And yet the Advent promise is, also, that God is with us, freeing us to cast away the works of darkness because we are God's people.
Isaiah 9:2-7
Christmas Eve / Christmas Day
Christmas Vision
Darkness, broken by soft candlelight and electric light somewhat harsher and reflected by shiny surfaces. A cross, two candlesticks, antiseptically clean robes, well-scrubbed faces, finely-dressed, well-mannered, reasonably contented people gathered here in this place, in this building. For what are we here?
Why are we here? To sing favorite carols? To seek forgiveness for guilt? The family always comes together to church on Christmas? To glimpse a vision?
Another dark night when a few stars pierce the black, like tiny bulbs blinking atop a tall pole. Rough countryside whose stillness is broken by the baa's of sheep. Cold, dirty sheep milling together for warmth and comfort. Tired, stinking men huddled around a fire for warmth and comfort. A blinding, flashing light. They glimpse a vision.
Angels singing, directing them to go and see what has happened in a small stable in Bethlehem. There animals and family hover over a feed trough. These shepherds of the fields have glimpsed a vision.
Vision, grandeur, perspective. What else when the Word becomes flesh and dwells among us full of grace and truth? How else do you and I even have the possibility of perceiving, understanding, but vision?
There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,
and a branch shall grow out of his roots.
And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him,
the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the spirit of counsel and might,
the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.
(Isaiah 11:1-3, RSV)
Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her
that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned,
that she has received from the Lord's hand
double for all her sins. (Isaiah 40:1-2, RSV)
Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and
with his stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned every one to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is dumb,
so he opened not his mouth. (Isaiah 53:4-7, RSV)
Arise, shine; for your light has come,
and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.
For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and
thick darkness the peoples;
but the Lord will arise upon you, and his glory will be seen upon you.
And nations shall come to your light, and kings to
the brightness of your rising. (Isaiah 60:1-3, RSV)
The Vision. God wrapped in a baby, in human flesh, opens history and changes circumstances. How else do we see a newborn babe in billowing straw as God? How else do we see the most impossible of all impossibilities, life out of death? When we are grasped by the vision of God in human form our whole perspective changes. The way we view the world, the way we view things is different. The vision of God in human flesh turns the whole crazy, mixed-up mess on its ear. The drunk lying in his vomit is a figure hiding the Babe of Bethlehem. A young, punk kid, mouthing profanities and oozing hatred for all, shields a dying form on a tree. An old lady, wracked in cancerous pain, wraps a risen life in death.
Vision. How else shall we see God at work in our world now? See God in darkness and light? See God in bread and wine? See God wrapped around us here as we share peace and love with one another?
Did you come here to see candles, a tree, people, a church, God? There are mixed-up motives for our being here, for our existing and working and living. But the word of the angels to those smelly shepherds is the word of God to ancient Israel and comes rolling down the years to us, ever new, ever fresh.
The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light;
those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness,
on them has light shined.
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
and his name will be called
"Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."
(Isaiah 9:2, 6, RSV)
The coronation oracle for a king of the house of David speaks of God's action to bring peace and well-being for all of God's people.
In the midst of tinsel, the trappings, the titillating gaiety, a haunting vision. The vision of a messianic king from God, the vision of a child in the straw, the vision of God in our midst in the Child of Christmas and in the Christ of the Cross.
The architect creates a concrete and steel structure that lays open something hidden and real. Vision. The artist points toward life in color and line and form. Vision. The musician with dissonanance and harmony, brass and strings and percussion shows us life in depth and emotion. Vision. The poet expresses in concrete, abstract words depth and meaning and joy. Vision.
In the midst of all the glamour and the gaiety and the gifts of this season, entertain the possibility of vision. God is present with us in grandeur and glory. The Messiah in the Manger, the Crucified Christ on the Cross, the Risen and Reigning Lord still comes to us in our world. God still is present and at work, giving of the divine self to us and for us. Open your eyes, throw open your whole self, allow yourself to be grasped by the vision of God present and at work in our world now.
Isaiah 63:7-9
Christmas 1
The Promise of Redemption
Today the glow of Christmas festivity and family gatherings warm and permeate our lives. Still the thrill of carols about the birth of Jesus tickles our imaginations and excites our hearts. The holiday cheer surrounds us and envelops us in glad thoughts of a baby born, whose life is pure gift to us, to put back together all that has been ripped apart. We have, once again, heard the old, old story of God's faithful and steadfast love for us. And who can resist a warm, cuddly baby?
Yet we know deep in our guts that the world in which we live is still rocking and rolling in sheer madness. We know the threat of death from terrorists or nuclear disaster or cancer or traffic accident. We know the possibilities of family fractures, of job lay-off, of crushing poverty, or grinding old age. We know the reality of family farms lost, of being uprooted and homeless, of debilitating despair that weakens and wastes. We know the reality that while God has come to us in Jesus, the world still is not whole and peaceful.
Ancient Israel knew similar realities in her life. She knew God had freed her from Pharoah's Egyptian brickyard and made her God's own people. She knew God had elected and protected her in her past life. She, also, knew her life and world had caved in upon her. The Babylonian Army had defeated them. Jerusalem and the temple, God's dwelling place, were in ruins. There was not a member of the house of David ruling them. Their ordered and secure life was in ruins. Israel was in exile. Everything that had rooted us meaningfully, purposefully, valuably was devastated.
Today's text is the beginning of a community lament that God's defeated and despairing people raised to God, seeking divine help. They cry to God for deliverance, confessing their own sin and rebellion. The basis for the confession and the appeal for help is Israel's remembrance of the past actions of God in her life to deliver and protect them.
The community recalls in worship the steadfast, sure love of God for Israel. God had kept covenant with the people, even though they had broken covenant with God. God had performed praiseworthy deeds and granted great goodness to the house of Israel. Two specific acts of God in Israel's life are recounted. God had called Israel, elected Israel to be faithful sons and daughters, even before the deliverance from Egyptian slavery. God had redeemed Israel from their affliction and had protected them by cuddling and carrying them in the everlasting arms of the Shepherd's love.
In the midst of our own lives today we remember the steadfast, sure love of God manifested to us. In the waters of baptism our God has united us with the death and resurrection of Jesus to elect, to call us to be God's people. God's mercy and loving-kindness has made us, who once were nobodies, into his own somebodies. We have been sealed and marked with the cross of Christ forever. Nothing can separate us then from God's love. No despair, no defeat, no death, no grinding old age, no poverty, no loss, no exile, no terrorist, no horror of holocaust can sever us from the Good Shepherd's loving care.
In the Babe of Bethlehem who is the crucified Jesus and the risen Lord, God has been present with us in our affliction. The glorious good news of Christians is we are not alone. Jesus, born of Mary, is with us to deliver us from all that denies and destroys life. We who once knew no mercy now have been showered with mercy. We have been redeemed from bondage to sin and brought into the freedom of new life as daughters and sons of God.
Yet we know the pain and anguish of tortures, of despair, of exile. We yet cry out to God to forgive us and to deliver us. We, also, lament that our life is hard-pressed and squeezed-in by all the forces which cut us off from God, ourselves, and one another. The promise of redemption has been made flesh by our God in Jesus. We know what God has done. We are united with Jesus and know we are not alone in the pressure cooker of life. We also await, with great anticipation, the final action of God to fully complete the promised salvation. Whenever we gather at the Lord's Table, we are fed food that forgives us, food that revives us, food that empowers us to hope and trust in God. This hope in God enables us to help one another bear our burdens, to share our lives together, and not to allow the present powers which exile us to determine our existence now or in the future.
We do bask in the glow of Christmas joy today because we remember the steadfast love of the Lord who has done marvelous things in showering the divine goodness on us by becoming human and constantly caring for us. Thanks be to God for promising to redeem us and for keeping that promise.
