Rev. Debbie
Cato
Isaiah
61:1-4; 8-11 and John 1:6-8; 19-28
Peace
Presbyterian Church
December
14, 2014 – Third Sunday of Advent
“Saved
for What?”
This
is the Third Sunday of Advent; the season
of the Church when we are reminded to wait and prepare for the coming
Messiah – to wait for the coming Christ child. Advent is a time of
longing; a time of anticipation; a time of hope.
But
why? Why is such a big deal made out of waiting for a baby to be
born in a manger? Why the fuss? What is it that we are hoping for?
There
is a big difference between waiting for Christmas and waiting for
Christ. Christmas – the holiday that most of us celebrate; the
holiday that retailers count on to make their profits for the year,
has come to have little to do with Christ. Waiting for Christmas is
about getting the decorations up, the shopping done. It’s about
scurrying and over-scheduling. It’s about running to get
everything done until we are so tired we can’t enjoy it. But this
busyness; what the world has us believe is Christmas, has nothing to
do with Christ.
And
so each year, while we simultaneously prepare for the holiday of
Christmas, the church teaches us to slow down; to prepare ourselves;
to wait and watch for the coming Christ. But again, I ask you: Why?
What’s the big deal?
Waiting
for the Christ child requires us to draw on our collective memories
of God’s people as a source of hope for the future – hope we
sorely need today. Advent is a time when we are filled with new hope
and great anticipation for what the coming Christ child means for a
hurt and broken world. We anticipate and long for the coming Christ
because He is the way of redemption and salvation for all the world.
And yet, I still ask you; why?
We
hope and anticipate the coming Christ because He is God hidden in
human form, who comes to reveal the power of the powerless in his
self-giving act on the cross. It is through his self-giving act on
the cross that our sins are forgiven and we are reconciled to God.
It is through his self-giving act on the cross that we who believe,
are saved from death and by grace receive eternal life. This is good
news!
But
for too many of us, the story stops here. I am saved, we say. I
will go to heaven when I die. That’s it. That’s all that
matters. But if we call ourselves Christians; if we call ourselves
followers of Christ, we need to ask ourselves what this means. For
what reason; for what purpose am I saved? You see, our individual
salvation is not the end-all. Going to heaven is not the point.
The
prophet Isaiah tells us God’s purpose for the world. And when
Jesus’ begins his ministry, he stands before the synagogue and
reads these same words from the prophet Isaiah.
“The
Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,
because
the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.
He
has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to
proclaim freedom for the captives and
release
from darkness for the prisoners,
2
to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor and
the
day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn,”
(Isaiah 61:1-2)
And
when he finishes, Jesus closes the scroll and says, “"Today
this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."
(Luke 4:21)
How
many of you are familiar with the story of Alice in Wonderland? When Alice
falls through the rabbit-hole into Wonderland, she is convinced that
she has fallen right through the earth and is destined to come out
where people will be upside down. She calls this upside down reversal
an Antipathies— though she does wonder
whether or not this is the right word.
Alice
may not have chosen the correct word, but she was on target when it
came to identifying the way we feel when our world is turned upside
down. That is, of course, when the reversal that we experience
resembles the collapse of the stock market or the loss of a job or a
terminal diagnosis. We would be overcome by entirely different
emotions if we won the lottery.
The
Third Sunday of Advent invites us into a world of reversals; a world
where the captives are freed, where the hungry are filled, and where
the rich are sent away empty. We are invited into a world where
children don't die from gun violence, where people aren't sleeping
under a bridge. It is certainly a world where things are turned
upside down. From the point of view of social order, such reversals
could be considered Antipathies. But from God’s point of view, they
are signs of transformation.
In
order to appreciate the strength of today’s message from Isaiah, we
must remember that he was speaking to people who were dispossessed;
people in need of a message of hope, a promise of some kind of
economic reversal. This same description of reversal is found
throughout Jesus’ teachings in the gospels. There we see that the
lowly enjoy the blessings that God promised long ago.
God
offers us the possibility of a new world. The Wonderland to which we
are invited is not some mad tea party attended by an array of strange
guests. It is a world established in justice and peace; a world in
which all will hear the glad tidings
of salvation.
In
order to enter the mysterious new world that lies before us, like
Alice, we have
to undergo some kind of change; some kind of transformation. And so once
again today, we are reminded that the preaching of John the Baptist
is repentance;
repentance in preparation for the coming Lord. His message today is
the same as it was last week: “Make straight the way of the Lord!”
Get rid of any obstacle that might deter His arrival. Eliminate from
your lives the greed that impoverishes others, the arrogance that
tries to set you above the rest, the power that makes you abusive,
the selfishness that turns you in on only your own concerns. Today we
are all aware of the destructive evil that such attitudes have
spawned. We suffer the consequences of their corrosive power. But our
faith reminds us that we do not have to remain victims of these
forces.
There
is a far better way of living in the world, and on this Third Sunday
of Advent we stand at its threshold. However, the question is: Are
we willing to step forward? How we willing to stand out in our broken
world? Are we willing to be the hands and feet that bring the new
world into being? Or, are we afraid to have our world turned upside
down? Are we the poor who will hear the good news of reversal, or are
we the ones responsible for their poverty? Are we the brokenhearted
who will be healed, or have we broken their hearts? Are we the
captives who will be freed, or are we the captors who have restrained
them? On what side of the reversals do we find ourselves?
Advent
is a time to search our hearts, to discover where, both individually
and as a community, we need to change. It is a time of expectations,
for we are told that there is one who has the power to heal our
personal brokenness, to heal our fractured families, to heal our
troubled church, to heal our bleeding world. Isaiah tells us that he
is coming; John tells us that he is already in our midst. His
presence among us should make us rejoice; the saving power that he
brings should give us confidence. If we open our hearts to this
saving power, we can indeed transform our society; we absolutely can
renew our church, we can work toward peace in the world. We can turn
our world upside down. Isaiah
ties God’s salvation of the Israel to the mission of changing the
world. Jesus proclaims this same missional salvation as his reason
for being in the world. If we claim to be followers of Christ, this
must be our mission too. Our salvation is not an end, but a
beginning. A beginning to doing Christ’s work in the world.
To
bind up the brokenhearted,
to
proclaim freedom for the captives and
release
from darkness for the prisoners,
2
to proclaim the good news,
to
comfort all who mourn,”
This
next week, rejoice in the realization that Christ is in our midst,
ready to work through us to heal our world. But, also spend time
praying that God will shine His light to help you recognize what in
your life should be turned “upside down.” I pray that He would
give you the courage to be transformed. Amen.
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