Peaceable Promises of Advent

Let there be peace on earth
And let it begin with me.
Let there be peace on earth
The peace that was meant to be.
With God as our father
Brothers all are we.
Let me walk with my brother
In perfect harmony.

Let peace begin with me
Let this be the moment now.
With every step I take
Let this be my solemn vow.
To take each moment 
And live each moment 
With peace eternally.
Let there be peace on earth,
And let it begin with me (Jackson).

The theme for the second Sunday in Advent is  PEACE.  We long for peace in the world.  But what is the basis for peace?  A state of international relations or a state of mind?  In Isaiah 40, both aspects are present.
The passage is directed to Jews who hope to come to the land of their ancestors, the generation taken into exile in Babylon about one hundred fifty years earlier.  The present generation is living five hundred years or so before the time of Jesus.  The land of their fathers has fallen into general disuse.  Their sacred Temple is in ruins.  They understand this as they are in slavery to  the Babylonians.  With all this in mind, there is little peace among them.
This latter-day messenger, often called Isaiah of the Exile, offers several Peaceable Promises.  

FIRST, THE PROMISE OF COMFORT AND FORGIVENESS
Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.  [2] 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.
Those first hearers need comfort in their slavery.  This has been like war as they struggled to maintain their loyalty to the Lord God and their identification as His special people.  So now they hear, their warfare is ended.  
Dr. Page Kelley points out this promise of comfort does not gloss over the sins of the people:

She is comforted rather with the assurance that her iniquity has been pardoned and that she has
received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins. Her warfare [that is], her term of bondage,
is over, and she is free to return home.  Her release from bondage would have been meaningless,
however, if she had not first heard this spoken word of forgiveness (Kelley 297).

PROMISE OF GOD’S GLORY TO BE REVEALED (vv. 3-5)
As the prophet continues in verses 3-5, he hears a messenger from God declaring, a great manifestation of God’s glory is about to be seen.  In this prophetic and poetic vision, the way will be prepared in anticipation of that arrival.  Valleys will be filled up.  Mountains will be leveled.  When this happens, all humankind will have access to God’s message.
[3] A voice cries: "In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. [4] Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. [5] And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken."
This is an assertion that God is in control. It may not be evident, but God will, indeed, straighten things up, figuratively bringing down the mountains that block our way and filling up the low places we where we tend to bog down.
The voice mentions a wilderness where preparation is to be made for that revelation of glory.  There were large stretches of barren land in the Holy Land. Nothing would be planted there because experience had taught them, nothing would grow.
But there is also a spiritual sense of wilderness. Isaiah’s exiles feel lost in the wilderness, as if the Lord God had left them behind.  In like manner, we can find ourselves in difficult patches, feeling unable to connect with God.  
       I think of a friend and roommate from college who felt terribly insignificant and alone.
Several years after we graduated from college, Ralph and I reconnected for a time.  It was before e-mail was in common use, so we wrote each other through the Postal Service.  In addressing the envelopes, he would never write my first name.  He would call me Brother Webb or Reverend Webb or Professor Webb because I was teaching in college.  He might use my first initial and call me L. Webb.  After we had exchanged several letters, Ralph explained why he went out of his way to avoid calling me by my first name. 
When he was growing up, his mother drilled it into his head that he was unworthy to call  other people by their first names.  He accepted her instruction  She convinced Ralph that he really wasn’t as good as other people.  I think we can say he was a wilderness wanderer.
Second Isaiah offers the peace of God to wanderers such as Ralph.  The crooked ways can be made straight.  The lowlands of human emotion can be filled in as God’s glory is revealed in our lives.
The truly amazing part of this promise is that when the glory of the LORD shall be revealed .  .  . all flesh shall see it together.  The revelation of God’s glory is not for one group.
The prophet can speak these words of assurance because "the mouth of the LORD has spoken."
If we can grasp that assurance -- if we can BE grasped by that assurance, God will lead us from our private wildernesses.
Second Isaiah himself has received this assurance, but he has his doubts about how people will respond to this promise of God’s glory being revealed.  He describes his hesitancy in verses 6-7:
[6] A voice says, "Cry!"
And I said, "What shall I cry?" [because] All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field. [7] The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the LORD blows upon it; surely the people is grass.
The prophet is saying, in effect, “No way the glory of God is going to be revealed in a significant way.  If I preach, people are just too fickle.  They aren’t going to respond.  They aren’t going to believe.”
The Lord  agrees with Second Isaiah: It’s true: [8] The grass withers, the flower fades.
But God doesn’t stop there.  People are like that grass you talk about.  Left to you, it would never be true that the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.  But it will happen because the word of our God will stand for ever.
Don’t confuse the power of God with the frailty of humanity.  Instead, (verses 9-10), trust me, and get up on a high mountain where you can proclaim it to people everywhere:
[9] Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good tidings; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings, lift it up, fear not; say to the cities of Judah,
"Behold your God!" [10] Behold, the Lord GOD comes with might, and his arm rules for him;
behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him.

PROMISE OF GOD’S SUSTAINING CARE (V. 11)
As a capstone to this call to shout the glory of the Lord from the mountaintop, we are given a spectacular promise of God’s loving care:
[11] He will feed his flock like a shepherd, he will gather the lambs in his arms, he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young.
He will feed his flock like a shepherd--every sheep in the flock, whatever their need.
The lambs need more attention than the flock at large: he will gather the lambs in his arms.
Finally, perhaps the most fragile are the pregnant ewes who are pregnant. He will gently lead those that are with young.
The flock are the general run of adults.  They need the Divine Shepherd’s watchful care.  The  lambs in His arms suggests our children who need more specialized care.  And then, the females who will soon give birth to young ones, are those in the human flock who need extra tender guidance.
Gently leading the soon-to-be mothers is the same thought in Psalm 23 of leading the sheep beside still waters.  God will provide the most basic needs of life: water to drink, a place to rest.
Those with special needs include the Ralphs among us who feel they don’t matter.

PROMISE OF GOD’S GREATNESS
Next we have the promise of God’s greatness, the theme for the remainder of this poetic chapter. In verses 12-14, we are confronted with questions regarding God’s power.  The questions are directed toward us as frail, frayed human beings.  There’s really one basic question, asked several different ways:  Who are we alongside God?  Who are we to give Him advice?  Listen to these questions:
[12] Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and marked off the heavens with a span, enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance?
The answer: God did all this in bringing the worlds into existence.
[13] Who has directed the Spirit of the LORD, or as his counselor has instructed him?
The answer: No mortal being.
Third question regarding God:
[14] Whom did he consult for his enlightenment, and who taught him the path of justice,
and taught him knowledge, and showed him the way of understanding?
Again the obvious answer: The Almighty Maker of Heaven and Earth didn’t need to call in a consultant to enlighten Him.  The God of Tender Mercy needed no one to teach Him the path of justice. The All-Wise, All-Knowing needed no one to teach Him knowledge and give Him understanding.  God asks similar questions in the latter chapters of Job when Job tries to comprehend God’s greatness.
Isaiah 40 then casts a look at the nations who do not worship the Lord God of Israel.  In verse 15, those people and the gods they worship are like a drop from a bucket. They make no greater impact than the dust on the scales.  In the hands of the Creator, the islands of the sea are like fine dust.
Verse 16 begins a comparison between the worship of the Lord Yahweh and the pagan religions:
All the magnificent cedars of Lebanon would not suffice for fuel for sacrifices in the Lord’s Temple nor are its beasts enough for a burnt offering.
Verse 18 looks at the gods made by men: a workman casts it, and a goldsmith overlays it with gold, and casts for it silver chains.
By contrast,  [20] He who is impoverished chooses for an offering wood that will not rot; he seeks out a skilful craftsman to set up an image that will not move.
Our vision of the greatness of God begins in earnest in verse 21 and builds up to the end of the chapter.  Twice the prophet asks:  Have you not known? Have you not heard the truth concerning God?  This 21st verse asks two additional questions: 
Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?  Though posed as questions, these can be reworded as statements: You should have known from the beginning.  You should have understood from the very foundations of the earth.
In verse 22, God is high and exalted above the earth.  By contrast, we are like insects:
It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers.
To God, the heavens above us are no more than a curtain or a tent for His dwelling.
Back in verse 6, the prophet despairs that all humanity is as temporary as grass.  And God agrees.  But He goes on to say the word of God endures forever.  We return to that same thought, starting in verse 22 regarding human beings who sit in places of power:
[God]  brings princes to nought, and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing. [24] Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown, scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth, when he blows upon them, and they wither, and the tempest carries them off like stubble.
We have further contrast starting in verse 25, turning again to the greatness of God:
[25] To whom then will you compare me, that I should be like him? says the Holy One.
[26] Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created these?  He who brings out their host by number,
calling them all by name; by the greatness of his might, and because he is strong in power not one is missing. [27] Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, "My way is hid from the LORD, and my right is disregarded by my God"?

PROMISE OF GOD’S POWER IN OUR LIVES
Those questions --  Have you not known? Have you not heard? -- come again in verse 28.
No more negative statements about the lesser so-called gods.  This is all about the power of the One True God:
The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary, his understanding is unsearchable.
Not only is ours a powerful God:
[29] He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength.
To emphasize God’s provision of power to us, He concludes in verses 30-31that this power comes in all stages of life. We think of the youthful years as the height of physical prowess, but that’s not always the case:
[30] Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted.
The final verse shows three different conditions of life when God’s renewal comes to us, each time bringing peace in a different way.  
[31] but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, 
There are times we think we can fly like Superman: they shall mount up with wings like eagles.
And sometimes we are able to do almost superhuman things in the power of God.
Then there are more ordinary times for more ordinary work:  they shall run and not be weary.
Still other times, when we have little strength, God is with us then as well: they shall walk and not faint.

ANNE LAMOTT’S SON
When novelist Anne Lamott's son was a toddler, she had an experience any parent or grandparent would long remember.
Ms Lamott lives in a suburb of San Franciso, but she wanted to get away from the big city and concentrate on writing.  So she rented a condominium for herself and her son in the resort area of Lake Tahoe near the border of California and Nevada. 
This was one of those condos with drapes that can block out all the light.  Presumably for people who like to party all night and then sleep all day.  
But Ms Lamott thought these blinds also were ideal for settling her two-year-old down for his daytime naps.   She put her son to be in a portable crib the condo provided.  She kept the drapes closed and shut the door, leaving him in total darkness.  Then she could focus on her writing just a few feet away in the next room.
One day, as she was trying to concentrate on her writing, her son was knocking on the door between his room and hers. He had waked up and  climbed out of the crib as children that age learn to do.  In the dark, he managed to find his way to the door.  And he started calling out for his mommy.  
Ms Lamott went to put him back in his bed and settle him back to sleep.  But, horror of horrors,  somehow, he managed to push the lock button on the doorknob.  He was locked away from his mother.
She tried to tell him how to shake the button loose, but he didn’t understand.  Besides, he couldn’t see the doorknob in the dark.  He started crying, and that made her sob to herself.  She had to do something.  So she called the manager’s office at the condo and left a message.  When they didn’t respond right away, she called the rental agency and left a message with them.  This made it more complicated but she still wasn’t getting to her son.
While hoping and wishing for help to get there, Ms Lamott thought of one thing that might work: She lay down flat on her stomach and slid her fingers into that narrow space between the bottom of the door and the carpet.  Then she told her son to lie down and put his fingers under the door.  Of course, she had to tell him that several times before he got the message.  
Finally, he did and then quieted down. They stayed like that for what seemed like a long time, until help came.  As he held his mother’s fingers in the dark, peace came to him and to her (Ramsey).

PEACEABLE PROMISES---SOURCES

Jill Jackson, “Let There Be Peace on Earth.”  http://www.hymnary.org/tune/let_there_be_peace_on_earth

Page H. Kelley, “Isaiah,” The Broadman Bible Commentary, Volume 5.  Nashville, Tenn.: Broadman Press, 1971.

Mark Ramsey, “Belonging,” Journal for Preachers.  Montreat, N. C.: Journal for Preachers, Advent 2009, page 23.

Borrowed from Nurse Webb

Our OB Nurse Daughter-in-Law Victoria (Vicky) Wagner-Webb put this on her Facebook page.


"About NURSES: Somebody asked: 'You're a nurse?!?  That's cool, I wanted to do that when I was a kid.  How much do you make?'  The nurse replied: 'HOW MUCH DO I MAKE?'  I can make holding your hand seem like the most important thing in the world when you're scared.  I can make your child breathe when they stop. .  .  . I can help your father survive a heart attack.  I can make myself get up at 5AM to make sure your mother has the medicine she needs to live.  I work all day to save the lives of strangers.  I make my family wait for dinner until I know your family member is taken care of.  I make myself skip lunch so that I can make sure everything I did for your wife today is charted.  I make myself work weekends and holidays because people don't just get sick Monday thru Friday.  Today I might save your life.  How much do I make?  All I know is, I make a difference."

Tune in Nurse Vicky.  Her posts will make you think.

https://www.facebook.com/bluemoon72?fref=ts

Learning to Wait While We Need a Little Christmas

Some non-religious seasonal songs can turn our thoughts to serious aspects of life.  For example:

.  .  .  [W]e need a little Christmas

Right this very minute,

Candles in the window,

Carols at the spinet.

Yes, we need a little Christmas

Right this very minute.

It hasn't snowed a single flurry,

But Santa, dear, we're in a hurry .  .  .

For I've grown a little leaner,

Grown a little colder,

Grown a little sadder,

Grown a little older,

And I need a little angel

Sitting on my shoulder,

Need a little Christmas now (Herman 55-62).

You notice the song mentions several things we think can bring Christmas cheer: candles and carols and Santa and snow and even an angel.  This a Broadway show song by Jerry Herman from Mame.  The characters have lost all their money in the Stock Market Crash in 1929.  Everything looks dark, so they think things may start looking better if they can get Christmas here in a hurry.  They want something to happen, something to make things better soon.

When we were kids, we didn’t like to wait for Christmas.  We wanted Santy to hurry up and bring our presents.  As adults, we feel a deeper need for what we vaguely hope Christmas will bring.

Our Bible passage from Isaiah 64 expresses a similar concern.  Nothing about candles and carols and snow.  But there’s the definite -- even desperate -- cry for something that’s missing. Someone is missing.  This Isaiah passage is a song, a psalm, the ancient Jews sang in their worship time.  And there’s a strong sense that God is absent.  The singers want evidence of the Lord’s presence -- NOW.

On this first Sunday of Advent, when the theme is Hope, we look at a passage that helps us give expression to that mix of hopes and fears.  In Isaiah 64, that longing for evidence of God’s presence comes through loud and clear in the prayer in the very first verse:  O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence—

In the wear and tear of daily life, how often have you prayed for that?   There’s the feeling that the Lord is nowhere to be found.  You want Him to show His face: Come into my life in power!  Don’t stay sealed up in the Blue Heaven.  Break through the clouds.  Break through the gloom.  “We need a little Christmas.”  We need to see God at work in our lives.  Almost like a mother standing in the doorway at suppertime, you may want to call out to God: “Get yourself in here!”

Be so real to us.  Come in such power that the mountains would quake at your presence—

The prophet paints a picture of God coming like fire.  God’s fiery presence is like fire that kindles brushwood and causes water  in a pot to start boiling.

To get a sense of the purpose of this fire, listen again to verses 1-2:

O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence— as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil—to make your name known to your adversaries, so that the nations might tremble at your presence!

In the dry season, we see news footage of fires sweeping across miles and miles of wilderness in the Western states -- Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Oregon, Washington, and California.  They say lightning ignites most of these fires, but not all.  Fires can start from poorly-attended campfires, train and machinery sparks, and tossed cigarette butts.  Whatever the cause, once they are started, the fires can spread out of control (Brown).

Isaiah 64 is a cry for God to start that kind of fire as a way to make His presence known.  We hear the modern cry in the song the Baraca Chorus likes to sing: “Set my soul afire, Lord, for the holy Word,/ Burn it deep within me, let Thy voice be heard” (Bartlett).

At those times when life is dark, when you see little evidence of God’s presence in your life, you probably can identify with the cry of this modern song and the cry of the ancient singer in our Bible passage.  This is a longing for assurance from God, that He cares, that He is still in charge.

In Isaiah, there’s a twofold desire for God to show His presence: reassurance for the Israelites but also for their adversaries to see God’s power:  The burning fire that causes water to boil will make God’s name known, that the nations might tremble at God’s presence.

Verse 3 repeats the thought of the first verse, looking back to stories their Israelite ancestors told:

When thou didst terrible things which we looked not for,

thou camest down, the mountains quaked at thy presence.

Remember in Exodus, Moses goes up into the mountain to receive God’s Commandments:

[2] they encamped in the wilderness; and there Israel encamped before the mountain. [3] And Moses went up to God, and the LORD called to him out of the mountain .  .  . [9] And the LORD said to Moses, "Lo, I am coming to you in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with you, and may also believe you for ever."

[16] On the morning of the third day there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast, so that all the people who were in the camp trembled.  [17] Then Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God; and they took their stand at the foot of the mountain.  [18] And Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke, because the LORD descended upon it in fire; and the smoke of it went up like the smoke of a kiln, and the whole mountain quaked greatly.  [19] And as the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him in thunder. [20] And the LORD came down upon Mount Sinai, to the top of the mountain; and the LORD called Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up. 

In Isaiah, the singers feel a deep need for that kind of awareness of God among them.  They remember those vivid stories from the past.  Their ancestors lived among people of different nations who worshiped many different gods.  But their traditions describe their God this way:

(4) From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear,

no eye has seen a God besides thee, who works for those who wait for him.

It’s that last part of verse 4 we need to focus on during Advent: 

no eye has seen a God besides thee, who works for those who wait for him.

On this first Sunday in December, you’ve probably already started “getting ready for Christmas.”    Maybe you put up the tree over Thanksgiving weekend and you’ve made your list of presents.  Today is also the first Sunday in Advent, and Advent reminds us there’s more to “getting ready for Christmas” than putting up the tree and shopping and anticipating family gatherings.  

These weeks before Christmas can be a season of spiritual preparation, a time when we are encouraged to slow down a bit and not be in a big hurry for Christmas to get here: a time we learn to wait on the Lord, a time consider what Jesus’s coming into the world can mean to us.

Advent is a call to learn to wait, to let the message of Christmas take its time with us.

Out in West Texas where snow wasn’t all that common, we started singing “Dashing through the snow in a one-horse open sleigh” around Thanksgiving.  And in most of the churches I’ve attended over the past seventysome years, we always start singing the sacred carols about that same time. 

In denomination which follow the liturgical church year they don’t usually sing the familiar carols until right at December 25th. Many people don’t even put their Christmas tree up until Christmas  Eve.  That’s a strange concept for us Low Church Baptists.  But, for our Lutheran, Episcopal, and Roman Catholic brothers and sisters, Christmas begins on December 25th and lasts for twelve days.  The idea is that Christians should spend a month getting spiritually prepared for celebrating the birth of Jesus and then spend twelve days emphasizing His birth itself.

For those of us who didn’t grow up with that tradition, the Twelve Days of Christmas probably doesn’t mean anything except a silly song about twelve lords a-leaping, five gold rings, and a partridge in a pear tree.  We’re conditioned to starting Christmas long before Christmas Day.  

I don’t expect most Baptists to change their pattern.  I don't know that we should, but I’ve come to love Advent, and I’m glad a former associate pastor got First Baptist to start.  He is Ed Stiegel, now in a New Jersey church.

I think I know one reason we feel the need to get into Christmas just as soon as possible--why we start singing carols as soon as we can without getting laughed out of church.  We have some deep spiritual longings we hope Christmas can fill for us.   We identify with that song I quoted a while ago from the Broadway show, Mame.  “We need a little Christmas right this very minute.” Phillips Brooks wrote in “O Little Town of Bethlehem” about how “hopes and fears of all the years” come to focus in the Christmas story.  And lots of us carry those hopes and fears with us all year round.

How often have we asked and prayed for such a manifestation from God in the face of our adversaries?  And those adversaries can take different forms:  They may be people we consider our enemies, people we wish we didn’t have to deal with. 

Our adversary might take the form of serious illness we earnestly pray for God to remove so we can see a sign of His loving presence in our lives. Financial difficulties may loom large, and it may seem God Himself would have to step down and personally take charge in order to deliver us from our obligations.  Your adversary may be loneliness.  Your children or other family members may live far away or may neglect you, even if they live nearby. Memories from time long gone by may rise up to haunt you in the night and rob you of your sleep.In any of these situations or others like them, we long to see God’s power coming with fire.

The prayer in this Isaiah passage is a plea for God to show Himself in a mighty way, as they have heard of wonders in the past.  If our lives are stalled, if God’s presence does not seem real, we long for new evidence that He has not deserted us.  But God comes to us on His terms, not on ours. 

When we long for great signs from God, we may need to recall Elijah’s experience.  He was tired and discouraged and -- let’s admit it -- afraid.  Queen Jezebel had issued a call for Elijah to be put to death.  So the prophet needed some sign that God was with him.  He probably wished the heavens would split open and God would come down.  First Kings, chapter 19, tells what happened: 11 [God] said, ‘Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.’ Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; ¹²and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. ¹³When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’

Elijah had to settle for something less having the heavens torn open.  God made Himself known in what seemed to be an insignificant way.  There was a still, small voice.  Or a better translation is a sound of sheer silence.  And, in your experience, isn’t that the way God speaks?  If God came to you in even a small voice, it would rattle your socks off.  So, if God speaks to you at all, it likely is in the sound of silence.  And if God actually tore open heaven and came down, you’d have cardiac arrest.

It may be old news to say no eye has seen any God besides you, who works for those who wait for him.  But in ancient times, among people who believed there were all sorts of gods, this is a testimony of faith:  The God of Israel is God above all gods. We’re not talking about just anybody’s god.  Hear it again: no eye has seen any God besides you, who works for those who wait for him.

Verse 5 points out what we need to do while we wait for God to make Himself known:

You meet him who joyfully works righteousness, those that remember You in Your ways.

CHRISTMAS IS A LOT LIKE A MARRIAGE

In our waiting, we an do things for others: joyful works of righteousness.  As the columnist,  Rheta Grimsley Johnson, thought of all the bad news in the lead-up to December 25, she said,

"Christmas is a lot like a marriage.  For a good one you have to work at it.  You have to really want it.  And I don’t want to divorce Christmas, despite the grim headlines and sad storiesand gross commercialization.  I don’t even want a trial separation.  I want to work things out, to see it through, to rekindle the lost spark" (Johnson).

I believe the columnist is saying something akin to Second Isaiah: Advent waiting involves work.  Not idle waiting.  In my Christmas book, Once for a Shining Hour, I quote Ms. Johnson and then I list twenty-five things I believe are joyful works of righteousness (Webb 23-25).  Let me mention a few of those things:

You can build up your own spirit by reading or singing Christmas carols, or play a recording if you have a record player or CD player. 

Read the story of Ebenezer Scrooge,  A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.

Or watch a video of A Christmas Carol or the Jimmy Stewart movie, It’s a Wonderful Life.

In joyful works of righteousness that will help others:

Try your hand with writing a Christmas poem to share with your family or to put on your original Christmas cards.

Read Christmas stories to neighborhood children.

Through your church or service club, help prepare a meal for homeless people.

Write a letter or send a card to a person who made an earlier Christmas special for you.

Try to develop the skill and patience to listen carefully to those closest to you to try to discover their needs and longings.

Visit someone who lives alone.  If that person offers to do something for you, let her.  Fred Craddock tells of having Sunday dinner with a widow in a church where he was the guest preacher.  As she prepared an elaborate meal and put out her best silver and china, he insisted she should not go to such trouble.  After he had his say, the woman told him it had been years since she had been able to prepare and share a meal with anyone, so he should sit back and hush while she finished her preparation.

Address and deliver Christmas cards to residents in a retirement home or a home for veterans.

Any of those aspects of active waiting can help get you spiritually ready for Christmas.

AWARENESS OF OUR SIN

The singers in Isaiah become aware of their sin as they wonder where God is.  This is a pointer for us: If you feel the absence of God, ask yourself whether you have wandered away.

A confession in verses 5-6 likens us to a bloody garment, then to a frail leaf, blown away from God in our sin:

[I]n our sins we have been a long time, and shall we be saved?

We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.

We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.

But this confession leads to forgiveness as the singers think of God in two positive ways: 

Yet, O LORD, thou art our Father;

we are the clay, and thou art our potter; we are all the work of thy hand (v. 8).

W e don't have a large number of references to God as Father in the Hebrew Scriptures.  But the New Testament frequently refers to God as Father, especially as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.  This awareness of the fatherhood of God builds on those Old Testament.

 In the song, “Have Thine Own Way, Lord,” we sing of God as the Divine Potter who forgives us and reshapes us:

Thou art the Potter, I am the clay.

Mold me and make me, after thy will

While I am waiting, yielded and still (Pollard).

We can become aware of God as Father and the Creating Potter as we wait in joyful service to others.  But even as we try to serve others, we can become hurried and impatient.

I CAN'T WAIT

Sometimes in our hurry and impatience, ego can come into play and mess things up.  Emory Gillespie is pastor out in Rapid City, Iowa.  She tells of what we might call an ego trip some eighteen years back.  She was invited to be the main speaker for a community-wide Thanksgiving service.  In her desire to look her best, she ordered a pair of black leather pumps, especially for the occasion.  The shoes came in on the day of the Thanksgiving service.  The catch was that her favorite shoe store was in a nearby town.  Mrs. Gillespie started the trip, taking along her little boy, who was two years old at the time.  The day was rainy and cold.  Cold enough to turn to sleet.  On the crowded highway, a semitrailer behind her didn’t manage to stop until it hit her and hurt her little boy.  The wreck also totaled her car.  Her son is now twenty, and his only lasting damage is one false tooth.  After help came to the wreck scene, as she was trying to extricate herself from the wrecked car, somehow her tape deck was activated long enough for singer Paul Simon to sing out these words: “I believe in the future.”

As Pastor Gillespie thought back to that incident, those words became Advent words:  “I believe in the future.”  She said she knew there was a mechanical explanation for those words coming out, but 

she took it as her Advent message:  Even in times of difficulty and hurt -- especially in times of difficulty and hurt -- as we ache to see God act in a dramatic way---as we anticipate celebrating the birth of Jesus, we can say, “I believe in the future.”

ADVENT HOPE 2012---SOURCES

Gene Bartlett, “Set My Soul Afire,” Baptist Hymnal.  Nashville, Tenn.: Convention Press, 1975 Edition.  No. 302.

Angela Brown, “Current Wildfire Information for the Northwest US, What’s Burning Now?” About.com.  Northwest US Travel.  http://gonw.about.com/od/outdoorrecreation/a/wildfire.htm

Emory Gillespie, “Living the Word,” The Christian Century.  Chicago: The Christian Century, November 28, 2012, Vol. 129, No. 24. 

Jerry Herman, “We Need a Little Christmas,” Mame.   New York: Random House, 1966, 1967,  pp. 55-62.

Rheta Grimsley Johnson, “Have yourself a melancholy Christmas,” The Anderson Independent-Mail, Anderson, S. C.  Opinion Page, December 18, 1993.  Quoted by permission from Ms. Johnson.

Adelaide A. Pollard, “Have Thine Own Way, Lord.”  Timeless Truths Free Online Library.  

http://library.timelesstruths.org/music/Have_Thine_Own_Way_Lord/

π

Lawrence Webb, Once for a Shining Hour, Reflections for Christmas.  www.amazon.com, www.createspace.com, 2011.

Something to Brag About

When I was growing up in Texas, we had a little book called Texas Brags.  It had all kinds of BIGGEST and BEST stories any son or daughter of the Lone Star State could brag about.

We Texans always like to boast about the size of the state.  You know the story about a salesman from Chicago who was out in El Paso at the far western tip of Texas.  The home office knew the guy was in Texas.  So, without looking at a map, they sent a text message--telling their man in El Paso to see a client in Texarkana.  Now, Texarkana is on the east side of Texas, adjoining Arkansas and Louisiana, as the name suggests: Texarkana.  The salesman out in El Paso got out his map, determined he was nine hundred miles or so away from Texarkana.  His text message response to Chicago told them, “Call on them yourselves.  Chicago is closer to Texarkana than El Paso is!”

The western border of Texas is closer to to Pacific Ocean than it is to Port Arthur, Texas, on the Gulf Coast.  The eastern border of Texas is nearer the Atlantic Ocean than it is to El Paso in the west  (World Book 7988).

Yes, I grew up in a proud state, a state which could boast of many things, not the least of which was our size.  Then while I was away from Texas, attending seminary in Kentucky and not minding things back home closely enough, Congress let Alaska slip in and eclipse Texas as the largest state.  As much as I hate to admit it, Alaska is more than twice the size of Texas in total mileage.

But when Alaska was admitted to the Union in 1959, we Texans lost a major reason for boasting.  We we can longer boast about being the BIGGEST state.  Still BEST, but no longer BIGGEST.

In this Thanksgiving season, we’re looking at words from the prophet Jeremiah in chapter 9, verses 23-24, which point to things we may mistakenly brag or give thanks for and three things worthy of bragging about.

Thus says the LORD: "Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, let not the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches; but let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practice steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth; for in these things I delight, says the LORD." 

This passage really outlines itself:

First of all, we see three things which are not true cause for boasting:

Wisdom

Might or human strength

Wealth or riches

There’s nothing wrong with any one of these: wisdom, bodily strength, or wealth.

And there’s nothing wrong with all three in combination.  But Jeremiah warns, if we boast in any or all of these apart from God, they can replace God in our thoughts and affections.

Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom.

T. E. Lawrence, who became known as Lawrence of Arabia, tells of an experience in the Arabian desert during World War One.  He and some Arab chieftains were sitting around a campfire out under the stars.

One of the Arabs looked through Lawrence’s binoculars to the heavens and asked, “And the stars -- what are they?”  This led to a discussion of suns out beyond suns and of how greater telescopes would reveal yet greater expanses of the universe with thousand and thousands of stars as yet unseen.  One of the men said, of such visual exploration of space, “When we see them all, there will be no night in heaven.”  This man felt that astronomers were moving dangerously close to conquering all knowledge, not realizing that, in a few more decades, men would walk on the moon and send cameras to explore the planets of our solar system.

This Arab chieftain was concerned that the probing mind of man would destroy the mystery of the universe when he said, “When we see them all, there will be no night in heaven.” 

Though some people think there is danger in knowing too much, we recall Luke’s listing (10:27) of the Great Commandment:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself.

If we would love God with all our minds, we should keep open to learning as much as possible.    

Someone said: "The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder."

In other words, the more we learn, the more we can stand in awe of the greatness of God. 

Many Christians are afraid science will wreck their faith, and there are scientists who are agnostics or atheists.  But many devout Christian men and women with advanced degrees in science look to God as the Creator of the universe.  These men and women track the workof the Almighty through the heavens and into the depth of the seas where life began.

Science and religion take separate paths toward explaining the origins of life.  The Bible is not a book of science, so we should not look to Genesis as a detailed account of how the world was formed.  It should not trouble us if scientists tell us the world is billions of years old.  Genesis tells us WHO created everything.  Science seeks to explain HOW it all began.  These need not conflict.

God takes no pleasure in those who glory in their own wisdom to the exclusion of God.  Neither does God put a premium on ignorance.  It is as much an abuse of our minds to let them rust through disuse as to think we have reached such a high level of intellect that we no longer need God.

          A young man came into my office one day at what is now Anderson University and asked me this question: "Mr. Webb, can you tell me some books it would be safe for me to read?"  He was afraid he might read something that would make him think.

         Another similar incident:  I didn't hear this myself, but it was told by a seminary professor who was visiting a Baptist  meeting.  A preacher prayed this prayer: "Lord, I thank Thee that I am igno-RUNT.  Lord, make me ignoRUNTER."  The professor said, "The prayer was answered on the spot!"

Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, let not the mighty man glory in his might.

One of the most enduring friendship of my life reached all the way back to seminary, across nearly fifty years. As a young man, Bill Bridges had much to be proud of, to glory in.  Tall, energetic, smart, and musically talented.   He could find music in people who didn’t know they had any.  He had a flair for the dramatic.  I saw him charm an audience at a big Baptist meeting.  His college singers standing in the aisles of a church, their song echoing back and forth between those in one aisle and those in the other.  Then they marched to the platform singing a rousing number.  Before the choir was through, we were in a meditative mood with “Near to the Heart of God.”  Another time, he had swarms of grade school children, singing as they paraded around a church sanctuary representing animals on Noah’s ark.

But in late middle age, Bill was wracked with Parkinson’s disease.  From that point, I watched for several years as this cruel disease ate away at his body, mind, and spirit, I was in his room at Hospice House the night before he died.  This once-robust man had nothing left to glory in.

As we think of glorying in might, we need to move beyond individual human strength to national and international reliance on the strength of battle and nuclear warheads.  Our national leaders send young men and women by the tens of thousands to Iraq and Afghanistan, always with the threat of using greater weapons than we currently use.  We threaten Iran and Syria, using our great arsenal of nuclear destruction to discourage these smaller countries from developing weapons such as those we already possess in abundance.  We supply Israel with the weapons they are using against their enemies.

With war all around us, we need to hear again this second reminder from Jeremiah:

Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, let not the mighty man glory in his might.

There is a basic contradiction in this land.  Many people insist we are a Christian nation.  Yet, our leaders build up weapons systems in preparation for blowing our enemies off the face of the earth.  If you must build your strategic systems, don’t build them in the name of the Prince of Peace.

"Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, let not the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches

When you hear the warning, let not the rich man glory in his riches, you may feel that warning doesn’t apply to you.  But you don’t have to be Bill Gates or Warren Buffet for this to apply to you.

In the play Driving Miss Daisy, the chauffeur tells Miss Daisy that she is rich.  Miss Daisy is, in fact, quite well off.  But she doesn’t like to admit this.  Instead, she recalls growing up in downtown Atlanta on Forsyth Street when her parents had to scrimp and save.  But when the play takes place, Miss Daisy is wealthy and definitely does NOT have to squeeze every penny from every dollars in order to survive.

Whether our funds are modest or moderate or megabucks, we can readily fall into the trap of worrying about whether our funds will hold out.  We can come to rely on money as our source of strength.  Hear again the cautions:

"Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, let not the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches; but let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD

I confess that as I read those last words, I am caught up short.

but let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD

To what extent can I truly say I understand God?

To what extent can I truly say I know God?

When I stop to focus on understanding and knowing God, I have to say with the spiritual: Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.

What do I as a mere man understand about the God who made the heavens and the earth?

What do I as a mere man know about the God who loves me and forgives me and saves me?

I’ve been a Christian more than sixty-seven years, and I understand and know more about God than I did when, as boy of nearly eleven, I trusted my life to Christ the best I understood and knew.  But all my understanding, my knowledge, is the proverbial  drop in the bucket!

Job in the depth of unearned suffering declares God is the One who does great things beyond understanding, and marvelous things without number (9:10).

Paul in Romans (11:33-35), pondering the ways of God from a different perspective, makes a similar statement:

O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! "For who has known the mind of the Lord,  or who has been his counselor?" "Or who has given a gift to him  that he might be repaid?"

When I think of bragging about understanding and knowing God, it may be like the only time we’ve been in Paris.  We went to the Louvre museum one Sunday afternoon maybe an hour before they closed.  We wound up virtually running through the halls to see some of the best-known art: da Vinci’s painting of Mona Lisa and the armless statue Venus de Milo.   But I cannot boast of any real understanding of the Louvre and its contents.  I would have to go back time after time after time in order to have any real understanding and knowledge of that museum.

  

We can only see a little of the ocean

As we stand on the wave-beaten shore,

But out beyond the eye’s horizon,

There’s more.  There’s more.

We can only see a little of God’s love

As we stand on this earthly shore.

But out beyond the eye’s horizon,

There’s more.  There’s more.

But the word from God through Jeremiah gives us clues for knowing and understanding God.  Let’s read the two verses again.  Notice three things God says He does which help us to know Him:

practice steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth

Here are the verses:

Thus says the LORD: "Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, let not the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches; but let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practice steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth; for in these things I delight, says the LORD." 

If we know the God of steadfast love, justice, and righteousness, then we have cause to boast.

First, consider steadfast love.

Human examples can help us understand divine qualities.  One example of steadfast love is the experience of  Don Francisco.  Today,  Don Francisco is a Christian recording artist, a real-life version of the Prodigal Son.  His story fascinates me because I knew him long before he gained any fame.  Don wouldn’t remember me, but I worked with him in the Baptist boys’ organization, Royal Ambassadors, when I was a seminary student and Don was a little ten-year-old boy with a flattop haircut.  Don’s daddy, Dr. Clyde Francisco, was one of my professors at the seminary I attended in Louisville.  We had Royal Ambassadors on campus for the sons of students and professors.

I lost track of most of those boys.  But about twenty years after I graduated from seminary, I came across a newspaper story about Don Francisco.  It was a bittersweet story.  When Don became a musician, he went the rock music route and was involved in much of the negatives we often associate with rock.  He said of himself, “I did everything but kill somebody.”

He began his music career with a guitar that cost him two dollars and ninety-five cents.  His rebellious streak led him through six different majors during his unsuccessful college attempts before he turned to music as a major and a career.

As a young man trying to make it in music, Don Francisco was often in trouble and financial difficulty.  He said his dad was always ready to help when he turned back home for help.  He said:

"I’ve run into people my father [knew] who prayed with him for me. I could be out raising hell and get myself in a jam, and call him up, and ask for money, and he’d always give it to me" (White).

Don Francisco said his father’s constant support and love helped him learn to appreciate God’s constant love. Here’s a P. S. to the Don Francisco story.  He was associated with Bill and Gloria Gaither for a time.  Then he went out on his own and continues his faithful musical witness.

Again, a classic modern-day Prodigal Son story, illustrating God’s steadfast love, which is worth boasting about.

If we know the God of justice, then we have cause to boast.

Other Hebrew prophets sounded the trumpet call for justice on behalf of the needy.

Amos berated the well-heeled who took advantage of the poor, cheating them in their purchases by giving less than they should get for the purchase price (8:4-6).  Forsake such abuse.  Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream (5:24).

Micah, in the same period as Amos, calls out, 

He has showed you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you  but to do justice, and to love kindness,  and to walk humbly with your God?

Jesus declares that His kingdom will be made up of those who feed hungry people, who give drink to the thirsty, who give clothes to the naked, who show hospitality to strangers, who visit prisoners (Matthew 25:31ff).

We have responsibility as individuals to see to the needs of the people around us.  We also have responsibility as the richest nation on God’s earth for employers to increase the minimum wage and for our government to use tax money to provide for the needy through health care.

Jim Wallis with the Sojourners movement points out there are more than two thousand references to the poor and needy in the Bible.  We sin when we fail to work for justice among the neediest.    But we can boast in understanding and knowing  some of God’s love and justice as we share in helping the poor and he oppressed through government spending, through our church contributions, and through personal hands of love and justice.

Third, if we know the God of  righteousness, then we have cause to boast.

A truly righteous person is a good person whose life reflects his values.   I had a boss some years ago who liked to tell about a woman who praised her pastor.  She complimented the minister for his preaching, for his personal counseling, and for other work he did.  Then, after listing all these qualities, she added, “And he’s a good man, too!”   My boss told that story often, and it always drew a laugh.  But it reminds us:  Simply being a preacher does not make a man or woman good.  We cannot boast in our own righteousness but, rather, we can boast in the goodness of God.

The song, “The Solid Rock,” says, “Dressed in His righteousness alone . . . On Christ the solid Rock I stand.  All other ground is sinking sand.  All other ground is sinking sand” (Mote).

Thus says the LORD: "Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, let not the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches; but let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practice steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth; for in these things I delight, says the Lord. 

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SOMETHING TO BRAG ABOUT---SOURCES

Edward Mote, “The Solid Rock,” The Baptist Hymnal.  Nashville, Tenn.: Convention Press, 1991, Hymn No. 406.

“Texas,” World Book, Volume 16..  Chicago: Field Enterprise Educational Corporation, 1958 Edition.

Gayle White, “Prodigal Son Takes ‘Ministry’ Of Gospel Song,” The Atlanta Constitution, , September 29, 1979.  Page number not recorded.