St. Andrew’s Pictou, ADVENT III December 11^th 2005

 

Who are You?

 

Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11

John 1:6-8, 19-28

 

In the early summer of 1990, I realized that I had a unique opportunity that I had to make the most of itneeded to take. In April I had finished my studies at Knox College, but didn’t have a church to go to and would be at least several months before I would. I didn’t have money to go on a vacation. I needed to look for a church, but you never start right away. What would I do with this time?

 

This was the perfect opportunity to take a three month CPE course on CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education.) I already had one unit that I had taken the summer before at The Toronto General Hospital and there was a course being held at St. Michael’s Hospital, just two blocks from where I lived. It would be like “a dream come true,” if I could get it together.

 

After the paperwork was done, I had my interview with two chaplains: the coordinating chaplain of the hospital (an Anglican priest,) and another chaplain who would be my supervisor who was a Roman Catholic priest.

 

I was very nervous at this interview not wanting to miss this opportunity, and the Roman Catholic priest said, “I am looking at your application here and I see all that you have done and your studies, etc. but who are you? Who is Alan Stewart?”

 

I took a breath and said, “I am a man.”

 

Panic set in after those four little words: “I am a man.” There must be more to me that that. I can talk, what else can I say? Scramble as I did, I couldn’t think of one more thing to say.

 

Serendipitously, they accepted my silence as meaning the end of my answer, and the four little words would just going to have to do. But they seemed to accept that short answer.

 

Over the years since then I have been more and more happy at my answer. What more did they need to know? I now know that if I had said that I was a minister, they might have failed my application, because it would have shown them that I didn’t know who I was if I said that I was a minister because it would have been the answer to a differentthe question, “What do you do?”

 

But isn’t this story just another example of what our lives are all about? We have these breakthrough moments, these encounters with God acting through our human lives, enabling something new to be formed.

 

The same thing happens with Isaiah when he encounters the ruins of a city that needs rebuilding.

 

The writer in John is aware that a significant moment in history has happened and there is a new challenge and possibility.

 

This passage in Isaiah is powerful in that it is the passage that Jesus picked up and read to begin his ministry and to proclaim his very being as an act of God’s fulfillment in human history.

 

By itself, the Isaiah passage is an awesome declaration of hope and joy in the future, but could you and I speak it with our feet among the ruins of destruction: if our house had burned down, our community had been hit destroyed by a storm, when we had lost our job or the one we loved?

 

But Isaiah did! Isaiah did just as Jesus did as he spoke the words 1500 years lalter when his people were enslaved by the Romans, just as we can 3500 years later when we have news of war and suicide bombers every day in the news.

 

Can we stand with our feet in the world’s rubble and say:

“The spirit of the Lord is upon me?”

 

In our experience of distress, can we say:

“the Lord has anointed me?”

 

Do we have the energy to say:

“he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,

to bind up the broken hearted,

to proclaim liberty to the captives,

and release to the prisoners?”

 

Can we see God’s bigger picture of reality and shout:

That this is, “the year of the Lord’s favour?”

 

Can we trust God and leave it to God to settle scores, to say that this

“the day of vengeance of our God (and can we) comfort those who mourn?”

 

When we experience something bad, can we visualize resurrection and change where we can see, “a garland instead of ashes,

The oil of gladness instead of mourning,

The mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit?”

 

Over and over again, we need to hear what the Bible say that God desires:

“For I the Lord love justice,

I hate robbery and wrongdoing;”

 

Through the voice of the prophet God tells us with immensely beautiful and powerful language, our response to what God does for humanity:

“I will greatly rejoice in the Lord,

my whole being shall exult in my God;

for he has clothed me with garments of salvation,

he has covered me with the robes of righteousness,

as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland,

and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.”

 

When John was baptizing people and preparing them for Jesus’ arrival, the “religious police” (priests and Levites) were sent to see who he was.

 

“Who are you?” they asked.

 

After he affirmed that he was not the Messiah, they went on and asked him if he was Elijah, and if he was a prophet. When he answered in the negative they went for the jugular.

 

“Who are you? Let us have an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”

 

All John could tell them, over an over, is that he was preparing the way for Jesus: the powerful One, the Messiah: the one who John felt he was not even worthy to fasten his sandals.

 

Each one of us has to answer that question: Who are you?

 

John the Baptist had to answer it, and he knew who he was and what he was here on planet earth, to do.

 

Isaiah knew he was a prophet calling his people to rebuild their city and their land.

 

But what does this wonderful message from Isaiah, the preprations of John, and the significance of Jesus’ arrival here have to do with uis gathered here today?

 

Very simply, we each have to know who we are; if we don’t know, we need to find out who we are.

 

What is the point of being alive if we don’t know who we are?

 

We need to know who we are as women and men; we need to know that we are the beloved of God.

 

The second thing is that in the living of our lives, we absolutely have to experience JOY!

 

Now you can’t experience JOY if you don’t know whow you are, but you have to know that God is calling you to joy.

 

The reason that you have to experience JOY is because …

 

YOU WERE CREATED FOR JOY!

 

You and I were put on plaent earth to manifest the GOly of God in our lives: to experience the JOY of being alive in God.

 

AMEN                                 Rev. Alan Stewart