St. Andrew’s Pictou, November 27^th 2005 ADVENT I

 

Why Christ was Born

 

Isaiah 64:1-9

1 Corinthians 1:3-9

Mark 13:24-37

 

We human beings get a lot of mixed feelings about what we are to do with our feelings.

 

I sometimes ask people to visualize the Grand Canyon, (maybe you have seen those aerial shots of a vast and deep canyon with reddish cliffs.) When they have that picture in the front of their minds, I then say, “That is how deep your feelings are. Your feelings are as deep and as vast as the Grand Canyon.”

 

While the reality is that we feel deeply, we get the message that nobody wants to deal with, or respond to our feelings:

-something terrible happens to us and someone asks, “How do you feel?” and we cover up our pain and what we think is kindness to them, we say, “Fine.”

-people pick up the habit and are ways hiding their feelings to protect other people from the deep anguish they fee, not wanting to be responsible for upsetting other people.

-media people interviewing those struck by calamity never let the victims speak about their feelings when they are interviewed. They stick a mike in front of a devastated person, and “How do you feel?” and before they can answer, they go on, “You must be absolutely devastated and full of anguish at what has just happened?” All the devastated person is left to say is a feeble, “Yes.” Their words and feelings are continuously stolen by the interviewer.

 

There is actually a simple rule here that would make life easier and is not taught in our schools: each person is responsible for their own feelings.

 

What this means is that when you are really hurting, it is your job to express those feelings and not to hold them and stifle them. It is the other person’s job to respond to your feelings as they are able. (It is not your job to take care of their feelings when you are the one in pain.)

 

Isaiah knew how to follow that rule. We read today what he experienced returning from exile in Babylon and walking amongst the ruins of Jerusalem. Today it would be like a clergy returning to New Orleans after Katrina, a Moslem walking through Fallujah after its destruction, a doctor or nurse walking through an American Veteran’s Hospital with some of the 12,000 wounded, or a Hindu walking through his/her village after the Tsunami.

 

In short, looking at the ruins and destruction of everything that was sacred, Isaiah probably wanted to scream at the top of his lungs, “God, where are you!”

 

Since CTV was not here to interview him, Isaiah had to speak his own mind and feelings:

 

“O that you would tear open the heavens and come down,”

 

Isaiah was upset and he wanted God down here to set things straight:

“…so that the mountains would quake at your presence…

to make you name known to your adversaries,

so that the nations might tremble at your presence.”

 

So Isaiah is trying to heal and affirm that the people belong to God and that there is a real connection here in spite of the calamity.

 

There is a beautiful process going on in this passage. It is not a disjointed venting of anger, because Isaiah goes through three stages in his anguish:

1 He brings to mind the great things that God has done in the past such as the Exodus from Egypt, manna and water in the desert.

2 He affirms that God is a moral God and calls people to responsibility and the resulting judgments that follow from our actions. (And in this case, what would God’s moral response be to those who are faithful?)

3 He confesses to God the endless sin of humanity: the helpless anger and frustration that we all bring on ourselves by our own actions.  (O’Driscoll p. 10,11)

 

4 But in making his case, Isaiah goes through a transition: in confessing, he puts it all together and makes his way to self offering: even though what has happened has indeed happened, “O Lord you are our Father.” God is still our God; we are still God’s people. (Our children stray, but they are still our children. Out friend makes a mistake, but they still are our friend.)

 

We have a problem, we want God to come down and fix it, but the solution is always the same as just indicated in 1 -4.

 

As Isaiah works though the situation, his feelings, and God’s covenant, he comes to the solution that we will always find: we have to work together with God, doing God’s work in rebuilding humanity.

 

Jesus also expresses his “Grand Canyon feelings” in talking about human responsibility and God’s judgment using apocalyptic imagery to describe his second coming:

 

“But in those days after that suffering,

            the sun will be darkened,

            and the moon will not give its light,

            and the stars will be falling from heaven,

            and the power in the heavens will be shaken.”

 

Jesus uses these images to highlight his place and his words in human history:

“Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.”

 

Probably the most troubling human prayer we offer is why God allows human suffering to happen, or why he doesn’t come down here and fix things if he is so powerful.

 

Two themes come up over and over with regards to this dilemma:

1 We human beings have responsibilities to keep as our part of any covenant,

2 God honours us as partners in creation: with God, we create together the solutions as partners.

 

With all of the confusion and suffering of our world, in this first Sunday of Advent, we prepare for Christmas: the coming of God’s love into the sphere of the human condition as a helpless baby, born to a young couple who were naive as they were paradoxically powerful agents of God’s transforming power in world history. The ultimate power of God came to us as weakness and vulnerability and self-offering, just as Isaiah himself finally gave in, to self-offering to God.

 

So does Christmas make a difference?

 

Why was Christ born?

 

To show you and I and the whole world that God keeps his part of the bargain!

 

From Creation until 2,000 years ago, humanity wanted God to come to us! We wanted a Messiah. We wanted a Saviour. We wanted the goods. We wanted the truth in a way that we could see and understand for ourselves.

 

We got what we asked for!

 

So God sent his one and only Son full of grace, mercy and truth, speaking and living as we do: he got hungry, thirsty, tired, and angry. He cried when his friend died. He got hurt when he was wounded. He bruised when he was assaulted. He bled when he was stabbed. He died when he was murdered.

 

Then when we desecrated what was sacred to God, God went far and beyond our understanding and resurrected Jesus Christ from the dead.

 

We even got more than we asked for!

 

So let us not cry out to God about the sorry state of our world and what he is going to do about it, but let us ask ourselves:

-why do we not teach our children to pray?

-why does humanity allow war?

-why do lose our lives by stifling our feelings and burry them under layers of alcohol and drugs?

-let us ask ourselves what we are going to do about the fact that a young man is stabbed on our church steps, but we don’t invite the young people inside?

-why don’t we ask our family and neighbours to come to church?

-when people invite us to events on Sunday morning, why don’t we invite them to church?

 

In the Gospel reading today, Jesus asks us to keep awake. Three times he says that we should keep awake; awake to his second coming, but awake to life: to the opportunities to love, to heal, to forgive, to challenge, to pray, to welcome.

 

When Jesus tells us to be awake to other things, awake to the bigger picture, his words are in direct opposition to our culture that says that it is all about you.

 

Jesus tells us that we are also part of a larger picture. We can’t forget about the larger picture and then wonder what went wrong, and blame God.

 

Jesus Christ invites us personally and corporately into a team engaged in building his kingdom of love in the world.

 

In sending us Jesus God has done God’s part. In sending us Jesus Christ, God lit the candle of hope for all humanity for all time.

 

It is our personal and individual responsibility to do our part; no more, no less.

 

AMEN                             Rev. Alan Stewart