Delivered to the United Church of Jaffrey
December 4th, 2016
Readings: Isaiah 11:1-10 | Matthew 3:1-12
Comfort ye!
Comfort ye
my people…
Dear friends,
The candle of hope has been lit…
It sheds its light upon us.
Likewise the candle of peace, this morning,
was solemnly kindled in our midst
to bestow the small gift of its light.
A crèche graces a tabletop here at the foot of the pulpit…
And another, larger version of the holy assemblage
Is propped on the lawn out front.
An orange extension cord winds its way through the grass. It leads to a small floodlight that comes on at dusk to illuminate the donkey, the sheep, the mother, and the little baby.
Arriving early for Deacons meeting last Thursday, I nearly ran over Owen Houghton and Bob Dunn who were standing in the church driveway, surveying the crèche that they’d just installed. We chatted briefly. I fancy I am not the only one to thank them for their work – without that light, the baby and his parents would probably feel sadly neglected in these lengthening December nights.
The wreaths that now adorn the windows and doors of the church, give the air of the sanctuary an ever-so-slight taste of evergreen that fills every heart with the suspicion that life, in spite of all its sorrows, may be a mysterious and wondrous thing after all.
The unchurched who wonder by, are likely to think that all these props and vestments that now adorn our church are evidence of Christmas.
But they are not.
Outside in the rest of America, where “The little drummer boy” can be heard piped over every grocery store PA system, and string lights dangle from the lampposts of every main street, our society has already made the leap to Christmas – fulfilling, with a purchase here, and a wrapped present there – the duty of Christmas.
But here, in among the pews of the United Church of Jaffrey, we have not yet begun celebrating Christmas.
Here, we are in the middle of the Advent season – the season of anticipation.
The word “Advent” comes from the Latin word “Adventus” which means “coming.”
And just as every woman who has ever given birth to a child knows that pregnancy is a very different thing from giving birth – so too we, in the church, who pay very close attention to the life of Jesus Christ, know that being attentive to Christ’s coming is very different thing than celebrating his arrival.
During Advent, then, we don’t say “I can’t wait”
We say “I can wait”
Advent asks us to be patient.
There is a great deal to be learned from the moment of “arrival.”
But Advent does not ask us to learn the lessons of arrival.
Advent asks us to learn the lessons to be learned from the season of “coming.”
*
As it turns out, the Hebrew prophets were experts at this kind of thinking.
Indeed, the idea of “coming” is built into the word “prophet”
It is certainly built into the idea of “prophecy.”
When we hear the word “prophecy” we think of predictions – a prophecy is a kind of knowledge of the future.
But the Hebrew prophets were not just fortune tellers.
Their relationship with the idea of “coming” was not limited to outcomes.
The Hebrew prophets – like Isaiah, who we heard from this morning – were as concerned with the season of “coming” as they were with the moment arrival.
Hear these words from the prophet Isaiah:
A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.
A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.
How do I interpret this strange verse?
I want to talk about it in terms of time…
This verse contains within it four moments in time.
The first moment in time is the moment in history when Isaiah actually wrote the verse.
Isaiah lived roughly 600 years before the birth of Christ. His era was a traumatic one. He lived to see the destruction of the Jerusalem temple and the forced exile of the Jewish people to Babylon.
These events, of course, influenced his prophetic vision.
When Isaiah refers to “The stump of Jesse” he is referring to Jesse, the father of King David.
So, for the second moment in time we move backwards to around 1000 years before the birth of Christ when Jesse was alive.
When Isaiah speaks of a “shoot that shall come out of the stump of Jesse” he is speaking of a future that is unknown to him – but many Christians consider this “shoot” to be a prophetic predication of the birth of Jesus.
That is why this verse from Isaiah is read during Advent. Whether or not Isaiah was indeed gifted with a divine foresight of the birth of Jesus – his description of “the shoot” sounds a lot like Jesus.
The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord… He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear; but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth…
So we have our third moment in time – the moment foretold – the birth of Jesus Christ, which – if you go along with the Christian interpretation — occurs 600 years after the prediction – and 1000 years after the death (the stump) of Jesse.
The fourth moment in time, is now.
We are reading this verse in 2016.
So, to read the words “A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.”
Is to read a verse that spans three thousand years of human history.
That’s one way to look at it.
Another is to say that prophecy seems to make time itself collapse into the now.
The stump is death, but the shoot is life.
From death comes life.
From exile comes return.
This now is a “now” of “coming.” It is a “now” that knows decay and death, but focuses on what is always becoming – the growing branch.
Prophecy works because the “season of coming” is not just a season that looks forward – it is also “now.”
Try convincing a pregnant woman that her “season of coming” exists in any way that is not urgently “now.”
Describing pregnancy, the writer, Diana Gabaldon says:
You feel as though your skin is very thin all over. You feel everything that touches you, even the rubbing of your clothes.
Because the season of Advent, is not just a time that we look forward to Christmas – it is also (when you really think about it) the final month of Mary’s last trimester!
I have never experienced pregnancy, but I have had the privilege of being in the company of two women during that last trimester of pregnancy, and I understand it to be a time when the urgency of anticipation and the urgency of the now cannot be distinguished from each other.
This stitching together of “coming” and “now” is an idea at the core of our Christian faith.
When we think of “the kingdom of heaven” we think of something that has not happened yet, but we also think of something that we make “now” when we live as Christians who seek justice.
Advent contains within it this wisdom of patience. This prophetic knowledge that “coming” does not mean “soon.”
“Coming” means “now.”
And in this now, we light the Advent candle.
In this now, we insist upon patience.
We feel joy.
We know peace.
At dusk, the little floodlight out front goes on, and through the cold winter nights, we see images from the manger before us, reaching across thousands of years to comfort us.
Comfort ye
Comfort ye my people
Saith your God
Saith your God
Amen