Third
Sunday of Advent, December 8, 2020
watch it here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26LCaV0sZAY
Reading for the third Sunday - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qw__McD9KmQ
“To Robby, from Santa”; I loved reading those words on a
package under the tree, Christmas morning, 1979. If I opened that package and it was sweater,
I’d force myself to smile and say, “Thank you.”
I was 9! I didn’t want a
sweater. If I opened that package, and
it was a Luke Skywalker action figure, the one where he’s holding a lightsaber,
you couldn’t wipe the smile off my face.
I’d run through the house making lightsaber sounds. It didn’t matter what other presents I might
get. Unless my brother got a Han Solo
action figure, and got to make blaster sounds!
What Christmas present would put a smile on your
face?
In Isaiah 61, we see God the gift-giver and Isaiah, the
delivery man. Spirit-filled, the
anointed prophet recites the gifts God gives and those who will receive
them. To the oppressed, Isaiah delivers
“Good News” from God. This portion of
Isaiah comes at the end of the Babylonian exile to a people completely
devastated and about to begin trying to re-start life.
Imagine the newscast after a tornado blows through. Houses are reduced to rubble. People’s belongings have swirled and mingled
with their neighbors’ and it’s all shredded, waterlogged, and strewn about. Once treasured possessions now lie as
unrecognizable trash to be gathered and discarded. This wrecked community is supposed to
clean-up, rebuild, and start over.
Impoverished Jews in late 6th century Persia were permitted
to return to Israel. What awaited them
there? Piles of rubble that used to be
their homes. The prophet gives these
broken people the promise that God is still God, that God sees them, and that
God will, in them, begin building a new community. They are not abandoned.
We are not broken, not forever. Many today feel like they are. But, God the gift-giver gives good news. He sees all the pain the world has endured
this year and He has not left us out to dry.
Working through His church, speaking to people’s hearts, and through His
ever-present Holy Spirit, God promises a new day.
What else does the prophet have to offer?
To the captives, God gives liberty, and to prisoners, God
gives literal release. The people of God were in a forced exile in Babylon,
just as they had been slaves in Egypt centuries before. In those days, Moses, working wonders, led
the people out of Pharaoh’s clutches. In
the 6th century, God stirred the heart of the Persian monarch who
defeated Babylon, and released the Jews.
They left their exile, their captivity, and walked across the desert
home to the Promised Land.
We have at times this year, felt captive to the virus,
unable to go out and live the only lives we have known, whether going to work
or out to eat or to the library or fitness club or church. We’ve been exiled to our houses. Personal liberty and freedom of movement have
become idols that rule our lives. When
these gods of ours are threatened, we feel we’ve lost something precious.
We are also locked in
addiction to material wealth. If
something prevents us from spending our way to happiness, we feel chained.
We’re bound by
naturalistic restrictions that prevent us from fully understanding the extent
of God’s power. We’ve lost belief in the
miraculous. If we can’t explain
something, it must not be possible.
Instead of freeing us as it should, scientifically acquired knowledge
reduces us. We think that phenomena that
can be measured is all that there is.
The Lord gives us freedom
– complete freedom, to live in relationships of harmony with Him and each
other. We can even feel this freedom
when we’re socially distanced, when we’re at home. Spending less, buying less doesn’t bother us
because our joy is in the Lord. We
appreciate science as a great gift from God given to help us organize and
understand our world. Freed by God, we
know science is wonderful, but does not tell us all there is to know.
What other gifts of God
does the anointed prophet present? Comfort! Comfort is there for all who mourn.
Do you know someone who
has died due to COVID-19? I do. If you don’t, your neighbor probably
does.
Do you know anyone who has
died or been injured in an encounter with a police officer? I do not, but I have friends who have been
unfairly treated, bullied, and intimidated.
Most officers are good people who want to serve. I had a wonderful encounter with a very
compassionate cop this week. There are,
though, some bad apples in law enforcement and they use their power to
intimidate. The victim is not just the
unfortunate citizen to be pushed around, but all of us who want to have
confidence in the system. We are put
against one another, some shouting “black lives matter,” other responding, “law
and order.” We grieve that our democracy
too often doesn’t work, and our sense of community comes apart at the seams,
and public trust is at an all-time low.
There is no “we.”
Sorrow comes in personal
tragedies. Some listen through tears
because their individual lives have been invaded by grief, the death of a
beloved brother, or parent, or friend, or child. God comforts us when we mourn. “Give them a garland instead of ashes, the
oil of gladness instead of mourning.”
God’s light shines into the hazy gray fog of loss, bringing hope and new
life.
The prophet spoke these
words of God’s newness and God’s gifts in the 6th and fifth centuries
BC. Then, in the first century AD, God’s
spirit came upon a young woman in Israel, Mary.
God became flesh and Jesus grew into a man, the Messiah, the Savior, the
fulfilment of the law and the prophets, including Isaiah’s words here.
At the start of his
ministry, Luke 4, Jesus stood up in the synagogue on the Sabbath. Imagine a recent high school graduate, one of
our own, standing up in the Sunday morning church service to read the Bible. In his hometown synagogue, Jesus read this
passage we’ve been reading. By then,
Isaiah was already regularly cited as a holy text in worship services.
“The Spirit of the Lord is
upon me because he has anointed me to bring good news,” Jesus read; the same
words we heard this morning. What
commentary did Jesus offer? What word
did he have to say about our gift-giving God?
Luke writes that all eyes
in the synagogue were fixed on him (4:20).
He took his time. He knew they
were listening. Deliberately, he sat down
and looked out at the people. His
searching gaze penetrated their hearts.
He said, “This scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” Every promise of God comes to full flower in
Jesus.
Jesus demonstrated love
and acceptance, showing no favoritism for the famous, rich, or powerful. He wasn’t impressed. He loved those who had no ability to
impress. He taught God’s law and God’s
ways thoroughly. He embodied truth and
justice, as well as mercy and grace.
Finally, he gave the ultimate gift, his own life. For my sins and everyone’s sins, he died on
the cross.
God the gift-giver gives
the will to rebuild and the strength to start again to all of us. To the those in bondage, literally prisoners
and slaves, and those enslaved to addictions and dangerous ideologies, he gives
liberty, release, freedom. To the broken
hearted, the poor souls locked in sorrow, he gives comfort. God the gift-giver: he gives us himself. He gives Jesus.
I remember Christmas
morning excitement, hoping to get a “wow’ gift.
It’s a wonderful time for kids and for all of us. This year, my wife asked me for my Christmas
list, and I couldn’t think of anything.
She’ll give me something to unwrap and I’ll be grateful, but I couldn’t
think of a thing to ask for. It just
seems like there are weightier matters to think about than what I’ll find in
the package I unwrap.
I’ll genuinely and gratefully
receive gifts people give me. I count
myself blessed. Transformation is the
gift God gives.
He promises that we will
build up what has fallen; we will raise up what was crushed; we will repair the
broken things in the world. He, the
giver of gifts, will work through us – his church – just as He spoke through
his prophet, Isaiah. We will be oaks of
righteousness. Our church, loving the
world and serving others, will be the fruit that displays God’s glory.
A new Star Wars figure
sends 9-year-old Robby gleefully running through the house on Christmas
morning. This Gospel hope fills the
church. We – his disciples – are transformed,
so that God’s light emanates from us. We
take in the broken, the bound, the grieving, and we give them Jesus, the giver
of good gifts.
AMEN
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