ADVENT II, 12/08/2019

Sermon on Matthew 3:1-12, by David Zersen, Ed.D., FRHistS

CHECKING FOR THE NEW SHOOTS

For Christians who are paying attention, there is a loveliness to the Advent season that began last Sunday. We may discover it in our homes or in our churches and the discovery is not limited to what we may experience here in the United States. This week I received an email from a friend in Ekaterinburg, Siberia that contained a lovely Russian-style icon of Mary and her child beneath a pomegranate tree filled with luscious red pomegranates, symbols in Christian art of the gift of immortal life. And some years ago, when I taught on the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Mwika, Tanzania, lovely purple petals were falling from the Jacaranda trees and the students said knowingly, “We are being prepared for the coming of the King.” The arrival of Advent can have that lovely side to it.

On the other hand, advertisements on the Internet, on TV and in the newspapers may tell us that Black Friday is coming or even Cyber Monday, advance notices just to get us sidetracked. Have you ever wondered why, on the internet, you are encouraged to visit a list of the ten best restaurants in your state or of the twenty things that will sell out before Christmas? The real intent of those who have paid for such advertisements is to hope that you will get sidetracked by the ads as you scroll through the slides. I once worked with a man who had an online encyclopedia paid for by advertisers who hoped that you might go down their rabbit hole as you read an article about, say, “Mesopotamia”! We fickle humans too easily stray from our goal. Advent is indeed the appropriate season to take us all the way to Christmas. Yet commercial tempters hope that we might be dissuaded to consider instead the benefits of an air fryer-- or a utensil that holds ten keys-- or, as in one commercial, not one but two vehicles, a car and a pick-up truck for both husband and wife! Then on Christmas Eve, the celebration of our Savior’s birth, we can open our packages and discover that we have not really arrived anywhere. We are still in our sins of gluttony, covetousness and greed, and we may need to consider yet another beginning.

There are, please note, other signs along this Advent journey and they point us to a destination at which we can be emancipated from the very dead-ends we might choose. The change to blue paraments in the last decades of ecclesiastical design encourage a spirit of hope signaled by the color in the pre-dawn sky that invites our attention to the sun’s (may I also say Son’s) rising. The candles lighted on the Advent wreath encourage us to prepare ourselves in spirit for that Bethlehem candle that waits for us at Christmas. And the green wreaths and garlands, ancient symbols of life in the cold northern winters that take us back even to pagan times, are harbingers of an eternal life that is already ours in baptism. There is much here for Christians to consider should we be open to the notion that commercial buying and selling at Christmas can simply be a rabbit hole.

Shock along the Advent Journey

We may be able with a little effort to avoid the crass commercialism that misleads us. More specifically, you know as well as I that the real meaning of our annual December celebration is never appropriately addressed by amazon.com, Hallmark and Costco. But does John go too far when he shouts to religious leaders and others, “You bunch of snakes, who let you know about our little gathering down here by the river? Although you pay little attention to moral and ethical activity, did you think you could just wash it all away with a little baptizing? Get real! This is the time to face up to whom and what you are! Your religious heritage means nothing here. Here you come face to face with the Holy One of Israel.” (My paraphrasing, of course.) If his hearers properly understood John, do you as well?

In fact, such words may disrupt our preparation for Christmas! Just when we thought we had it all together, here comes this smelly guy with a camel-hair robe, shouting in our face that we should prepare for the coming of the King not with Jacaranda blossoms or pomegranate icons. Instead we are to consider a change in attitude and a different set of actions than those we’ve become pretty good at! I understand why this may be troubling. Years ago as a young pastor I may have felt that a given sermon on a given Sunday called for a stronger preaching of Law, of criticism of personal actions, than had been my style. As the people excited the church that Sunday, the local fire chief said to me, somewhat puzzled, “Do you have to be so hard on us, pastor?” Do you think that there were some at the Jordan who had the courage to say that to John? And are you yourself open to harsh challenges this second Sunday in Advent?

In every religion there is a type of expectation, a hopeful yearning, that as one approaches the holy, that dimension of life more elevated than our own, we will need to measure up to the full stature of our calling as baptized sons and daughters of the King. Sometimes there are troubling times in our lives when in the closet of our experience we feel summoned to be more than we have been— in fact we are troubled by the envy, jealously, doubt, anger, even hate, lust, or fear that have plagued us. At times we have vented full-throated disgust and despair at our failure to be more than we could have been. John is not just calling out religious leaders in that very public arena around the Jordan. His voice sounds down through the centuries, through the blue paraments covering our holy objects and ornaments today. His voice speaks to our heart of hearts and asks whether we really can sing “Holy, Holy, Holy” in today’s liturgy? In so many of our personal tastes and judgements we are spiritually and ethically distant from the One who wants to be Lord of our lives! Should that not make us feel awkward or ashamed?

Now tell me, do you think that there were those who heard John’s summons to repentance who just ignored it and went their way? And is it possible that in this annual and very public moment when the same words he shared with people at the Jordan now speak to us? Or is it possible that we will think that they don’t apply to us? Do we miss the fact that many who felt and still feel that repentance is not for them took their attitude all the way to Golgotha saying, “Stop this man. Stop his interruption in my life. Stop summoning me to a different way of thinking and acting. I’m all right as I am. Away with this man. Crucify him!”

So it was, and is, that the one John pointed us to in our Gospel lesson today, the one “despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief,” (Is. 53:3) looks at each of us

as with the crowd we ask Peter, the preacher, in the Acts of the Apostles, “What then shall we do?” (Acts 2:32) Yes, in our waywardness, our violence, out attempt to avoid the truth about ourselves, we said “no” the one who called us to a better way. And even this year, as we thought we could just go on celebrating a crass and commercial event called X-Mas, we are caught short. Surely some of us are. Surely some of us are asking about the real meaning of Advent, the purpose of the Hope candle, and the promise that although we are substantially separated from God, He intends to produce in us “good fruit” and “wheat for the granary”.

Surprise along the Advent Journey

Now, despite the anguish we may feel when we peek under the pall of despair laid over our conscience, the candle of Hope is still burning-- and the candle of Peace has been lighted for today, this second Sunday in Advent. And today’s Old Testament lesson from Isaiah has something interesting to say to us. We learn that out of this tree of life that we have cut down, we along with all those wayward “I’m going to do it my way” people in our legacy, God has not held this failure against us. There is not only Hope. There is also Peace. He insists that the ignorance that chooses our self-centered desire in place of his own self-giving love will not be our undoing. For out of the stump that we created when cut down Jesus’ life—out of the wood of the cross that could have meant only death for us— God created a shoot, a branch that will grow again. As Peter said in his first sermon recorded for us in the Acts of the Apostles ( 3:15), “You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead.” What otherwise would have been a rotting tree trunk, a dead-end street for us, the God of Hope and Peace meant for good.

As an analogy explaining what happened, I think of my wife, an inveterate plant- rooter. She may have learned this art from her mother. She takes cuttings from all kinds of plants, places them in clear vases and jars and sets them on the window sills. Daily she will ask out loud, “I wonder if that cutting is going to make it? Do you see those roots beginning at the bottom? I think that Firecracker or that Geranium will survive and in spring we’ll have a hardy new plant for the garden.” I must confess that her attention to detail and hope far outweighs my desire to see those struggling little cuttings grow. However, I think, don’t you, that there’s something magical in her hope, in her insistence that a certain plant will make it?

And just perhaps, there’s also a spiritual lesson here as well. It’s not just that one dares to hope that out of these troubled lives and uncertain destinies some future may yet be claimed. It’s that God himself has embraced us and wants to assure us that every blessing imaginable can be ours along with the life he has resurrected in Jesus our Savior and Lord. We who have been claimed in baptism are given the assurance that as sons and daughters of God we have an internal inheritance, one, as the author of Hebrews says (9:15), that has been made possible because we are forgiven of those sins committed under the first covenant. Therefore, we who are troubled by all the ways in which we have fallen short, even of our own expectations, know that God has made it possible for us to produce new shoots and to fashion lives according to his desire for us. This is good news indeed.

If we were to break up in small groups and talk about the prospects for new shoots developing from our old roots and stumps, it would be interesting to observe what kinds of shoots they are

and what their prospect for further development might be. Even more importantly, it would be worth asking what motivated these new shoots to spring up and thrive?

Most of us know of a time when a parent, a relative or a friend embraced us after we had done something really dumb or actually wrong and we vowed because of their affirmation never to do such a thing again. I remember a time as a child when I lied to the principal about something I should not have done. He, knowing better, explained why lies never build anyone up, and that I should try hard never to lie again. It was a comforting and supportive treatment and it empowered me to change what for me had seemed to be an innocuous misdeed.

Likewise, our knowledge that God accepts and embraces us give us the spirit, in fact his Holy Spirit, to achieve changes and goals we never thought possible. With God’s Spirit moving us forward, we can become more Christ-like in our words and actions. And as we move through the Advent season toward the celebration of Christ’s birth we can now look for ways in which the Spirit enables us to grow shoots and branches of compassion, generosity and love. We will not ignore all the commercial invitations to spend money worthlessly, but we will be empowered by God’s love alive in our faith to use our money to serve the poor, help the disadvantaged and heal the troubled in mind and body.

Such action might be a surprise for us and for others this year.

Hymn: On Jordan’s Bank the Baptist’s Cry

Artwork by Sholak Tahinyan (used by permission)

The Rev. David Zersen, Ed.D., FRHistS
President Emeritus, Concordia University Texas
E-Mail: djzersen@gmail.com

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