I am afraid that any words I have for you today may be inconsequential. That’s my fear.
This time of the year, I feel like – and I wonder if the church in general feels like – a little tiny mouse crawling up into this pulpit, with a word from Scripture, a word from God.
There are just so many voices around us right now. I imagine we’ve got all voices in our heads right now – maybe the Christmas jingle song you heard in the car on your way here, maybe it’s perturbing question your mother or your friend asked you about the party next week, maybe it’s the last minute deal you heard about and keep mulling over, if you should go buy it or not “before time runs out”, maybe it’s the forecast of the games that are on later today (Chargers-Bills, Raiders-Packers), maybe its your own voice running through all the things that need to get done before the guests start arriving. Maybe somebody here said something to you when you came in, and it’s just sticking with you. Maybe there’s a baby or a small child crying – those distractions that must be attended to. What is distracting you from hearing and trusting a word from God this morning? (I can identify with most of those examples.)
The strong voices of the Advent prophets – Isaiah and John the Baptist – are more like tiny squeaks these days than booming cries of hope and joy. I read an article this week in the Lutheran magazine with a quote that’s seemed hauntingly true to me:
“Today it's easier to imagine Christmas without religion than Christmas without shopping. Consumerism elbows out religion to be first in line at the manger scene.”
This time of year for many is the one of the most depressing, precisely because when joy and hope are forced on them through the tinsel, the presents and song, they/we are made into something in-genuine, something fake…and once again Christ is edged out. And nothing is more depressing than denying where we really are, how we are really feeling. It’s hard to be honest at this time of the year. Some have even told me that they tend to stay away from church, because they think that “that’s where all the happy people go, and I don’t want to be a downer, when I’m supposed to be happy.”
But hear the squeak of the prophet Isaiah, sisters and brothers in Christ…
The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; 2to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor; to comfort all who mourn; 3to provide for those who mourn in Zion — to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit. They will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, to display his glory.
The messages of Advent, and in a few more weeks Christmas, are precisely for those who are depressed and distracted. And they shall become, squeaks Isaiah strong oaks of righteousness. Jesus doesn’t enter this world, Jesus doesn’t enter our daily lives to say, “Hey, cheer up, sing a little carol with me. C’mon have a cookie.” No, Jesus enters this world to come along side precisely those who are in pain. To comfort precisely those who are mourning, not to leave them out if they opt out, but precisely to come along side them! And that’s not all. Jesus enters this world to bind up the broken hearted. But that’s not all. Jesus enters this world to free precisely all who are in prison – both literally and figuratively. To proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor – that means, by the way to forgive us our debts as we forgive those who are indebted to us. (The Year of the Lord’s Favor, the year of Jubilee is described in Leviticus – and it’s where the entire nation, every seven years, forgives the debts owed to it! Can you imagine? There was a campaign for this in the U.S. that I was a part of when we approached the year 2000 to forgive the $52 billion owed to us by foreign countries, particularly poorer nations. But the campaign failed, and our letters and phone calls were rejected by Congress. Now we’re lobbying for others to forgive our debts.) See, it’s like a mouse squeak. But I say, taking my cue from the prophet and the Baptist in the wilderness: “squeak out!” The spirit of the Lord is upon us to keep proclaiming the year of the Lord’s favor!
While some of us are cozied up to the warmth fire and family and friends, and are able to give thanks (and we should give thanks where we’re able), Jesus is out in the cold with precisely those who are shivering. Jesus comes precisely to those, for those who are hurting, those who sit in darkness, those who are oppressed in any way, those who are in prison, those who are alone. Jesus is precisely for them.
And we as followers of Jesus are invited precisely during these final Advent days (and beyond) to follow him out into the cold, to join with him precisely for the sake of the other, to reach out, even beyond our own pain…precisely for the other.
That’s the kind of God we have, a God who’s already out there in the cold. I’m hearing news about Christians being “persecuted” at this time of year for not being allowed to say Merry Christmas...and that frankly makes me embarrassed to be Christian, if all we can be known for in the media is a people who are concerned about their own rights. I long for the day when the media identifies Christians as a people who stand up precisely for the rights of others, because that’s the God we follow….the one out in the cold, along side the other. And it’s already happening, even if it’s not widely reported. I saw a picture recently of a group of Christians that had joined hands and made a circle around a group of Muslims who were being beaten for practicing their daily prayer…
This is our God, the one out in the cold, the one in the stable, the one with the animals, the one with the persecuted, the one with the lonely and the lost and the forsaken. The one who is with you, precisely when you are at your lowest. This is our God. Squeak it out, sisters and brothers in Christ, and keep squeaking this Good News right through these joyous and chaotic and tragic days. Keep squeaking and pointing: this is our God. The one who comes in glory comes quiet and ever-present as a mouse, precisely in our darkness and our pain. AMEN.
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