I Christmas, Year A

“AND THE WORD BECAME FLESH AND DWELT AMONG US”
Isaiah 61: 10 – 62: 3 --- Psalm 147 --- Galatians 3: 23 – 25, 4: 4 – 7 --- John 1: 1 – 18
A sermon by The Rev. Gene Tucker given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, IL on Sunday, December 30th, 2007 (Read by Mr. Barney Bruce, Licensed Lay Worship Leader)

Wow! “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us”

The “Word”? Who is this “Word”?

And while we are trying to define some of the terms we read in these first 18 verses of the Fourth Gospel, the Gospel according to John, what does John mean when he talks about the “light”?

Who (or what) might John be talking about?

Jesus Christ, of course….John takes the time to make it clear just who he is talking about….

We read the first indication that help us to establish the identity of the light in verses six through nine, “There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came for testimony, to bear witness to the light, so that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but be came to testify to the light. The true light that enlightens every man, was coming into the world”.

So the writer of the Fourth Gospel places the coming of the light, the true light, in the connection with the explicit witness of John (the Baptist). From our reading of the other three Gospel accounts (Matthew, Mark and Luke), we know that John bore witness to Jesus.

Then, we have the second indication, of the indentity of the “Word”, found in verses 14 through 17, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father.” But then, going on a little further, we read another reference to John (the Baptist), “John bore witness to him, and cried, ‘Thus was he of whom I said, He who comes after me ranks before me, for he was before me.’ ” And from his fullness have we all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”

Now, we can understand perfectly that it is Jesus Christ who is the “Word”, the “true light that was coming into the world”. For we remember (from the other Gospel accounts) John the Baptist’s exclamation about Jesus, or as John puts it in our reading today, “He who comes after me ranks before me.”

As we look a little more closely at these first verses of the Fourth Gospel, we see a pattern:

• God’s eternal “Word”, the “true light light that enlightens everyone”, through whom all things were made,
  
  
• Takes on human flesh, dwelling among us in time and in history in the person of Jesus Christ.
  

The overall pattern is a union of:

• the eternal with the temporal,
  
  
• the divine with the human,
  
  
• the greater to the lesser.
  

In the process, the temporal, the human, the lesser, are forever changed.

Your life and mine are forever changed, not merely by the events that occurred in a time 2,000 years ago and in a place called Bethlehem, Nazareth, Capernahum and Jerusalem, but here and now.

Your life and my life are forever changed, not merely by the life and teachings of the person Jesus of Nazareth, but by the coming of the eternal “Word” into this world, the world (as John reminds us) that was created by that very same “Word”.

The eternal nature of the “Word” means an ongoing presence….Once the Word took on human flesh and entered our common life, there was established an ongoing, eternal presence in our lives. Jesus Christ is present with us today, with the same force and effect as He was for those who ate and drank with Him, with those who sat at His feet and heard Him teach.

We ought to pause right there for a moment, and reflect on the ancient Hebrew understanding of words (or, in the case of Jesus Christ, the eternal “Word”)….

To ancient peoples, speaking a person’s name had the same force and effect as if the person were physically present with the persons uttering the name. We modern people tend to separate ideas from physical reality. No such distinction existed for ancient peoples, however. To them, there was a unity between thoughts and concepts, and the physical reality of the world they lived in.

That unity extended to persons, through their names, not just to concepts or ideas.

The Gospel writer takes considerable time and effort to make sure we understand the full divinity of Jesus Christ. (Theologians call this emphasis on Jesus’ divine nature high Christology.)[1] “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”, John writes. And to underscore this high understanding, John continues, “He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.”

In the light of Jesus Christ, the “light of the world”[2], we are able to see God the Father, for, as John continues, “No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who was in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known.”[3]

Cosmic stuff, these first 18 verses of John are…..

That God the Father, creator of the world through the work of the eternal “Word”, would care enough for us human beings to send his Son into the world to redeem the world,[4] is the cosmic part of this amazing story.

These 18 verses draw us into a deeper understanding of God the Father’s work in Jesus Christ, His only-begotten Son.[5]

They invite us to take our part in the eternal plan of God for the world and for the people in the world. John puts it this way, “But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”

They urge us to expand our thinking and believing, understanding that we are swept up into the great, eternal plan of God.

Thanks be to God the Father, for sending His Son, the “true light that enlightens everyone”.

AMEN.




[1] Conversely, the emphasis on Jesus’ human nature is called low Christology.
[2] John 8: 12: Jesus said, “I am the light of the world, he who follows me with not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
[3] John 1: 18
[4] John 3: 17
[5] John 3: 16

The Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord, Year A

“BEHOLD, IT IS VERY GOOD, AND WORTH SAVING”
Isaiah 9: 2 – 4; 6 – 7 -- Psalm 96 -- Titus 2: 11 – 14 -- Luke 2: 1 - 20
A sermon by The Rev. Gene Tucker and given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, IL; Monday, December 24th, 2007 (Christmas Eve)

“…and God saw everything that He had made, and it was very good.”

Remember where those words come from?

Of course: Genesis 1: 31….at the end of the account of the creation of the world.

“And God saw everything that He had made, and it was very good.”

Whenever we might have occasion to read that first chapter of the Bible, our eyes might tend to glance over these words. The full impact of what they convey about the nature of the created order, that is, this world and everything in it (including people) might elude us.

So, let’s unpack those words just a little….

What they essentially say is that the world is good, because God created it to be good.

In addition, what these words say is that the world is not a place to be avoided, to escape from, or to simply tolerate during our time on this earth.

No, the creation account in Genesis tells us that God seems to want us to care for the world He created, even as He put Adam and Eve there to till the Garden of Eden and to tend to it.[1]

Down through time, people the world over have come to various conclusions about the world, its origins, and the involvement of a god (or gods) in its creation and ongoing existence….

Let’s name some of the ways of looking at the creation of the world, and its importance from a divine point-of-view:

1. The created world was abandoned by its creator: This view was held by the Deists[2], a group that were quite prominent during the 17th and 18th centuries….They believed that the world had, indeed, been created by a divine being, but that divine Creator had no further, ongoing involvement in the world after its creation….A simple way that theologians describe this outlook is to use the illustration of a clock being wound up, then being thrown off to run on its own until the power ran out. So, according to this way of thinking, we human beings are “pretty much on our own down here (on earth)”.
   
   
2. Some lesser god created the world: This view says that there is a hierarchy of gods, and some god that was lower in rank created the world, not the real – or highest – one.
   
   
3. The gods exist not for the benefit of the created world, but to interfere in it: It’s probably fair to say that many of the ancient Greeks and Romans held to this view, for some of their pantheon of gods were viewed as having malicious intent toward the world and the people in it.
   
   
4. An accident: A more modern notion of the world’s creation and ongoing purpose is to regard it as being some sort of a big accident. No divine power was – or is – at work in its creation, nor in its sustenance.

Against these conceptions, Holy Scripture stands as witness to a radically different understanding, namely that:

• The world and its people are the deliberate creation of God (the highest and “real” God), and are not accidents.
  
  
• Despite the subsequent destruction of the world’s initial goodness by human sin and disobedience, the world continues to be a good place, a place that is worthy of God’s continued involvement.

And it is to God’s continuing involvement that we now turn… God has a habit, the Bible tells us, of:

• Saving His world (and the people in it).
  
  
• Using human beings to do the saving.

Let’s look at the biblical record. For example, God saves His people through the efforts of:

1. Noah: When the Great Flood occurred, God instructed Noah to build an ark, providing safe passage through the flood waters for his family and for the animals that had been collected.
   
   
2. When God’s people were in bondage in Egypt, God led His people back to the Promised Land through the leadership of Moses, who led them through the waters of the Red Sea and through their Wilderness journey.
   
   
3. Cyrus: The Persian king Cyrus was the instrument of liberation for God’s people in exile in Babylon. With Cyrus’ conquest of the Babylonian Empire, the way was cleared for the Jews to return to the Promised Land in 538 BC (See Ezra 1: 1 – 4 for an account of the return home).

We could name many other persons who were God’s instruments, persons who made possible the saving of God’s people.

But now, we come to the ultimate act of God’s saving actions: the birth of Jesus Christ….Remember that we have said that:

• God saves His people
  
  
• He uses people to do the saving.

Both elements are present in the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ to take upon Himself our human condition….that is the reason – the central reason – for the Christmas celebration we are gathered for tonight….We celebrate God’s saving of His people, and God’s use of a human being, Jesus, to do the saving.

Our Lord’s coming among us demonstrates in tangible ways that God continues to regard the world as being good, as being worthy of saving. God continues to be active in the world He created. We are not left alone here, to make our way without God’s presence in our lives. Nor are we the products of a gigantic accident, which would make our lives and our existence on this earth of no particular purpose or value.

The scriptural witness says, “No” to any thought that this world – and its people –are without purpose, without value, without meaning.

Jesus’ birth signals God’s intent – made understandable only by the power of Jesus’ resurrection – to save His people, the people He created to be in relationship to Him.

For in the Lord Jesus Christ’s resurrection, we see the power of God to make the whole creation new. We see the demonstration of God’s love, come to us in human flesh in the person of Jesus Christ, fully God and fully man.

Praise to God the Father, who saves His people through the work of His only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.

AMEN.


[1] Genesis 2: 15
[2] Some of the Founding Fathers of our country were Deists.

4 Advent, Year A

“GOD’S POWER, COME AMONG US”
4 Advent -- Isaiah 7: 10 – 17 -- Psalm 24 -- Romans 1: 1 – 7 -- Matthew 1: 18 – 25
A sermon by, The Rev. Gene Tucker and given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, IL; Sunday, December 23rd, 2007

Some years ago, I had occasion to take a trip to New York City (from Washington, DC). It was a cold, late November day, and as we headed north from Baltimore and entered an area north of the Susquehenna River (in northeastern Maryland), suddenly, the train stopped. The emergency lights went on, but everything else went dead: the train itself, the air conditioning system, the appliances in the café car, everything.

It was late in the afternoon, after sunset, and there we sat.

The bright and shiny cars, impressive as they whisked down the tracks at over 100 MPH just a few minutes before, seemed almost worthless in the dim light of the battery-powered emergency lights and the encroaching cold. Without the overhead electricity to power not only the train but all the other systems as well, they could keep us dry (if it had been raining), but that was about all.

Time went along, and eventually members of the train crew came along and told us that there had been a derailment somewhere northeast (ahead) of us, and in the process of completely blocking the tracks, the derailed train had also pulled down the overhead catenary wires upon which our train (and the other trains behind us) depended for movement and for the welfare of the passengers.

As time went along, and the temperatures inside the car began to drop, it dawned on all of us that we were powerless to help ourselves. Not only was the way ahead blocked, but that blockage had also deprived us of our own ability to get around the blockage. We were stuck.

As more time went by, the train crew informed us that they were sending a diesel locomotive from Baltimore to come and couple up to our train. The diesel (which had the power to circumvent the lack of electricity) would pull us backwards, travelling southwest, back to the Susquehenna River, where we would follow the rail line that hugs the eastern shore of the river northwestward, all the way to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Once we reached Harrisburg, the train would then be reversed again and we would proceed to Philadelphia, and then on to New York.

Needless to say, the trip was a long one….We reached New York in the wee hours of the morning. A trainload of very tired and disgruntled passengers got off at Pennsylvania Station to make their way, about eight hours’ late from our original arrival time.

Now this story is engraved on my mind, not so much for the length of the trip, nor for my offer of assistance to the train crew because one of them didn’t know how to disconnect the air hoses at the end of the car, but because of the relevance to our spiritual journey through this life.

Let me explain: If we are honest about our situation, we have to admit that we are: 1. powerless to extract ourselves from our capacity to do wrong; 2. the way to wholeness and a deep and abiding relationship with God is blocked by the condition of the sinful world in which we live; and 3. the encroaching chill of our isolation impresses upon us the danger we are in by virtue of our inability to help ourselves.

But God is the actor in the drama that unfolds as Jesus Christ is born of the Virgin Mary in Bethlehem. God is the engine of rescue, redeeming us from our predicament.

And so, with that background, the background of God’s intervention to end our isolation from Him, let’s look now at Matthew’s birth account, as we heard it today from chapter one, verses 18 to 25….

Note immediately what Matthew does not relate to us about Jesus’ birth. But then, as we make our way through chapters one and two, Matthew relates other details of Jesus’ birth and early life in the visit of the Wise Men, the flight into Egypt, and the slaughter of the Innocents at Bethlehem as King Herod the Great attempts to stamp out any possible threat to his rule as king.

As we read Matthew’s account, it seems almost matter-of-fact…notice that he says (verse 18), “His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph; before their marriage she found she was going to have a child through the Holy Spirit.”

As we read those words, we might be tempted to say to ourselves, “Well, yes, we know the words of the (Nicene) Creed where it says of Jesus Christ, ‘By the power of the Holy Spirit, he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary…’” We say those words every Sunday (maybe even rattling them off without much thought or contemplation).

We know the story, don’t we!

But remember, we have what literary scholars call “The Readers’ Perspective” , that is to say, we can sit down and “read the book”, seeing the story from beginning to end, and from the perspective of 2,000 years.

Is it possible for us to put ourselves back in the place of Joseph, or of Mary, as they are told that the child to be born will be the work of God himself, working through the power of the Holy Spirit?

(Can’t you imagine their wondering, “well, who is this ‘Holy Spirit’?” Remember, all of this was quite new to them, and to everyone else who heard the news.)

But Matthew takes great care to ensure that we understand that Jesus’ conception was not due to any activity of Joseph and Mary…In typical Matthean fashion, he tells us twice that (verse 18), “before their marriage” Mary was pregnant….Actually, the Greek says this, “Before they came together”. And again (verse 25), (Joseph) “had no intercourse with her until her son was born.” Here again, the Greek says this, “(Joseph) “did not know her until she bore a son.”

So the net effect of both verses is that say that God is the prime mover, the actor, the power behind Jesus’ birth.

Now, let’s look at the other aspect of Jesus’ coming among us: Matthew records the angel’s words to Joseph , “Do not fear to take Mary home with you to be your wife. It is through the Holy Spirit that she has conceived. She will bear a son, and you shall give Him the name ‘Jesus’ , for he will save his people from their sins.”

And so, from the angel’s instruction, we see that Jesus has come to do something that people cannot do for themselves: save themselves from their sins.

We began with the story of my train trip to New York.

Returning to that experience, might it serve as an object lesson from today’s Gospel reading?

For example, if we’re honest with ourselves, we have to admit we’re stuck, isolated, in the “middle of nowhere” with respect to our relationship with God.

It’s only by the outside intervention of God, just like that diesel locomotive so many years ago, that we can be rescued from that isolation, and from the encroaching cold that the absence of God in our lives always leads to.

But Jesus’ birth should be as welcome as a locomotive headlight, the bright and shining morning star, announcing that God’s rescue is at hand.

And so (if I can press the illustration just a bit more), on this fourth Sunday of Advent, can we with honesty say that we have looked for the brightness of God’s Son as He approached, bringing salvation with Him, as we look back down the tracks of our lives?

Do we look for the brightness of His coming to us again and again in our lives today?

For we are helpless, unable to pull ourselves out of our situation. But by the power of the Holy Spirit, the Lord Jesus Christ came among us to “couple up” with us as one of us, taking on humanity completely and fully. And the reason for His advent is to rescue us from our sins.

Thanks be to God!

AMEN.

3 Advent, Year A

“STIR UP THY STRENGTH….FOR WE ARE SORELY HINDERED”
Advent III: Isaiah 35: 1 – 10; Psalm 146; James 5: 7 – 10; Matthew 11: 2 – 11
A sermon by The Rev. Gene Tucker, given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, IL; Sunday, December 16th, 2007

Today is “Stir Up Sunday”……

“Stir Up Sunday”, you say….Where did you get that idea?

From the Collect for the Third Sunday of Advent, which prays:

“Stir up thy power, O Lord, and with great might come among us; and, because we are sorely hindered by our sins, let thy bountiful grace and mercy speedily help and deliver us; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with thee and the Holy Ghost, be honor and glory, world without end. Amen.”

So, today is “Stir Up Sunday”, a title I first heard from the Rector of my seminarian parish.[1]

“Stir up thy power, O Lord” seems to be at the root of the puzzling question John the Baptist asks Jesus, heard in our Gospel today, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”…If we were to characterize it somehow, we might say that John is asking Jesus to “prove his identity”…. “’Stir up your power’ and prove to the world that you are the one we’ve been waiting and looking for”, John might be asking Jesus.

John’s question is puzzling…For we - 21st century readers - know who Jesus is, so surely we might be tempted to think, John the Baptist - who baptized Jesus - ought surely to know who He is as well.

But remember, we today have the advantage of what is called “the reader’s perspective”…that is to say, we can stand outside the story and see the entirety of it….the announcement of Jesus’ birth, His baptism by John in the Jordan, His temptation, teachings, miraculous healings, His betrayal, suffering and death, and most of all, His glorious resurrection.

But John the Baptist, asking through his own disciples this question of Jesus, does not have our perspective….His encounter with Jesus was new and fresh. It was an encounter with the “new thing” God was doing in Jesus Christ….no wonder John asks, “Are you the one who is to come?”

No, John’s fiery message (heard in last week’s Gospel), “Repent, for the kingdom of God is near” is born of John’s burden for God’s people, who may have become callous[2] to God’s call for repentance that comes from the heart.

And although John (in last Sunday’s Gospel) says, as part of his message, “One who is more powerful than I is coming after me”, John does not identify Jesus as being that one.

Go forward into chapter three of Matthew a little further[3] from last Sunday’s passage, and we read of Jesus’ baptism by John….Notice that John tells Jesus, “Do you come to me? It is I who need to be baptized by you.” Apparently, John was aware of Jesus’ uniqueness, but was unsure of much else, it seems.

And so now, John has been cast into prison (see Matthew 4: 12) at the hands of King Herod Antipas[4]. In prison, John had been able to send and receive messages through his followers. Hence, today’s question of Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”[5]

Perhaps John sensed that the end of his life was near….if so, then John’s question has an urgency to it beyond wanting to know if his statement about the “one coming who is greater than I” was to be fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth.

Maybe John wanted to be certain, as his life drew to a close, of the sort of person Jesus was…..

If Jesus was the promised one, maybe even the Messiah, then was Jesus to be the sort of figure who conquered and restored Israel’s fortunes to that of King David 1,000 years before?

Or, was Jesus to be a one who would restore God’s people to a time of peace and prosperity of the sort promised in today’s reading from Isaiah? Isaiah 35 (read today), promises a time when “the eyes of the blind will be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped”, a time when “the lame will leap like a deer, and the dumb shout aloud.”

Could Jesus be linked to a restoring of God’s original intent for humankind of the sort that Isaiah chapter 11[6] promises, when “the wolf will lie down with the lamb, and the leopard with the kid”?

Military conqueror, the restorer of peace and justice, or the messenger of God’s promised dominion over all peoples and all of creation….all of these concepts about the “promised one of God”, the “Messiah”, were circulating in the world that John the Baptist knew among the God’s people.

So John asks Jesus to “stir up his power” and “come among us”, if, indeed, you (Jesus) are the one we have been waiting for.

John’s situation is our situation: If we are to live with understanding, to know God’s purposes for our lives and to have fullness of life, both here in this life, and in the life of the world to come, then we must know the answer to the question John asked, “Are you the one who is to come?”

So now we turn to Jesus’ answer:

Notice that is an indirect answer…..they often were, as we read Holy Scripture…. Jesus says, “Go and tell John what you hear and see.” Essentially, Jesus then offers the proof of His ministry, which points to who He is…. “The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.” Jesus recounts for John’s disciples the miraculous deeds that He has done, as Matthew records them in chapters eight and nine.

In many of the cases, Jesus’ healings restored those who were the religious and social outcasts of His day….Remember that, according to the Law of Moses, those with physical deformities and impairments were often outside the worshipping community of Jesus’ day, unable to enter the Temple on Mount Zion in Jerusalem.

We should pause for a moment in our consideration of John’s question and Jesus’ answer to recall that Jesus was very inclusive….Reaching out to the lame, the blind, the deaf, the lepers (and in other places and cases, to the prostitutes and the tax collectors), Jesus was very inclusive, a trait of Our Lord’s that people are fond of remembering these days. But if we are to be complete in our assessment of Jesus’ inclusiveness, we also have to remember that the purpose of Jesus’ association with those who were on the fringes of society, or even outside of it, was to heal them, to move them from where they were to fullness of life in God, not to leave them where they were, telling them (in essence), “you’re OK with your situation.” No, an encounter with Jesus never left them (or us) where we were when we first encountered the Lord.

The effect of Jesus’ healings was to restore these persons to wholeness, to allow them to fulfill Isaiah’s prophecy, made some eight centuries before (Isaiah 35: 9 - 10), “And a highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Holy Way; the unclean shall not travel on it, but it shall be for God’s people; no traveler, not even fools, shall come up on it; they shall not be found there, but the redeemed shall walk there. And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.”

Those who were outside of God’s fellowship, outside of the community of God’s chosen people, had been redeemed and restored to wholeness of life and to the worshipping community.

That is the net effect of Jesus’ work, and it is a fulfillment of God’s ancient promises, made through His prophet, Isaiah, so long before.

“Stir up thy power, O Lord, and with great might come among us.”

We stand in need of God’s movement among us…. “Stir up thy power”, we pray, for restoration and for wholeness of life, for we are sorely hindered by our sins, which alienate us from God’s presence, casting us again to the outside edges of an intimate relationship with God.

Stir up thy power, O God, for we are hindered by the confusion of life, which casts doubt on Jesus’ identity and His role in our lives.

Stir up thy power, O God, for we are hindered by our unwillingness to continue to search for a fuller understanding of your revelation in Jesus Christ.

Stir up thy power, O God, for we are hindered by our reluctance to trust the proof of your continued power to heal broken bodies and lives through the power of your Son, Jesus Christ.

Stir up thy power, O God, and with great might come among us, for we are sorely in need of your saving grace and mercy.

AMEN.


[1] Christ Church, Port Tobacco Parish, La Plata, Maryland
[2] This was the theme of last Sunday’s sermon, callousness.
[3] Matthew 3: 13 - 14
[4] A son of Herod the Great.
[5] Matthew records John’s imprisonment and eventual martyrdom in chapter 14: 1 – 12.
[6] Also read last Sunday.

2 Advent, Year A

"CALLOUSED PEOPLE"
Isaiah 11: 1 – 10; Psalm 72; Romans 15: 4 – 13; Matthew 3: 1 – 12
Given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, IL; Sunday, December 9th, 2007

Ever met a “calloused” person? (My dad would call them “hard boiled”.) You know, the sort of person whose hardened attitudes make them indifferent to others, to life in general.

Webster’s dictionary describes “callousness” in just that way: “made hard, hardened, indifferent, insensitive, unsympathetic”.[1]

Sometimes, when we encounter a “calloused” person, it’s because of the life experiences they’ve had…Perhaps some tragedy or another that has deeply wounded their spirits, and they form a hard shell in response. In other cases, simply going about the routines of daily life can make us calloused, for we can easily begin to think “this is the way it’s always going to be (including my problems and situation in life).”

Life gives us callouses.

It was to a calloused people that John the Baptist’s voice rang out, “Repent, for the kingdom of God is near!”[2]

The Jewish people in John’s day had good reason to be calloused….

• In their daily life, they struggled under the brutal occupation of the Romans. Though theirs was a “recognized” religion, and they had the ability to build a Temple in Jerusalem and to observe their religious practices, the past glory of their nation was trampled under the feet of the Roman army, day-by-day. The hundreds of crosses that dotted the landscape, bearing the bodies of crucified Jewish men,[3] was testimony to the fact that they were an enslaved, conquered people.
  
  
• Their religious observances strictly followed the mandates of the Mosaic law. The 400-some-odd provisions of the Torah were rigorously studied, so as to apply their provisions to every facet of daily life (think, for example, of the debates between the rabbis of that age with respect to what a person could – or could not – do on the sabbath day). Consistently, the New Testament writers portray the religious atmosphere of 2,000 years ago as being one of outward observance, but inward hardness, callousness.

Against these two streams of life that were present in his day – hardship and routine – John the Baptist’s voice rings out, “Repent, for the kingdom of God is near.”

So, before we consider our own situation in life, we ought to spend some time taking a good, long look at John the Baptist….

John the Baptist’s father, the Temple priest Zechariah, predicted his son’s future role….In the Song of Zechariah [4](latin name: Benedictus Dominus Deus) (found on page 50 of the Book of Common Prayer, 1979), he said, “And thou, child (John the Baptist) shalt be called the prophet of the highest, for thou shalt go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation unto his people for the remission of their sins.”

And so here, in Zechariah’s words, we hear the two key themes of John’s purpose and role:

• To be called the prophet of the highest,
  
  
• To go before the Lord to prepare his ways,
  
  
• To give knowledge of salvation unto his people for the remission of their sins.
  

And indeed, John’s baptism was a “baptism for the forgiveness of sins”, as we read in the Book of Acts, chapter 19, verse 4, and as Luke confirms in today’s Gospel passage, as we learn that people came, “Confessing their sins.”[5]

Furthermore, John confirms his own role in preparing the way, as he tells those who had come for baptism, “One who is more powerful than I”[6] is coming.

Then, too, John’s role was to complete the prophetic strain which had as its focal point the coming of the Messiah.

We should stop there for a moment, and unpack the prophetic strains that find their union in John the Baptist….there are two strains present, and we see them both in today’s reading:

1. The “Elijah” strain: As a brief review of Old Testament history, remember that Elijah was the 9th century BC prophet who was active during the exceedingly wicked reign of King Ahab and Queen Jezebel. It was an age noted for its idolatry in the worship of the Caananite god Ba’al. Worship of the true God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, fell out of favor, and at one point, Elijah laments that, “I, alone, am left.”[7] It was also a time of relative peace and prosperity for the Northern Kingdom of Israel. So Elijah was God’s prophet in a time of callousness toward God, callousness caused by indifference to the claims of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, which was accompanied by the distractions of the worship of Ba’al, all occurring during a period of relative prosperity and lack of outside threats.
   
   a. Similar descriptions of Elijah and John the Baptist: Identification between the two prophets becomes stronger when we realize that both wore similar garments: In II Kings 1:8 we read that Elijah was a man with “a garment of hair and with a leather belt around his waist”, matching almost exactly the description we have before us today in our Gospel reading, that John the Baptist wore “camel’s hair and had a leather belt around his waist.”[8] Furthermore, Jesus confirms John the Baptist’s identification with Elijah, as we read His words in Matthew 11: 14, “He is the Elijah who was to come.”
   
   b. The significance of the Elijah connection with John the Baptist: In Malachi 4: 5 “See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes.” The expectation in much of ancient Jewish thought was that Elijah’s appearance would herald the coming of the Messiah, God’s anointed one.
   
   To summarize what we’ve learned thus far about the Elijah strain which is present in John the Baptist:
   
   i. Their ministries took place during times of indifference to the worship of God, caused by distractions.
   ii. Their plain dress contrasted with the fine dress of royalty of the 9th century BC (Ahab & Jezebel) and the religious royalty (the Sadducees & Pharisees) of the 1st century AD,
   iii. The coming of Elijah would signal the coming of the Messiah.
   
   
2. The “Isaiah” strain: It is Isaiah’s voice we hear in today’s reading (Isaiah 40:3), as Matthew tells us that John the Baptist was the “voice of one, crying in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.’”[9]
   
   a. A time of difficulty: Many biblical scholars call the portion of Isaiah from chapters 40 to 55 as Second Isaiah. Written, many scholars believe, during the time of the Babylonian exile (586 – 538 BC), it was a time of deep distress for the chosen people, as they were a conquered people, seemingly without hope.
   
   b. A call to return home: Chapter 40 is essentially a call for God’s people to return home to the promised land, and especially to the Holy City, Jerusalem. Its description is of a highway in the desert, a way for God’s people to return home.
   
   So, to summarize the “Isaiah” strain which is present in today’s Gospel:
   
   i. Isaiah’s words were written during a time of difficulty,
   ii. They offer hope to a conquered people,
   iii. They create the vision of a way to return home, a “highway in the desert”.

So, now, to return to John the Baptist…We see that his words are a call to a people whose callousness has been created by the routines of life….their religious routines, that is. And specifically, we might say the outward religious observances, but the inward indifference toward God. Perhaps it’s fair to describe the people of 2,000 years ago as being “stiffnecked”, as Moses did in Exodus 32: 9, or as one of the first deacons, Stephen, did in Acts 7: 51.

One reason for being called “stiffnecked” is pride, and the sin of pride seems to be what John the Baptist is attacking when he addresses the Sadducees and Pharisees who had come out to the Jordan River: “You brood of vipers,[10] who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Do not say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.”[11]

But the other issue with which God’s chosen people were dealing was the lack of hope that their status as a conquered people offered them. Many, no doubt, longed for the day when the hated Romans would be overthrown, and the glories that they remembered of King David 1,000 years before would be restored. Their callousness seemed to stem, in part, from the hardships that life as a conquered people offered them daily.

Life gives us callouses.

As we enter more deeply into this season of Advent, a time of preparation, the two themes before us today call us to:

• Set aside the distractions, the routines of life, that obscure the central place that God ought to have in our hearts and minds.
  
  
• Seek the help of the Holy Spirit to heal the wounds of life’s traumatic experiences that create hardness of heart and a lack of hope for a better life.

To do so is to confess our sins of indifference and hardness of heart, and our failure to commend the faith that is in us”,[12] in order that a way may be made through the deserts of life for God.

AMEN.


[1] Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House, 1996
[2] Verse 2
[3] Capital punishment in the form of crucifixion was reserved for slaves and for conquered peoples. A Roman citizen could not be crucified.
[4] Its complete text comes from Luke 1: 68 – 79.
[5] Verse 6
[6] Verse 11
[7] I Kings 19:10
[8] Verse 4
[9] Can’t you hear the marvelous setting of these words as they occur in Handel’s great work “Messiah”, in the opening recitative, sung by the tenor soloist!
[10] Literally in the Greek, “children of snakes”
[11] Verses 7 & 8
[12] From the litany for Ash Wednesday, Book of Common Prayer, 1979, page 268.

1 Advent, Year A

“AWAITING THE MOBILIZATION ORDER”
Advent I -- Isaiah 2: 1 – 5; Psalm 122; Romans 13: 8 – 14; Matthew 24: 37 – 44
A sermon by The Rev. Gene Tucker, given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, IL on Sunday, December 2nd, 2007

Once upon a time in my life, I was on fulltime active duty with an infantry battalion of the Virginia National Guard. Part of the famous 29th Infantry Division,[1] much of our work as “full timers” was involved with making sure that the unit and its members were ready for mobilization.

We would work to make sure that our soldiers’ records were up-to-date, that the equipment we would need to take with us was available and in good repair, and so forth.

In fact, whenever we would muster for training, the reality that we – like our previous members during World War II – could be called up to meet some need or emergency was never far from our thinking. That realization colored and shaped our entire schedule of work and training….our whole lives – in short – were focused on being ready whenever the call to duty came.

As we look at today’s Gospel reading from Matthew, chapter 24, it seems to me that what our Lord Jesus Christ is describing is a mobilization of His own people, calling them out of their places of work and living, and into a new situation, much like soldiers who are mobilized, who leave their places of work and living to answer the call.

Our Lord’s words hit us in the face, like the shock of an order to report for duty….it must be Advent!

For in Advent, we have two main themes before us:

• Preparing for Our Lord’s first advent, at Christmastime.
  
  
• Preparing for Our Lord’s second advent, when God’s purposes for this world and the people in it are fulfilled at the end of time.[2]

In this Year A of our three year cycle of readings, we will be spending a lot of time reading Matthew’s Gospel account. As we hear today, and as we will encounter again and again in the Sundays to come, Matthew has (what a priest friend of mine once called) a “hard edge”….It is the “hard edge” of judgment[3]…Jesus describes the time of Noah, saying, “Far as in the days of Noah were, So will be the coming of the Son of Man.” The time of the Great Flood was a time that is described as God’s judgment….So we hear the harsh words of judgment today (verses 40 & 41), “Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left.”

Words like this, “One will be taken, and one will be left” make us want to shy away from the hard truths that Jesus is describing.

But for us soldiers, the hard truth was that not everyone who was a member of our infantry unit would, in fact, be mobilized with us….at our “separation point”[4] some would be sent home for various reasons, being found unfit for a variety of reasons for the service that we would be rendering to the country. We would say good-bye to friends and comrades-in-arms we’d known for many years as some were taken, and others were left.

That was the reality that we faced, and it is the reality that Jesus lays before us today: some with whom we may be “rubbing elbows” will be found unfit to answer the call, and will be left. Attached to that reality is the attendant reality that the separation between the “fit” and the “unfit” will not be made until the time of the coming of the Son of Man.[5]

Jesus’ words call us to reflection….

• Am I looking for the call of God in the return of His Son, the Son of Man?
  
  
• How does the reality that – in God’s good time[6] - all things and persons will acknowledge Jesus as King of Kings and Lord of Lords affect and color my everyday activity and focus?
  
  
• Am I “fit for duty”? Will I be found worthy of being taken into the Lord’s service on that day?
  
  
• What am I doing to be ready to answer the call when Our Lord comes?

All of these questions call us to look at the “hard edge” of the reality of God…the reality that God’s plans might be quite different from our own conceptions. So today’s text calls us to see things from God’s perspective, not our own.

AMEN.

[1] The one that led the assault on Omaha beach during D Day (June 6th, 1944).
[2] Notice the bifurcated vision (literally “two-forked” – coming from the Latin bi + furcia = two + forked) in this comprehensive understanding; the world of the here-and-now, and the world-to-come.
[3] Today’s passage lies about in the middle of a major section – Our Lord’s last major teaching in Matthew – that extends from Matthew 23: 1 - 25: 46. Often entitled “The Judgment Discourse” by biblical scholars, it contains three chapters’ worth of Jesus’ teaching, as He issues warnings, woes and speaks of the coming judgment of God.
[4] For military units, the “separation point” is the place from which the unit departs to go into the area where they will serve, having been thoroughly equipped, tested and found to be ready for duty.
[5] Verse 44
[6] Beware of any who claim to know God’s plan in its specifics, or in its timing (verse 36)….televangelists, especially, beware!