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ADVENT SERMON SERIES, DECEMBER 10, 2006 |
Luke 1:68 "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has looked favorably on his people and redeemed them. 69 He has raised up a mighty savior for us in the house of his servant David, 70 as he spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, 71 that we would be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us. 72 Thus he has shown the mercy promised to our ancestors, and has remembered his holy covenant, 73 the oath that he swore to our ancestor Abraham, to grant us 74 that we, being rescued from the hands of our enemies, might serve him without fear, 75 in holiness and righteousness before him all our days. 76 And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, 77 to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the forgiveness of their sins. 78 By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, 79 to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace." The Days Are Surely Coming – A Frame for Advent “The days are surely coming” wrote the prophet Jeremiah over two millennia ago to the battered and bruised residents of Jerusalem, “when I, the Living God, will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah.” To those ancient residents, it must have felt like an insurmountable distance – the space between the Jerusalem that was in ruins around them and the promise of houses being rebuilt, of a worship life and a temple being restored. A lighter example…When I was young, my parents decided to add on and remodel the house where we lived. We continued to live in the house while the work was being done. My brother’s room was left uninhabitable so for a few months he slept on a mattress in the living room. I remember having a sense of life being turned upside down and living in a constant anticipation for the house to be rebuilt. A more intense example…I recently watched the movie, The Pianist which has for its setting Warsaw at the end of World War II. The houses are empty carcasses, the whole city is a skeleton of ruins. Still, at the conclusion of this movie, when the German forces withdraw and Allied forces roll their tanks into this wasteland, people slowly emerge from these empty carcasses of homes where they’ve been hiding and barely surviving for years. A mother and daughter in scraps of clothes emerge from one building. A gaunt man crawls out of another. A young child creeps out of a collapsed basement. It is a challenging frame in which to live these weeks of Advent. We live in a battered and bruised house of a world still scarred by war, by violence, and by abuse. Living within this frame, we are caught in the distance between the battered and bruised world in which we live and the way we anticipate things should be. We live in the tension between a promise envisioned and that promise fulfilled. A Visit from Angels – A Promise of Hope Advent gives us an opportunity to think outside the frame. As such, one of the few “psalms” which is not from the book of Psalms occurs this week. The Song of Zechariah in Luke 1:68-79 is not unlike some of the songs of the Psalmist in its form and content. However, with this psalm we are provided the framework of a story, something we rarely have with the conventional psalms. A few verses before Zechariah sings his song of blessing – our psalm for today – Zechariah finds himself drawing lots and being chosen to enter the sanctuary, the holiest of holies, deep in the heart of the temple. Indeed, the promise that Jeremiah had prophesied generations earlier had come to fulfillment. The city of Jerusalem and the temple was by this time rebuilt and restored. But inside the sanctuary, another promise is made to Zechariah. A promise which hardly seems possible. The angel Gabriel tells Zechariah that his wife Elizabeth is with child. A child who will bring joy and gladness. A child who according to the angel will “turn many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God…to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” I imagine that Zechariah’s world was turned upside down. Zechariah’s understanding of the way things work was left in shambles, like a house shaken by a bomb – like a family that is in the midst of a remodeling project. Zechariah asks the angel in disbelief, “How will I know this is so? For I am an old man, and my wife is getting on in years.” As Zechariah lives in the tension between what is and what is promised to be, the story continues that the messenger of God informs Zechariah, “because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time, you will become mute, unable to speak, until the day these things occur.” And the words of Jeremiah echo again in our hollow hearts, “These days are surely coming.” From time to time, we glimpse a foretaste – a vision – of promises fulfilled. On these days we taste hope. But maybe more often, the distance between that promise of hope and the battered and bruised world around us seems too overwhelming, too great. Living In Silence – Between Promise Spoken & Song of Hope Like Zechariah, when we really acknowledge the shambles in which this world we call home is, perhaps our only appropriate response is to have mouths filled with silence, with doubt, and with disbelief. Maybe silence, doubt, and disbelief are not signs that we are “bad Christians.” In fact, we’re told in the story that Zechariah and his wife were “righteous before God, living blamelessly according to all the commandments…” No, our mouths are filled with silence, our stomachs with anxiety, our hearts with doubt, and our minds with disbelief because our eyes are open to the battered and bruised world around us… Because our ears are open to the cries of the hungry and the abused… Because we are living in the season of Advent… It’s a challenging frame in which to live these weeks of Advent – to live in silence, at times to live in doubt and disbelief. We have heard promises spoken, but we look around us and struggle to see them being fulfilled. Like the remodeling project of my youth, we have seen the plans for the house to be remodeled and rebuilt, but our brother sleeps on a mattress in the living room. Or, we have been told that our cancer is in remission, but we have another mammogram looming us next month. Or, we know that there is a surplus of food and there is an abundance of health resources, but families across the world starve in poverty and lack access to basic health care. Advent is a time to live in the tension and to live into the silence. It isn’t a time to ignore the reality of a battered and bruised world. Advent reminds us of the frame in which we live. We have heard promises spoken, we have tasted hope, but we still hunger for fulfillment and reconciliation. We wait in silence, mute like Zechariah. We wait in darkness, with a song of hope on our tongues, but often unable to articulate it. Singing our Song of Hope – Guide Our Feet into the Way of Peace Our story continues, “Now the time of fulfillment came for Elizabeth to give birth…” And they named the child John. “Immediately Zechariah’s mouth was opened and his tongue freed, and he began to speak, praising God…and Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke this prophecy:” the psalm we have before us today. This is where we live in Advent. Standing between the promise and the fulfillment. Waiting for our mouths to be opened, for our tongues to be freed – silently preparing a song of hope in our hearts, so that when the “days that are surely coming” finally arrive we might be filled with the Holy Spirit and articulate the prophecy. And Zechariah’s hopeful prophecy reminds us of that promise which will be fulfilled and, indeed,is being fulfilled: “By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.” We still sit in darkness, but a dawn is breaking. The shadow of death still weighs heavy over our hearts, but a dawn is breaking. The days are surely coming when our feet will be shown the way of peace, when our mouths will sing a song of hope. It is a challenging thing – to live with hope and still be realistic about the battered and bruised world in our midst. But this is what it means to be people of Advent. Constantly writing our songs of hope, so that they might be sung on that day when promises begin to bloom in fulfillment. Amen. Rev. Kent L.C. Narum |
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