I want to tell you about my first time. I was four years old when my parents took me on my first real family vacation. We went to a hotel on the beach on Cape Cod. It was gorgeous, beautiful, sand, water, fancy. The best thing that happened was that my dad gave me a silver dollar to use on anything I wanted. It wasn’t for saving. It was for using. After a couple of days he suggested that maybe I would want to use it at the ice cream stand down the beach the next day – on anything I wanted. Anything!
So my dad and I went the next day. We walked down the beach to the stand. And we walked and walked and walked. And then I slipped on the deep stand and fell. Actually I sprawled, flat out, hands flailing and my silver dollar flew – away. And I did not know where and I couldn’t find it. I was destroyed. I was desolate. Dad picked me up and dusted me off and dried me up and said, “Let’s go get our ice cream. You can have anything in the stand.” And we did – but it wasn’t the same.
That was my first time. The first time I knew loss, disappointment, a dream unfulfilled, a hope denied. It was the first time. Only the first one. There have been others.
And how about you? Just when was it that you began to realize that not all your hopes and desires and expectations and dreams were going to be met?
The lessons today point to the future, but they point to the future for a people who had learned not to expect what they hoped for to come true. The history of this people, their own personal history meant that they would be disappointed.
The reading from Isaiah today comes from the time when Israel had returned from exile in Babylon. Cyrus had released them to return to the promised land and promised time that had been prophesied when they were a captive people. They had returned to the promised land. They had returned to the Holy City. They had gone to rebuild the temple, their towns, their homes, their lives. But it was still all dust. The Land was dust. The city was dust. The temple was a rubble heap of dust. The prophecy was dust. The promise had turned to dust.
Into their lives comes the voice of the prophet Isaiah reminding them of God’s promise. Telling them that God’s salvation is available to them, even now. God’s salvation is meant to transform the world here and now, not just later at the end. The Israelites were, we are, invited to participate in this salvation, redeeming work of the world now. If salvation is not another place and time but the reality of this world as it should be, then Isaiah asks us to think about how we might participate in ushering in what is meant by God to be the real world, now.
Centuries later along comes John. John, who says he is but a voice crying in the wilderness, testifying to the redeeming of the world that is to come, pointing to what God is doing in the world to make things right. Yes, it was a desert wilderness; but also a human and political wilderness, too.
"O come, O come, Emmanuel!" It wasn’t then a hymn, nor is it just a hymn now. It was a prayer. It was a plea. It was a hope. It was an expectation that God would deliver Israel, one more time out of all her trouble. Foreign domination would end. There would be peace and harmony, and the kingdom of God would be the kingdom of this earth. The Lion would lie down with lamb.
John pointed to the future. To the Messiah. To the One who would bring God's kingdom into being. And no one listened. Well, almost no one. Very few listened... at least in a way that led them to believe one more time in the promises of God. In the future. In the kingdom. In the Messiah.
Today so many of our people are returning from the exile of wars in foreign lands to their families, towns and and churches as those first exiles must have returned to a homeland and a temple in ruins. The home they had expected often turns out to be a place filled with disappointment, disillusionment, and division.
Too many people are living today with loss; loss of a loved one, loss of work, loss of homes; loss of pride; loss of one’s very self by disease or trauma. Alongside the backdrop of war, injustice, poverty, and greed, the word of the prophet still haunts a nation that has grown rich in things but poor in soul.
Yet Isaiah reminds us again today that the God who can build up ancient ruins is also the God who can redeem the ruin of a prodigal life; the God who shall raise up the former devastations is also the God who means to make whole a broken heart; the God who shall repair the ruined cities and the Temple is also the God who can repair even the nation that has forgotten its way in the world.
Each of today's readings tells of God’s prophetic promise and the need to hold fast to faith during times of darkness and anticipation. Advent begins in the dark. For some of us it feels like that’s all there is. There was a flash of light we call Jesus. But now it is pretty dark again, and the future for so many looks as dark as now.
In this late Advent time, when we are getting ready to celebrate the Incarnation, we are reminded that God did send the Messiah, that God did redeem the world, that God is faithful.
The spirit of the Lord GOD was upon him,
because the LORD had anointed him;
he came to bring good news to the oppressed,
to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and release to the prisoners;
to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor,
and the day of vengeance of our God;
to comfort all who mourn…
As we walk through the last days of Advent, we remember not just that Jesus came but that he came and will come again for this – to bring all of us, to bring each of us, into a time of the Lord’s favor. Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us – again.
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