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“Knowledge of the Lord”
Isaiah 11:1-10; Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19; Romans 15:4-13;
Matthew 3:1-12
Rev. Sandy Nuernberg
Oakland-Cambridge Presbyterian Church, Cambridge, WI
2nd Sunday of Advent
December 9, 2007
Please pray with me, O
God, with the birth of the Christ-child we are reminded we too can have new
life through the LOVE and saving grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
As your Holy Spirit descends upon us now, may we walk to our Savior’s manger
this Christmas and see the LOVE God has for us and share it with others.
AMEN.
As my great niece Emily Susan’s
first words were not long ago, ‘Oh, Oh!!’ In this season of Advent and in our
texts today, we find ourselves in an uncomfortable position, don’t we? One
source I read recently called it a ‘bump in the road’ towards celebrating the
birth of the baby Jesus! (Methodist pastor,
Michael A. Turner, Pulpit Resource, Vol. 35, No. 4, December 2007, p.
50.) Instead of hearing familiar Christmas carols of deck the halls, and
away in a manger bringing peace, love, joy, and hope, those Advent candle
‘intangibles’ that extol harmony over all the earth, we are first summoned to
the ‘good ole days’ of King David’s dynasty of judgment and fear, and then
literally drawn or pulled into the river Jordan of repentance and fire. How do
we find ourselves in such a seemingly unpleasant encounter here with John the
Baptist, of all persons? We can ask, is this at all something of the peaceful
Kingdom, or an earth full of the knowledge of the Lord?
It seems that we are actually
encountering how our God has a hand in revealing God’s work through history; and
more than indirectly into our present lives. And isn’t Advent supposed to bring
us into a ‘close and even closer encounter’ with God in our lives? As we
envisioned peace or ‘shalom’ on earth good will to all last week in the
coming Christ-child, and as we continue our watchfulness and keeping awake in
attaining God’s ‘peace on earth,’ this week’s Advent scripture may help us to be
patient a bit longer as we find full knowledge of the Lord in our journey to the
soon to be born Little Lord Jesus in the manger.
For me, our gospel of Matthew is
specifically revealing God’s work and knowledge in sending John the Baptist with
the good news of God’s love in covenant with us in baptism, just as Isaiah
prophesied, Yahweh, in wisdom and kindness, sent a ‘shoot out from the stump of
Jesse’ as a symbol of love in the coming of the messianic king. Love is a
primary characteristic of God’s nature (I John
4:8). Yes, for me, it is God’s love in us; it is this knowledge of
the Lord that grows, like a shoot in our lives. Love is a supreme expression of
Christian faith and action (I Cor. 13:13, Gal.
5:14, Eph. 5:2, I John 4:7-21).Granted, it’s hard for us to think about
staying in love with a world that is often unloving, but I do believe God
encourages us and helps us in times when we most need God to make life for us a
loving experience.
Rick and I like to take part in
the performing arts, going to movies, the stage, even though we don’t truly
enjoy the same kinds of entertainment; Rick really gets his kick from live
action thrillers, slap-stick comedy, magicians, and I like musicals, western
movies, and deep-woven mysteries. But in thinking of these texts, I couldn’t
help but think of that artist and contemporary film-maker, Ingmar Bergman, who
had a tremendous passion for love in his many films; Wild Strawberries,
Cries and Whispers, Face to Face, Through A Glass Darkly,
The Silence, and Winter Light, to name a few. Bergman’s films,
says Rev. Robert E. Lauder, from Marquette University and a writer for The
New York Times, are consistently expressive of sharing love in communicating
among persons. Perhaps coincidently Bergman includes often, his views of God,
sometimes in just the film’s title (Robert E.
Lauder, God, Death, Art and Love, Paulist Press, N.J., 1989). But
what strikes me, and what I love about his films, is looking for his development
of characters in initial unloving patterns of life, and then their coming alive
as loving persons in and through communicating with each other.
That’s the uncomfortable position
we’re in today. That of an unexpected entrance of a person in Christ who
objects to our kind of life–John the Baptist uses one word, repent
(or as the children heard today, ‘turn around,
change direction’)! Really, a person called by God in John the
Baptist; today we’d call him weird! He eats locusts and honey in the wilderness,
and seems rude in wanting his followers to be cleansed in a rather filthy river
Jordan; but, lovingly wants their filthy spirituality to begin anew in their
baptism, and for them, to want to turn towards a loving God for newness of life.
I do believe even someone as unloving as John the Baptist and before Jesus
Christ can be a sign, a symbol for us of God’s gift of love to us and in us.
“You brood of vipers!”
(snakes; also, those who have malicious thoughts and actions). But, in
love, he’s only asking the Pharisees and the Sadducees why they think their “in”
with Abraham exempts them from their repentance
(their turning towards God). Don’t they realize their future is in and
with each other from Abraham, the love of God in them and in each other?
Can’t they turn around or change their view of themselves away and from God and
turn towards a loving God? Are we Presbyterians like those Pharisees and
Sadducees thinking of our intellect, doctrine, and ‘decently and in order’
background as not to be repentant! But God, in Christ, that ‘Holy Spirit and
fire’ will come more powerfully, says John, that power that can forgive them,
and us. Even John is humbled by an Almighty Power greater than him to come. Just
as the prophet Isaiah had told them, a king where the spirit of the Lord of
wisdom and understanding, of counsel and might and knowledge resting on him to
come.
Theodore Wardlaw of Austin
Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Austin, Texas explains so well that their
future, our future with a loving God in our lives, is a kind of ‘inherited
tradition.’ We take for granted all that we have become in our faith, he says,
and that then we are surprised by a funny and ‘bizarre Baptizer’ like John the
Baptist ( Journal for Preachers, Vol.
XXXI, No. 1, Advent 2007, p. 5), asking us to prepare the way for our
Christ to come! We can ask ourselves again and again, aren’t these the contrasts
that so often happen in scripture, well maybe even in life? Is it only natural,
and aren’t there tones of harmony and disruption, the peace of the wolves and
the lambs, the love of the calves and lions, and darkness turning to light, and
the spirit of the Lord as delight in the fear of the Lord in our lives? Are
these the good and bad turns, or bumps, in our lives?
Our good news is that the shoot
from the stump of Jesse has newness in the branch that shall grow from its
roots; Isaiah’s vision was clear in the coming Messiah as the spirit of the
knowledge of the Lord. Our good news is, yes, our being uncomfortable; in our
inherited tradition, in the humble John the Baptizer proclaiming, “Repent, for
the kingdom of heaven has come near,” and in our preparing for the way of the
Lord in baptism this is knowledge of the Lord. Our good news is in the power of
the Holy Spirit and fire in our lives that will lead us anew as Jesus’ followers
to bear fruit worthy of repentance, to dwell in harmony with each other as
knowledge of the Lord. As we look for, listen to, and learn from being in a
‘close and even closer encounter’ with God, in turning to God who loves us,
always, we can with patience and watchfulness, share our love with others in
preparing for the coming of the Holy Child, soon and very soon.
Thanks be to God. AMEN.
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