Advent Meditations for December 8-14, 2024
Eighth Day of Advent Sunday, December 8, 2024
Scriptural Text: Luke 3:1-6 “Knowing what time it is”
“A day late and a dollar short.” On how many occasions did you lament that some opportunity passed you by because you hadn’t fully grasped what time it was? Timing in life, or the ability to sense the importance of any particular moment—these often tell the tale between opportunities seized and ignored, victories won and lost, notable successes and regrettable failures.
Luke follows his account of the birth of Jesus by setting his life in its proper time:
The 15th year of Emperor Tiberius’s 15th reign (approx. AD 30)
When Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea (which lasted from AD 27-37)
And Herod (Antipas) was ruler of Galilee ( 4B BC-AD 39)
During the administration of Annas and Caiaphas (AD 6- AD 36)
During this rather specific moment in history, a wild-eyed preacher named John stepped into the spotlight as the latest of those prophetic troublers of Israel by putting the people of Galilee and Judea on notice. Voicing words first inscribed by Isaiah some 500 years prior, he announced the time had come for the redemption of God’s people. And he minced no words in describing the severity of the judgment that he believed would separate the saved from the damned in God’s coming Kingdom.
Not many years later another prophet, the evangelist named Paul whom we revere for his efforts to spread the good news of Jesus the Christ throughout the Roman world, also had time on his mind. But it wasn’t clock time nor even the dates of the politically powerful that riveted his attention. Instead he looked beyond the chronos (from which we get chronology) to the pleroma (which we translate as fullness) of time to see God’s hand at work in the upheavals of the age in which he lived. In his letter to the community of believers in Galatia, Paul shared this simple but timely recognition: “in the fullness of time God sent His Son…” (Galatians 4:4).
Paul conveyed a very different outlook on time than did Luke, who seems to have written as a historian fixed on describing the what, when and where of events. Paul spoke in the verbiage of faith, in the insights of one whose life had been touched by, indeed redeemed and transformed by, the grace of God whom he met in Christ Jesus. If he were preoccupied by calendar dates and the passing of years, he might have lamented that God’s revelation had not come sooner, either in Israel’s history or in his own life. To be struck blind by the truth when one is well into mid-life could have caused Paul much grief in having wasted so many of his years zealously misrepresenting God’s will. He well might have concluded that, for more than half of his life, he had been a day late and a dollar short.
But Paul apparently didn’t think that way. For he knew that God had opened his mind and heart to the fullness of a love that would not let him go, a truth that had no time limits nor expiration dates. It was in that awakening that Paul realized that the only time that now mattered was in each present moment of awakening to Christ. And so it can be for us, however untimely born we may feel ourselves to be. For when we open our eyes and hearts and minds to accept the indwelling of God’s spirit in Christ Jesus, our perception of Divine Grace is both deepened and widened. Where once it seemed elusive and hidden, it is now apparent and recognizable in a world where every creature, every person, and every circumstance seems touched with God’s spiritual presence. Advent is our reminder and invitation to move beyond clocks and calendars to taste and see what time it really is.
* * * * * * *
Ninth Day of Advent Monday, December 9, 2024
Scriptural Text: Isaiah 40:1-11 “Second sight”
The gospels have different ways of telling us that life isn’t always what it seems. When an inquiring Nicodemus ventured to meet Jesus in secret to determine for himself what the prophet from Galilee was really all about, he found himself stymied by the suggestion that we must be born again to really understand the will of God. And when both Jesus and Paul contrasted those who were alive from those already dead, they weren’t speaking of our physical existence, but of our spiritual connection with God. Both called upon our ability to see beyond what our eyes suggest is real. And both hoped that their listeners would be willing to accept the reality of the spiritual realm which, they believed, was the place where God could most authentically be met.
I sometimes refer to such spiritual intuition as second sight. In our Advent text for today, one of the most oft read and rhapsodized portions of scripture, the prophet Isaiah invites us, as he did those exiles in exile, to look both beyond and within to recognize the hand of God. The context of this most inspiring oracle lay in the experience of captivity in Babylon following the destruction of the city of Jerusalem that brought to an end the 400 year rule of the Davidic Dynasty. It also shattered the faith of the people of Judah who believed that their capital, Zion, God’s very home, could never be violated nor destroyed. Now living into their second and third generations as displaced people, they could only hope that the winds of political change might reveal God’s plan to restore them to their homeland. But what if the prophet was wrong?
The recent take over by the Persians of the once indominatable Babylonian empire did not necessarily point to freedom. Regime changes often did little to alter the status quo. Yet Isaiah saw things from a different viewpoint. His second sight led him to proclaim the beginning of a new day for the refugee community. His proclamation tried to assure them that God was bringing them comfort because they had suffered long enough in this far away land. The time of their redemption had arrived. So in those wonderfully imaginative phrases in which Handel set the tone for his magnum opus, The Messiah, we can still hear and feel the anticipation of God’s miraculous act that Isaiah imagined was now opening on the horizon. Valley’s would be lifted up, mountains would be leveled, and rough places would be made navigable for the people of Judah to return home in the very near future.
Not everyone shared his vision. The skeptic and the broken-hearted were quick to note that nothing had really changed. People, like grass, continued to wither and die, and those in exile remained in their alien and alienated condition. Isaiah’s second sight told him otherwise. His reading of the Persian annexation of Babylon was the sign that the prophet had been longing to see. The hand of God was working through King Cyrus, anointing him to grant release to the Jewish captives that would soon pave the way for their return to the land they believed God had reserved for them.
I sometimes wonder what it would take for any of us, living in times where we are naturally skeptical of anything we can’t control or explain, to be open to such second sight. Perhaps at Advent an ancient dreamer like Isaiah may open our minds and hearts to see how the working of God’s hand may yet bring us hope and comfort in times that bring us so much uncertainty and dread.
* * * * * * *
Tenth Day of Advent Tuesday, December 10, 2024
Scriptural Text: Isaiah 19:18-25 “That will be the day”
“What is your name, please? My name is…” Those of you whose television appetites run to game shows will be able to recall this signature phrase from To Tell the Truth, a prime time favorite of mine in the 1950s and 1960s. Two imposters would try to convince a panel of celebrities that they, in fact, were the real person whose name and unique story were being highlighted. For those watching who were in on the ruse, it was always great fun to see if the inquisitors would be able to pick out who the genuine person-of-the-moment really was.
The book of Isaiah in the Bible presents a similar challenge to modern readers, as it seems to span for more years than any one prophet could have lived. That has led Bible scholars to surmise that there likely was more than one Isaiah, perhaps as many as three, whose words weave in and out of this very long and very important prophetic book. Today’s text, for instance, reflects a time quite removed from when Isaiah, the high priest and counselor to King Hezekiah, uttered those famous promises of Emmanuel that calmed his fears of imminent destruction at the hands of Judah’s belligerent neighbors. Yet those very words served as one of the prophetic pointers of a coming king that our Christian ancestors believed found its fulfillment in the birth of Jesus some 500 years later.
Isaiah ch. 19 does seem to look into the future, but not from the dire place in which Hezekiah sought a sign from God. It does, however forecast well into the future, when Judah would enjoy an era of peace with their longstanding enemies to the East (Assyria) and West (Egypt). Perhaps this oracle was penned by a later Isaiah, or an anonymous scribe who felt inspired to interject those words he believed God was directing him to add to the original text of this most influential of prophets. We are too far removed in time and circumstance to be able to ask, in To Tell the Truth fashion, for the real Isaiah to please stand up. Nor do we have to, for the testimony of this book, whenever and however it was compiled in the form we now have it, continues to witness the hand of God at work in human history.
I am struck by the fourfold repetition of “on that day” which the prophet used to announce what he believed God was certain to do. And the picture he painted is one so many of us long for in our time, two millennia removed from its first utterance. For it anticipates a thread joining the two great antagonistic powers of that age, Egypt and Assyria, running through Israel in a blessed alliance in which the peace of God would be known and felt from West to East.
Hearing these words in an Advent season in which the fate and future of Israel remain very much in doubt may raise many doubts as to the validity of those promises and prophecies from so long ago. Isaiah’s “on that day” can easily become overshadowed with a more pessimistic refrain, “that’ll be the day,”. None of us can be faulted for being skeptical about the possibilities for long term peace in these lands which all of the people of the Book regard as holy. Yet can we find some room in our heart for that Prince of Peace in whom God’s first and last Word will finally and fully come to pass? Now that will be the day!
* * * * * * *
Eleventh Day of Advent Wednesday, December 11, 2024
Scriptural Text: Luke 7:18-30 “Connecting the dots?”
Advent is the season in which hope takes center stage. The lectionary readings from which Sunday scriptures are selected and sermons crafted pay particular attention to the prophets and other future-looking texts from the Gospels, the Epistles, and the Book of Revelation. In them we find ourselves caught between two time projections: one anticipating the coming messiah to restore Israel whom we identify with Jesus. His birth, then, marks the fulfillment of so many of those hopes. But we also hear these scriptures pointing us into a future that looks forward to the final consummation of God’s plan for this world. Time fulfilled and time anticipated: both themes weave in and out of the New Testament.
Jesus stands at the junction of these two hope-filled perspectives. And he doesn’t stand there alone. The one we assume was his mentor, his predecessor, perhaps even his cousin—John the Baptizer—occupies the same moment in time. Those first generations of believers went so far as to regard him as the long-awaited Elijah figure about whom Malachi planted the seed of his return as the necessary harbinger of the final act of God’s deliverance. Yet within the gospel account that Luke has left us, a note of uncertainty about John is hard to deny or ignore.
“Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” John’s disciples, probably in reaction to his imprisonment by Herod Antipas, seemed far less certain of the identity of either of these men than we assume they should be. Was that because John did not see himself as one worthy to wear Elijah’s mantle, but instead suspected that Jesus more clearly filled that role? Or did John wonder if Jesus was, in fact, the messiah of God to usher in the Kingdom? If so, why was he not stepping forward to reveal himself?
Luke gives us two answers to John’s question, both requiring that those in his audience had “ears to hear” what Jesus uttered in reply. “Are you the one who is to come…” John asked, to which Jesus quoted Isaiah 35, in which the prophet of Babylon painted a picture of the signs of the imminent redemption of Judah. Jesus then added a quote from Malachi 3 which seems to clearly link John to the long-awaited messenger of the covenant, identified a few verses later as none other than Ejijah. Luke couldn’t be clearer in his intention to connect the dots that brought prophetic hopefulness into the world of 1st Century anticipations of when and how God was at work in the very times in which they lived.
The Jesus movement was born among 1st Century men and women who were looking for deliverance from servitude or national subjugation. They were sign-seekers who paid particular attention to evidences of God’s presence in a world that was both secular and dehumanizing. Jesus’ reply to John’s messengers was a call for them to connect the dots of God’s divine plan in fulfilling the covenantal promises He had once made, and now was confirming, in Jesus’ ministry of healing and liberation.
I wonder how many of us during Advent 2024 will be able to connect the same dots, or will we be left asking of God, is Jesus the one, or shall we wait for another?
* * * * * * *
Twelfth Day of Advent Thursday, December 12, 2024
Scriptural Text: 2 Corinthians 8:1-15 “Though he was rich…”
Church gets under your skin, and I don’t mean this in a negative way. The ambiance of a church with long, center aisle, pews arranged row by row, stained-glass saints and martyrs watching from on high; the elevated alter from which God speaks to us through pastoral mouthpieces; the centrality of the communion table to which we are invited to join in eucharistic blessing: church becomes such a part of who we are that, whenever and wherever we enter a house of God we feel both at home and in awe.. And the rituals of Sunday worship provide us with the words, the musical sounds and the choreography provide with sanctuary unlike any other place. Church not only gets into our eyes and ears and minds—it permeates every fiber of our being. It gets under our skin.
The season of Advent, with its liturgical colors, candles, liturgies, carols, and Chrismon trees, is, for many of us, a fresh awakening to God’s presence in our lives. In sharp contrast to the weather and diminishing sunlight of winter, Advent signals the beginning, not the end, of the Church year. It is also a time for us to rediscover the place of the Christ child in our lives on a far deeper level than American holiday festivities can deliver. Most churches set aside a Sunday or two prior to Advent to remind the members of the congregation to be good stewards of the gifts they’ve been given as they pledge to underwrite the ministries of the church for another year. Yet such appeals for money run the risk of getting under people’s skin in a negative way.
Paul seems to have known this judging from what he wrote to the Corinthians in what may be the Bible’s most striking stewardship pitch. His aim was to solicit from the congregations in Greece and Macedonia a monetary offering that he would carry with him to give to the mother church in Jerusalem. Reading his words I sense he had more than charity in mind. Rather his appeal was an expression of his desire to demonstrate the unity of the Body of Christ in the sharing of resources, not unlike what modern churches are asked to give to their denominations through yearly apportionments.
What I find so amazing is that Paul used Jesus as an example to motivate their generosity. “For you know the generous grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.” Reading this we normally assume that Paul must have been speaking metaphorically, given the fact that we commonly regard Jesus as being materially poor. Paul likely was alluding to Jesus’ spiritual emptying of himself to become human like us, just as he wrote in Philippians 2:5-8.
But what if Paul literally meant that Jesus was wealthy as an example of the stewardship he was imploring them to copy? What if Paul believed that Jesus had actually renounced the prosperity he may have once enjoyed as the son of a Galilean builder in becoming poor himself? Jesus wealthy, prosperous—how could that be? Being that he was the son of a tekton (Greek for builder or contractor), he might have been brought up in more of a professional class than we usually portray him. His teachings do show him readily speaking of wealth, investment, and building in driving home a point, which, I suspect, was meant for a wealthier audience. And how might he have enjoyed such easy access to people of means, like Zacchaeus, who eagerly welcomed him into their homes and at their tables, unless they saw him as one of their own? In many respects, had Jesus been accustomed to wealth and stepped away from it, his summons to those like the rich, young ruler would be far more persuasive than had he, himself, been indigent.
Though he was rich… Dare we take Paul to heart in emulating Jesus by giving of our riches to support the Church he gave his life to save? Now that might really get under our skin!
* * * * * * *
Thirteenth Day of Advent Friday, December 13, 2024
Scriptural Text: Amos 8:1-12 “Ripe or rotten?”
I’m sure you’ve heard or even used the phrase “the time was ripe” in describing a moment in time that seemed ready for some decisive act or finale. Like so many of our cliches, it draws its imagery from the cycles of nature, in this case the maturing of fruit ready to be picked and eaten. The biblical prophet Amos lived in the Bible’s most unsettling of times, when the fractured remnants of David’s and Solomon’s kingdom co-existed, side-by-side, as rivals and competitors. While they both shared a common language, and a historical memory as children of Abraham and the Exodus, they differed in where they worshiped God and what they believed the Lord expected of them.
The Southern Kingdom, dominated by the tribe of Judah, remained loyal to the House of David, with its religious and political center in Jerusalem. The Northern Kingdom was both larger in territory and population and enjoyed the blessings of dependable rainfall and more fertile soil. Calling itself Israel they worshiped God in several shrines scattered through the land. But their tribal factions did not remain faithful to David’s heirs, but were convulsed by the instability of recurring coups and short-lived dynasties. Surely the Lord who called Israel into being could not be pleased with was was happening.
An otherwise obscure herdsman and orchardist named Amos took to heart what his eyes kept showing him in everyday events that, he believed, were signs from God of an imminent judgment upon both countries. A workman holding a plumb line made him think about how crooked Israel had become. A swarm of locusts, a consuming wildfire, and now, a basket of fruit—all held revelations of the simmering wrath of God and the inevitable punishment that awaited God’s people.
And why was God so displeased? Nowhere in prophetic literature does the cry of justice find a more convincing and passionate spokesman than in Amos. Amazingly his words were spoken, not during an era of calamity or despair, but at a time of unprecedented prosperity and growth, or so it seemed on the surface. Amos, however, looked beyond the finely decorated buildings and marketplace carts overflowing with produce. He found no validation of God’s blessings in these indicators of wealth and progress. For him they were but veneer covering over a deeper, insidious sinfulness in which the powerful ran roughshod over the commoner, the rich flourished at the expense of the poor, and kings and sanctimonious priests made a mockery of the righteousness they so hypocritically proclaimed.
Amos knew that the appearance of blessing was like the fruit he saw ripening in a street vendors basket. Shiny and appealing to the eye, it betrayed an underlying rot that Israel could neither ignore nor polish away. Just as the distance between success and failure can be quite short, so does the window of time between ripe and rotten close quickly. This Amos understood, and thus he did all within his power to make known to anyone who would listen. We can’t be sure how many took note of what he was trying to say. But his words did not die with him. They have continued to speak, and powerfully, in so many of Jesus’ teachings. And they have resonated in the cries of the poor and disenfranchised that inspired and energized the civil rights movements of our time. Perhaps, at Advent, they will resonate with us too.
* * * * * * *
Fourteenth Day of Advent Saturday, December 14, 2024
Scriptural Text: Luke 1:57-66 “What’s in a name?”
I’m fascinated by names, and often find myself wondering what our parents may have had in mind in giving us the names we now carry. As a junior I’m named after my father, and my middle name is in tribute to his favorite uncle. But sometimes I hear a name that seems unrelated to either of the parent’s names, and wonder what was its significance for the namers? Over my 40+ years in education I have seen how the names they have been changing’. The Steve’s and Jim’s and John’s and Dave’s of my childhood are rarely given to children today. The same goes for the Nancy’s and Pat’s and Jane’s and Susan’s who once populated our classrooms and circles of friends.
Names have always served as labeling devices that linked us to a certain family, or era, or culture with its heroes and celebrities. They can capture a sense of pride we have in claiming a child as our own, or even convey our aspirations for what that child might become. So when I meet someone named Faith, Hope or Grace, or size up what parents had in mind when naming their child Bubba, Brutus or Hercules, I realize that the names we give our offspring say more about us, the namers, than about those who will wear those names the rest of their lives.
The opening chapters of the Gospel of Luke introduce us to the two main characters of the Christmas story: John and Jesus. Both were named by parents who had put great meaning into what they hoped these children would become. To John’s parents, Elizabeth and Zechariah, their son not only came as something of a miracle baby, given their age, but also as a sign of God’s presence in their lives. The one we know as John was actually addressed as Yohanan in their Hebrew language, a name literally meaning “graced by God”, and more accurately, graced by the Lord, the Yo or Ya sound preserving a hint of the sacred name JHWH revealed to Moses on Sinai.
Luke is the only gospel to tell us that John’s birth was connected to that of his cousin, Jesus, soon to be born of Elizabeth’s cousin, Mariam of Nazareth. Like John, our English rendering of Jesus’ name keeps us from realizing that in Hebrew he would have been called Yehoshua or Yeshua, which we usually render Joshua. Suggesting one who saves, delivers, or rescues, it clearly fits what we’ve come to believe about the identity and ministry of the one whose birth we celebrate at Christmas. Like Emmanuel, another of those message names (“God is with us”), it says as much about us, our expectations and faith, as it does about the one we implore in prayer and song, “O come to us, abide in us, our Lord Emmanuel.”
What’s in a name? Likely much more than we think about in our happenstance meetings with each other, or ponder as we write out our signature. However we feel about our own name, or whatever it may mean to our friends, strangers or even enemies, of one thing we can be certain: God knows us, and not only by those human names that define our possibilities and limitations. God knows us for who we really are, and that is all that really matters in the long run.