Messengers of God's Hope
Rev. Jodi Bushdiecker
December 4, 2022
St. John’s UCC Greeley, CO
“Skydive with Santa and boogie with elves in Santa's village.” This was the pop-up message I was greeted with when I opened my computer earlier this week. The link led to “Google Santa Tracker,” a website with online games and activities for the holiday season. Here you can play with giggling elves and hear jingling bells while tracking Santa's sleigh ride around the world as you countdown the days to Christmas.
While we might be able to follow Santa's path across the globe, that journey takes us further and further away from the babe born in Bethlehem. Our culture's focus on entertainment and consumption leaves little room for God in this season of Advent.
When I was a child, my family used an Advent calendar to prepare for the birth of Jesus. My brother, sister, and I eagerly took turns lifting the flap covering each day's date in the weeks leading up to Christmas. Underneath each flap we would find a quote from Scripture or a suggestion for a holiday activity, such as “Bake Christmas cookies and bring them to an elderly neighbor.” The focus of these Advent activities and Bible verses was on Jesus, not Santa; on giving, not receiving.
When I was a teenager, I spent a year as a foreign exchange student in Austria. I lived with a host family, and one of the best parts of my experience was learning about the traditions and holidays they celebrated. In Austria, December 6 is known as Nikolaustag. To celebrate, children set their shoes in front of the fireplace on the evening of December 5th . The next morning, they wake up to find them filled with goodies.
Nikolaustag commemorates Saint Nicholas, a real person who lived in the 4th century. Nicholaus was born in the village of Patara, which was part of Greece at that time, and now is on the southern coast of Turkey. Nicholaus' wealthy parents died in an epidemic while he was young. They had raised him to be a devout Christian, and after their death Nicholaus dedicated his life to serving God. He became Bishop of Myra, and he gave his whole inheritance to assist the needy, the sick, and the suffering.
There are many legends surrounding bishop Nicholaus. One story tells of a poor man who had three daughters and no money for their dowries. Without dowries, these young women were destined to be sold into slavery. Mysteriously, on three different occasions, a bag of gold containing enough money for each daughter to be wed appeared in the family's home. The bags of gold, which are believed to have come from the bishop, were tossed through an open window and are said to have landed in stockings or shoes left by the fire to dry.
After Nicholaus died on December 6, 354, the anniversary of his death became a feast day known as Saint Nicholas Day. As the fame of Saint Nicholas spread beyond Asia Minor, so did the custom of children hanging stockings or putting out shoes by the fireplace, eagerly awaiting gifts in the tradition of the patron saint. In Europe, Christian imagination transformed Saint Nicholas into jolly old St. Nick. And here in the United States, cartoonist Thomas Nast made him into Santa Claus.
In her Advent reflection, UCC minister Mary Luti writes, “These days, many Christians are down on Santa and the commercialization of the season he represents. Aiming for a holier Advent, they point back to Nicholas, Santa's prototype. We'd be a lot closer to the right spirit, they say, if we looked to the bishop, not the elf.”[1]
But it's not that simple. The kind bishop Nicholas was also a harsh bishop. He not only gave to those in need, he also persecuted pagans and repressed heretics. Luti writes, “(Nicholas) was an amalgam of utmost kindness and fierce certainty, passions sweet and cruel, a compromised person in a complicated world. Like ours. Like us.”
Today's text from the prophet Isaiah delivers a surprising, unexpected word of hope for our complicated world. It is a message of good news that tells of God's comfort, God's redemption, and most of all, God's faithfulness. The people of Israel to whom the prophet spoke were living in captivity in Babylon in sixth-century B.C.E. They had lost their land, their temple, and their great city Jerusalem. They were living in exile and uncertainty – a wilderness place that seemed far, far away from God's comfort and hope.
We, too, have been living in a place of wilderness. Our pandemic experience has been one of exile from our familiar way of being. And covid has rendered our future uncertain. Safety and security have been replaced by loss and change. If ever there was a time we needed a message of hope—for our lives, for our nation, for our world—that time is now.
But the prophet's message is as much a word of challenge, as it is a message of hope. It's as much a call to action, as it is a word comfort. Bill Goettler notes in his Advent reflection, “we want the good news of Christmas without the challenge....the birth narrative without the prophet....redemption without judgment."[2] Goettler reminds us that it's so much easier to talk about the promise of a babe in a manger than it is to do the work of Advent.
This morning, as we engage with this text from Isaiah, let's pause for a moment to unpack the prophet's message and what it means for us this Advent season.
First, the prophet calls us to prepare a way for God. And we do this, he says, by constructing a highway for God in the wilderness. “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”
Second, Isaiah tells us, “the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places plain.” This will happen, he says, as we lift up the valleys and bring low the mountains. In other words, as we level the playing field, as we meet injustice with justice, hatred with love, and violence with peace.
Third, the prophet calls us to share the message of God's hope with a hurting world. “Cry out. Get up to a high mountain and herald the good news.” Go tell of God's faithful Word.
So the call has been given. And the way has been laid out. The question is: Will we step up to the prophet's challenge? Will we step into our Advent work?
Pre-pandemic, a friend of mine who was facing some serious health challenges was placed by his doctor on what could be called an “Advent fast.” He was instructed to decline invitations to holiday parties, refrain from participating in the activities of the season, and do his Christmas shopping from home. His Advent fast, it turns out, was a lot like the covid restrictions we have all been living under these past 2 ½ years.
My friend confessed that at first his doctor's prescription felt limiting. But after engaging in his Advent discipline for several days, he discovered that his fast from holiday activities opened him up to a more contemplative experience in the days leading up to Christmas. By opting out of holiday parties and shopping malls, he was able to prepare the way for the coming Christ child from a heart-space that was set a part from the commercialism of the season.
As we begin to come out of our pandemic wilderness, we enter this year's Advent season in long-awaited anticipation of familiar holiday activities and celebrations. As we do so, may we also hold on to the more contemplative heart-space we cultivated during our covid fast. Our pandemic experience has taught us much about what really matters in life. May our wilderness learnings help to draw us closer to God during this season of Advent.
After preparing in the wilderness a way for God, Isaiah calls us to lift up the valleys and make low the mountains. The prophet tells us that God levels out the uneven ground and makes the rough places plain. God meets injustice with righteousness, hatred with love, and violence with peace. We, too, are called to this kind of leveling activity as we confront the injustice and hatred and violence in our broken world.
Another friend of mine has shared with me that when her son was young, she came up with an Advent tradition which she called “Reversing the Advent Calendar.” Her son was an only child, and also the only grandchild for both sets of grandparents. As the lone child in this extended family, the boy was showered with presents at Christmastime. My friend created her own version of an Advent calendar, where the activity for each day leading up to Christmas included having her son donate a toy from his large arsenal of playthings. This Advent practice was a small step toward shifting the priorities of a culture of consumption, and it helped this boy and his family create space to receive the real and lasting gifts of the season.
In these days leading up to Christmas, how can we participate in God's leveling activity in the world? What actions can we take to confront the inequity created by consumerism, classism, and all the other isms in our society? What responses can we take to heal the deep divisions in our country that reveal the even deeper underlying fear and hatred we harbor? What steps can we take to reverse the tragedy of gun violence that is killing ordinary, everyday men, women, and children across our nation? This season of Advent, how can we smooth out the uneven places and unjust spaces in our broken world?
The third part of the prophet's call to action is about being messengers of God's hope to our hurting world. Our text tell us that the God who rebukes and sends God's people into exile is also the God whose mighty arm can mend what is broken. We learn that the God of Israel is a gentle shepherd who gathers up the lambs, feeds them, holds them close, and brings them safely home. These images of the Holy One provide comfort and promise to a people whose long exile has left them questioning God's power and God's love. They are a word of comfort and promise to those who have suffered under political oppression and live in uncertainty. The only one who can be trusted to make right what is wrong is the one whose Word alone “will stand forever.”
We, too, find solace in God's mighty arm that can right what is wrong and mend what it broken. We, too, are comforted by the gentle, nurturing shepherd whose love knows no limits or bounds. Yet, in the midst of the hardships we have experienced and the uncertainty we face, we seem to have lost our hope in God, or at least our will to “cry out” with the good news of God's faithfulness.
Week after week, we continue to witness young men of color being gunned down in the streets of our cities. These events appall and outrage us, yet we do not cry out with a message of God's hope. Day after day, we hear of yet another incident of hate perpetrated against our brothers and sisters who are Jewish or immigrant or members of the LGBTQ+ community. We shake our head in disapproval and disgust at these events, but we do not cry out with a message of God's hope. Every few days, a mass shooting large enough to capture our attention takes place. These events evoke our feelings of anger and grief, but we do not cry out with a message of God's hope.
Theologian Jurgen Moltmann reminds us that hope must live in the tension between the Word that is present and the promise which is not yet, but is coming.[3] In this season of Advent, despite all evidence to the contrary, despite the injustice and hatred and violence in our world and the uncertainty in our lives, despite the massive structures of despair and domination all around us, can we see signs of God's shalom, and can we bring this message of hope to our broken world?
A few years ago, I met someone who shares the good news by extending God's blessing to everyone she meets. Whether it's with friends at church, fellow shoppers at the grocery store or strangers on the elevator, she makes eye contact and says, “Peace to you.” She admits that she has received confused looks from some folks who are not used to hearing this kind of message. But through her practice of passing the peace to all she meets, she has discovered the power of blessing as a messenger of God's hope.
Today we lit the candles of hope and peace. As those who seek to follow in the way of Jesus, we, too, are called to share the good news of God's promise of the coming Christ child, the Prince of Peace.
First, we prepare a way for God in the wilderness. And then we act for justice, love, and peace by doing God's leveling work in the world. And finally, we cry out, sharing the good news of God's hope to a hurting world.
This Advent season, how are you preparing the way for God to come into your life? In the midst of the darkness and brokenness all around, how are you opening yourself to receive the babe born in Bethlehem? What sort of road “broad and smooth” are you clearing in your heart? In this time of waiting and watching, how will you be a messenger of God's hope?
I close this morning with this contemplative prayer from the Rev. Steve Garnaas-Holmes:
God, prepare your Way in me.
What valleys in me need to be lifted up?
Raise those low places.
What mountains in me need to be brought low?
Dismantle those mighty things.
What rough places in me need to be made smooth?
Smooth them out.
How might your glory be revealed in me?
Let it shine.
May it be so this Advent season.
Amen.
[1]www.ucc.org/daily_devotional_st_nicholas
[2]The Christian Century (11.29.11).
[3]Jurgen Moltmann, The Coming of God: Christian Eschatology, trans. Margaret Kohl (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996).