12/12/04

"Anticipating the Best"

Isaiah 35:1-10
James 5:7-11
Matthew 11:2-11

'Tis the season to be jolly. It's also the season of anticipation. Children anticipate Santa Claus and all the goodies he'll be bringing. Youth anticipate parties, hanging with friends, and a long vacation away from school. Students away at college anticipate getting home for the holidays. Adults anticipate family gatherings, festive get-togethers, and seeing the joy on children's faces on Christmas morn. We all anticipate warm, meaningful moments here - special services, our children's Christmas pageant, beautiful choir music, singing carols, the sanctuary packed with poinsettias and people. Even the popular songs of Christmas convey the mood of anticipation: "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas," "I'll Be Home for Christmas," "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town."

In reality, all of life is filled with anticipation, isn't it? Business people anticipate what will sell and when is the best time to sell it. Investors try to anticipate the ups and downs of the stock market. Television executives anticipate what programming people will watch - and which ads will or will not be acceptable for their pristine airwaves. Fashion designers anticipate the kind of clothes people will wear. Workers anticipate pay day and the weekend. Athletes anticipate winning; fishermen anticipate a catch; sick people anticipate getting well; and so on. Life would lose much of its liveliness if we weren't able to anticipate.

But anticipation can go in two directions - we can anticipate the best or the worst, something positive or negative. We've been talking about some positive anticipations, but at times realistically we have to anticipate the negative. Some sick people anticipate not getting well; some of us anticipate a poignant sense of loneliness, especially as Christmas approaches, because of the loss of a loved one; some students anticipate poor grades, particularly if they haven't studied enough; some anticipate a down-turn in their business prospects; some of us may anticipate another terrorist attack on our country.

Some people just by nature - we call them pessimists - seem to always anticipate the worst. Like the man driving home late one night who has a flat tire, out in the middle of nowhere. To make matters worse he discovers his car jack is missing. He sees the shadow of a farm house down the road, and thinks, "Maybe I'll be able to borrow a jack there." As he walks in the darkness toward the house he again thinks: "Here it is 2 o'clock in the morning; I'm probably going to wake them up, and boy, will they be angry, if they're even home." He walks on a little further and thinks: "They'll probably be so mad, even if they have a jack, they most likely won't let me use it." Finally he gets to the doorstep, rings the bell, and waits for the sleepy farmer to open the door. As he does, the motorist belligerently yells at him, "Keep your old jack!"(i)

Advent has a lot to do with anticipating the best. Advent is the season of patient waiting, of hopeful anticipation for the coming of Christmas, for the coming of the Messiah. It's hard for most of us to wait patiently. I've told you before my personal patience prayer: "Lord, please give me patience, and give it to me right now!" James offers us impatient folks words to keep us going: "... be patient. Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near." He gives three examples of people who learned patience: farmers who wait patiently for their crops to grow; the prophets who patiently endured suffering; and Job, whose patience is still part of our vocabulary today. Phillips Brooks, the Boston preacher who wrote the words to the lovely Christmas carol, "O Little Town of Bethlehem," was pacing the floor of his study one day, waiting for inspiration while writing his sermon, and a friend asked him what was the matter. Brooks replied, "The trouble is that I'm in a hurry, but God isn't."(ii) Patience is an important part of anticipation.

So also is hope. Hopeful anticipation is vividly portrayed in the beautiful poetry of Isaiah we heard today - the rejoicing desert and the highway of holiness that winds through it. The desert in Isaiah's writings often represents the world in opposition to God and the judgment of God against evil. The fantastic transformation of the desert anticipated in today's lesson is a striking image of God's grace that will strengthen weak hands and feeble knees, and will also heal the blind, the deaf, the lame, and those who are speechless. These are hopeful signs of the coming kingdom, filled with longing for a time to come, a longing for wholeness. Christians believe that the fulfillment of this longing is realized in Jesus Christ.

What about the holy highway also in Isaiah? Biblical scholars suggest three possible interpretations. First, the Exodus of the people from Egypt to Canaan is a crucial event in their faith story, a sign of God's grace; and just as Moses led the people through the wilderness then, so the prophet anticipates a new highway of the Lord now. A second possible meaning relates to what would have been the present day in Isaiah's time, and the anticipated return of the exiles who had been held captive in Babylon, sort of like a second Exodus. The third interpretation has to do with the anticipated end times, the hope of God's presence with God's people at the conclusion of history. Obviously, anticipation is part of each of these interpretations. "Because of the past grace of God, the people experience present grace, and anticipate a final hope." For us, what matters most is the faith-strengthening future hope that offsets our being dismayed by the present. This is a good Advent theme because we look at Christmas in a similar way. Christmas, an historical event in the past, is of great importance to our faith story now, for it meets our individual needs now, but it also offers us a future ultimate hope. (iii)

So, we come to our final point regarding anticipation. As we patiently wait and hopefully look for the coming of the Messiah, let's not build up false expectations. John the Baptist, languishing in prison, gets to thinking: "Just who is this man, Jesus, who I baptized in the Jordan? I thought he was the Messiah, but now I'm not so sure. He doesn't exactly fit my image; he's not what I expected." So he sends his disciples to Jesus with this question: "Are you the one who is to be coming, or are we supposed to be waiting for someone else?" Are you the one ...? Let's not be too hard on poor John, because most of the folks of Palestine didn't know that Jesus was the Messiah either.

They expected the birth of the Messiah would be heralded with blazing lights, drum rolls, and trumpet fanfares. But as we know Jesus was born without much fanfare, in a lowly stable in a small back-water town. They expected a Christ who would liberate them from Rome; instead Jesus offered them liberation from sin and guilt. They expected a Christ who would dazzle them with miraculous feats, but his miracles were limited to healing the sick and feeding the hungry. They expected a Christ who would instill in the people a love of the law; instead he talked about the law of love. They expected a Messiah who'd make life easier; instead, if anything, he proposed making life harder. He talked about crosses and bearing them, and turning the other cheek, and loving our enemies, and welcoming outcasts, prostitutes, tax collectors, and those who people thought were unclean. He taught a counter-cultural message and practiced an unconventional hospitality that was, let's face it, controversial; he made many people uncomfortable. Most of all they expected a Christ who'd be a smashing success. He wasn't. In the eyes of the world he was a dismal failure.(iv) The people did not expect someone like Jesus, and neither did John.

The other thing about John was that his message was hardly what we'd call "good news." He preached fire and brimstone, the wrath of God, and the terror of judgment and condemnation. But Jesus primarily preached love, mercy, and forgiveness. John yelled and screamed, ranted and raved. Jesus quietly healed and taught parables. The answer to John's question, "Are you the one ...?" was answered not in words, but in deeds. "Go back and tell John what you're seeing and hearing: the blind see, the lame walk, lepers are made clean, the deaf hear, the dead are alive, and the poor get good news." The mark of Jesus' ministry was not long theological arguments, not a bunch of pious platitudes, but rather, deeds of love and mercy. And this is his ministry still today, carried out through us who are his present-day disciples. In Christ (and through us) those blinded to the truth about themselves, or about others, or about God, have their eyes opened; those whose feet aren't strong enough to stay on the path, are strengthened to follow in the way; those deaf to the voices of conscience and of God, begin to listen anew; those dead and powerless in their sins are raised to newness of life; even the poorest of the poor inherit the riches of God's love.(v)

One final set of questions: What are we doing to bring in the kingdom? Are you and I doing enough? Are we really following in the way? If someone were to ask you, "Are you a Christian? Are you one of those who follow Christ?," what would you say? Hopefully the question would not even need to be asked, because it would be obvious in our lives. Same is true about the church. Do the blind, those morally or spiritually blind, receive their sight from you and me, from our church? Are the lame, those who stumble and bumble along, are they raised up? Do we help them along the way? Do the deaf hear, do they hear the Good News from us? And the dead, those dead in their sins, in their indifference, in their callousness - do we raise them up?(vi) Are the outcasts and outsiders, the alienated or the unchurched, are they welcomed and included in our fellowship? Are we practicing what we preach in our mission statement - are we really reaching out to others and welcoming all?

Jesus expects a lot from his followers, from you and me. He expects the same from us as we observe in him, in what he said, in what he did, in how he lived his life. Jesus is our primary model of ministry in how we live our lives in the various places we live them - at work, at home, at school - and how we live our lives together here in this place. Each of us, indeed, has a high calling. In this Advent time we know that Christ has come and we are promised that he is coming again, whether it be the actual Second Coming or the Spirit of Christ alive and present in the church and in the lives of believers. So let our anticipation have a dimension of joyous expectation, for the best is yet to come, the Lord is coming. Let us wait patiently and hopefully. Come, Lord Jesus, come. Amen.

The Pilgrim Church of Duxbury
Rev. Kenneth C. Landall

i Pulpit Resource, 12/14/80.
ii Emphasis, 12/80, p. 4.
iii Pulpit Resource Supplement, 12/14/80.
iv The Clergy Journal, 5-6/80, pp. 18-19.
v William Barclay, Daily Bible Study Guide, Matthew, Vol. 2, p. 3.
vi The Clergy Journal, op. cit.