The road no one wants to travel
Commentary
Last winter, I had to attend a meeting in Ontario, Canada. The trip from our west Michigan home took approximately four hours on the way out, with dry roads and little traffic. A strong storm blew in during the day, and by the time I headed back, ice, sleet, blowing snow, and whiteout conditions made the driving nearly impossible. It was a drive I did not want to make on a road that no one wanted to travel.
There are other roads none of us wants to take. When my brother-in-law died suddenly, and tragically, I did not want to travel down the road that would take us to his funeral. When someone I love dearly was locked in prison, I did not want to take the road that led me to a face-to-face confrontation with her. When one of my staff committed a social indiscretion requiring public discipline, I did not want to move ahead on a path that I knew would bring many people much pain.
Though I made my way down each of these difficult roads, there are others I have avoided. One road toward reconciliation with a friend of years ago still seems blocked to me. We all have roads like that where we don't want to travel. A friend of mine, for instance, knows what his drinking is doing to his marriage and career, but he is not yet desperate enough to travel the road of admitting he is an alcoholic who needs to enter a treatment program. A graduate student I know enrolls in one program after another, fearing the road of permanent employment because he does not believe he has any skills. Another acquaintance won't allow anyone to date her, because years ago a man abused her and now she is skittish to travel any road that points in the direction of intimacy.
Nations come to crossroads as well, and their leaders read signs indicating a variety of paths to take. When Abraham Lincoln became president, he had made it clear in which direction he would move the United States in issues related to slavery. A number of states could not see themselves traveling down that road, and so seceded, fighting desperately to move the country in another direction. In the 1930s, a group of Christians within the established churches of Germany banded together to form the Confessing Church, resisting at every turn the road that Adolf Hitler wanted the nation to travel.
The passages in today's lectionary are about signs that were posted at forks in the roads being traveled by familiar Bible characters. Each faced at least one road he did not want to travel, and after reading the signs, needed to make a choice about that road. Ahaz chose not to travel where God was pointing, and refused even to look at the signpost lifted by Isaiah the prophet. Paul found himself traveling a road that he resisted long and hard, only to find that it was, in fact, the road of grace and hope. Joseph was planning to take the high road of moral rectitude, only to find that the sign of the angel pointed to a path mapped in ways he could not have understood, leading to an outcome only God could produce.
Each of us makes choices every day. Most are little ones, but now and again we come to the crossroads that Robert Frost talks of in his marvelous and mystic poem "The Road Less Traveled." There we must make a decision -- a truly religious decision. There we must read the signs and determine which road has been traveled before us by our Lord. There we must make a decision that will change the fundamental shape of our existence. Sometimes it is a road of trust in the darkness. Sometimes it is a road of repentance, a true U-turn. Sometimes it is a road of fear mixed with awe. But, always it is a road of pilgrimage (as John Bunyan so powerfully put it in The Pilgrim's Progress).
Isaiah 7:10-16
Ahaz is in a tough spot. Assyria, the major power of the Fertile Crescent, is on a campaign of expansion and conquest that feels about as politically sensitive as that of an elephant seeking room to roll and romp in a savannah owned otherwise by grasshoppers. To the north, Syria and Israel have formed a feeble pact, knowing that they will likely die with a fight or without one. Either way, Assyria is taking over the neighborhood.
Ahaz stands at a crossroads with four possible roads to take. First, he could give in to the pressure from Syria and Israel, and reluctantly join a fight he knows cannot be won. There are blood ties to consider, of course: Ahaz is the grandson of great Israelite king Ahab, and may still owe a little family allegiance to his northern neighbor. Furthermore, Israel and Judah, in spite of their differences, shared a common history that lifted them to a place that some might call a religious superiority complex. They were part of the old Israelite collection of desert wanderers who still told stories of defeating great nations like Egypt, Moab, Edom, the Philistines, and the ten nations of the Canaanites. Because of their unique and divine calling, they had once been the scourge of Yahweh among the nations of the Middle East. Perhaps it was time to rise again and fight a holy war.
Second, Ahaz could do an end run around Syria and Israel, and send ambassadors to Nineveh (the capital of Assyria) promising tribute and loyalty in exchange for safety and self-rule when the Assyrian steamroller crushed Syria and Israel and obliterated everything in its path on its march toward Egypt. This may, in fact, be what Rezin and Pekah, the kings of Syria and Israel, feared. It would be tough enough for them to send the sons of their countries' women to sure slaughter on one front. But, to have to fight a rear guard action also against Judah, if that little pipsqueak nation dared make an alliance with Assyria, would be too much. So, the two bullies were staring down Ahaz before they scrambled for battle on the northern front.
Third, Ahaz could turn to Egypt for aid. This was a constant temptation for Judah. In fact, Isaiah will declare a mighty divine judgment against Egypt in chapter 19, and will tie to it God's divine displeasure on all in Judah who think that their southern neighbor is a safe and helpful ally (ch. 20).
Finally, Ahaz could simply stay aloof from the swirling chaos of world politics roiling around Judah. There were different reasons to make such a choice: hope that isolation in the hill country would provide safety while the big nations battled it out on the plains, fear of getting involved, or even a declaration of trust in a higher power.
Some might consider this fourth choice foolhardy, and use it as a campaign slogan against what they would perceive as the mark of a weak and indecisive king. Yet it was precisely the counsel urged to Ahaz by Isaiah in this outdoor conference. Why? Because Judah needed to learn that it had a divine role still to play among the nations of the world. Its primary strength did not come through international alliances but from its religious reliance on Yahweh. Strong as the bullies to the north might seem, they would pass quickly from the scene. And powerful as Assyria was perceived among the nations of the Fertile Crescent, she too would soon slip and fall, and her colors would fade from the map.
Standing at the crossroads, Ahaz could not easily make the right choice. Isaiah was dispatched by God to point Ahaz down the fourth road, and the prophet was commissioned to offer a divine sign nudging Judah in that direction. Ahaz likely knew Isaiah well. They were, perhaps, distant relatives (hence their mutual awareness of which "young girl" would be giving birth in a few months). In any case, Isaiah was certainly a widely respected religious leader in the ceremonial cult of the temple that remained tightly tied to the royal house.
Ahaz was afraid of both the choice he needed to make and also of God's leading in that decision. He knew the divine road would be difficult, so he piously pleaded to be left in the dark. But the sign was given anyway -- a young girl (the Hebrew word does not necessarily mean virgin) that they both knew (probably Isaiah's own wife) would soon be pregnant; her child would be a male, and before he was two or three, Israel and Syria would have disappeared from the scene.
This was, in fact, the political outcome. Assyria obliterated both Syria and Israel within the next few years, and Judah was divinely delivered (see Isaiah 37). But Ahaz played almost no part in that process because he would not read the signs at the crossroad, and vacillated in irreligious indecision.
Romans 1:1-7
When Paul wrote this letter he was completing his third mission journey (see Acts 19-20), and was spending the winter at the home of his friend Gaius in Corinth (Romans 16:23). While the bulk of Paul's time on his second mission journey was spent in Corinth (Acts 18), Paul's major stop on his third mission journey was Ephesus (Acts 19). While he was staying in Ephesus, the Corinthian congregation experienced a great deal of turmoil and sent a delegation to Paul seeking his advice. In response, Paul wrote at least four letters of concern and advice. Our New Testament letters 1 and 2 Corinthians are just two of these pieces of correspondence that Paul wrote from Ephesus.
After Paul's work in Ephesus was well established, he made a quick tour around the Aegean Sea, renewing his relationship with the congregations he and Silas had worked to found. His final stop before heading back to Palestine was Corinth. As he brought reconciliation and maturity to his relationship with that congregation, Paul looked forward to his next major mission push. It would send him further west, he thought -- certainly to Rome and possibly to Spain (Romans 15:23-29).
Since two of the most difficult challenges to Paul's lengthy ministry with the Corinthian congregation were their resistance to his apostolic authority and their tendency to step back from his theology of divine grace, Paul wants now to ensure that these will be presented clearly to the church in Rome before ever he arrives there. Hence, when he learned that Phoebe, one of the church leaders from Cenchrea (Corinth's suburban port city), was traveling to Rome on business (Romans 16:1-2), he dictated a letter to Tertius (Romans 16:22) to be delivered by Phoebe to Paul's friends in Rome.
The opening of Paul's letter is informative in several respects. First, it is more focused on Paul himself than are most of his greetings. Rather than list those who share the ministry with him, he spends more time detailing his clear calling as a missionary to the Gentiles. Second, he briefly, but powerfully, ties together the historic Jewish religious faith with the new revelation of God in Jesus. In this way, Paul immediately addresses the two major issues that he has had to wrestle with in every one of his fledgling mission congregations: challenges to his authority as a divinely appointed teacher, and attempts to pull apart his teachings into either a new form of Pharisaic asceticism or some version of Hellenistic hedonism.
Both of these themes will be developed much more fully in the body of Paul's letter. At this point, Paul's confirmation of each idea is simply Jesus. He indicates that Jesus is the one who called him to his special Gentile mission (vv. 1, 5); he points to Jesus as God's confirmation of the historic prophetic message (vv. 2-3); he identifies Jesus as the Messiah proven in power because of the resurrection (v. 4); and he declares Jesus to be the ensign under which the Christians in Rome find their identity (v. 6), just as the soldiers of Rome would march under the standard of the great Roman eagles.
In all of this, Paul is raising a sign at the crossroads of life. Whatever road any might be traveling, it always comes to a fork where the choice of paths leads to different outcomes. Paul is determined to point his friends in Rome down the Jesus trail. This will not be an easy way to go. It requires, first of all, that people admit their sinfulness and inability to do good, and the legitimacy of God's wrath against them (chs. 1-3). Further, it means that they will not be able to claim merit of their own in finding God's favor (chs. 4-11). Finally, it demands total sacrifice on their part (chs. 12-15).
This is the road no one wants to travel. But it is the only road of "good news." Down one road God wins the day by way of reasserting God's righteousness (1:16-17) as demonstrated and delivered in Jesus. Down all the other paths, no matter how wholesome they may seem, lies either a trap of divine judgment or one of self-destruction.
Matthew 1:18-25
Many of us start reading the Gospel of Matthew at this point; we are not thrilled with the evangelist's list of names in the first seventeen verses. Yet without the genealogical records, the punch of this story is not as evident. The genealogies locate Jesus in both divine and human time. Matthew's three series of fourteen generations maps out the human landscape: Israel was created by God to be God's people in the land of covenant promise (Abraham through David; 1:2-6); Israel experienced times of both success and failure in Palestine (David through Jechoniah; 1:6-11); Israel was now reduced to the remnant of Judah that returned from exile and was waiting for the Messiah to come (Jechoniah through Joseph; 1:12-16). Thus, these are the days of expectation; the Messiah should come about now.
Furthermore, on the divine timeline, two covenants need fulfillment. God made a promise to Abraham that all of the nations of the earth would be blessed through him and his descendents (Genesis 12:1-3). Later, God made a promise to David that he would always have a descendent on the throne (2 Samuel 7). At the time of Matthew 1:18, the remnant of Israel was hardly significant to bless its few Palestinian neighbors, let alone the whole wide world. At the same time, even though the descendents of David's family kept their genealogical records intact, updating them with every baby born, they certainly were not kings or rulers.
So it is that Matthew's words in verse 18 are freighted with expectation: this is the right time, and Jesus is the one who will bring together the fulfillment of each covenant. But Joseph does not know this. He cannot stand above the times to see the big picture, and he is not aware of God's plans. What God is doing in Mary, his youthful pledged bride, seems to him to be merely a nasty act of immorality on her part. How can she, the woman of his hopes and dreams, be pregnant when he has circumspectly maintained their propriety?
In order to bring Joseph on board, God sends an angel to stand at the crossroads of his life and point in a new direction, one Joseph would not otherwise have considered. God has performed a miracle in Mary's womb; the one who will be born will finally stitch together both Israel's human time and God's divine time. The covenants and the covenant people will give birth, through Mary, to the Messiah of the covenant. God will again come close ("Immanuel").
Joseph has to make a choice. Before he went to sleep, he had been headed in one direction (v. 19). After the nighttime vision, and the signpost presented by the angel, Joseph turned and went down another path (v. 24). And the rest, as they say, is history.
Application
The Sundays of Advent are signposts in our time. While the culture around us prepares for Christmas by way of parties and pageants and purchases, Christians are scanning the horizon for the dawn when every day of the year will be Christmas. The Messiah came once and brought convergence between the two great covenants of the Old Testament and the covenant people; then he left for a time, declaring that the nations needed opportunity to come on board with God's age-old plan.
Now the church of Jesus holds up the signposts of Advent Sundays each year to remind those in the family of Jesus of who they are and whose they are. And, in a world that is constantly at crossroads of political tensions, ethnic antagonism, materialistic kingdom building, cultural elitism, individualistic isolationism, agnostic questing, and atheistic denial, there is constantly a need to raise high these signposts in the marketplaces and among the societies of our times. We are not counting down the remaining days of Christmas shopping; we are keeping vigil at the crossroads of life, giving people another opportunity to find the right road -- the road of non-alignment among the political superpowers of our day (cf. Ahaz), the road of Jesus' good news among the religions of our world (cf. Paul), and the road of divine initiative and redemptive purpose among the cluttered calendars of our times (cf. Joesph).
This is not an enviable task. We are guides interrupting the paths of those who have already chosen their own roads, and telling them that they need to change course. We are heralds of the way of the Messiah few desire. We point to the road less traveled in an age that follows gurus with stories of the trampled paths to success. This is the way of Advent: "Prepare ye the way of the Lord...."
An Alternative Application
Isaiah 7:10-16; Matthew 1:18-25.
A focus on just the Isaiah and the Matthew passages may be used to reflect on the idea of "Immanuel." Ahaz had chosen to secularize his little kingdom, and he was not thrilled with the idea of a God who came too close. He did not want the sign that Isaiah offered, nor did he want a divine king who would compete with him for both the allegiance of the people and the values of the kingdom. In spite of his refusal of the sign, God gave him one anyway. In the sign of "Immanuel," the nearness of God was both a threat and a promise.
Similarly for Joseph, the nearness of God in the birth of Mary's son was both a threat and a promise. It would cause him embarrassment. It would cause Mary pain. It would cause conflict among the Jews. It would cause unrest in the world ruled by the god emperors of Rome.
But "Immanuel" is also a promise. Only God could deliver Judah and Ahaz in a time of overwhelming political odds against them. Only God could bring meaning back to a world that was drifting in the days of post-exilic Judaism. The God who had been too distant from the world, and the world that had been too distant from its God were now coming close in divine acts of deliverance. Nothing would ever be the same again.
Preaching The Psalm
Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19
The recurring phrase, "let your face shine" (vv. 3, 7, 19), offers an interesting opportunity to reflect on the meaning of God's presence in our world. This reflection takes on a particular significance during the Advent season.
The images of light and "shining," are associated with God throughout the Bible. From the moment God said, "Let there be light," light has been the defining characteristic of God's presence. God appears as light to Moses in the bush that seems to burn. God burns like a pillar of fire as he leads Israel out of Egypt. The light is even infectious. After Moses spends time with God on the mountain, Moses himself begins to glow.
The light is symbolic of God's power and purity. Light is the opposite of darkness, which is often associated with evil. Light is good, life-giving.
But the light associated with God is otherworldly. It does not have its origin in this world. The shining character of God's presence overwhelms us, drives us to our knees, and humbles us. We become like Isaiah in the temple, cowed by God's glorious appearance and by the rush of awareness of our sin that becomes evident in God's light.
That's one reason the imagery of light is so prevalent during the Advent season. The "light of the world" has come. We celebrate this glorious coming with candles and bright lights -- all dim reminders of the hope and life that are found in God's presence. We sing with the psalmist "let your face shine," and bring to us the salvation we need.
God does just that. Ironically, the shine of God's face is a human face. The ultimate appearing of God in our world is not as a supernatural shaft of light, but rather as a humble human being. The fullness of God's glory is revealed in a human face.
This, of course, changes everything. It changes the way we think about God and God's glory. God is with us, like us. It changes how we think about power and influence. God doesn't overpower us or force us or blind us. Rather, God walks with us, embraces us, becomes one of us.
Of course it changes everything we think about ourselves. Whatever view we held of our human existence, and the value of being a human, is transformed forever in the belief that God became human with us. It changes how we think about one another. How can we ever call another person our enemy when that person reflects in his or her face the divine glory? How can we neglect the needs of a single hurting person when we realize that by neglecting them we neglect God?
We prayed with the psalmist, "let your face shine." And it has. God's face has illuminated the world for all time. The brightness of God's glory has sent its beams into every dark crevice and hole. The light of the world has come; God's face is shining. We have seen him, beheld his glory, and touched his flesh and heard his voice and felt his tears and watched him die.
Shine, O Lord, shine. Let your face shine in the life of your Son in our presence.
There are other roads none of us wants to take. When my brother-in-law died suddenly, and tragically, I did not want to travel down the road that would take us to his funeral. When someone I love dearly was locked in prison, I did not want to take the road that led me to a face-to-face confrontation with her. When one of my staff committed a social indiscretion requiring public discipline, I did not want to move ahead on a path that I knew would bring many people much pain.
Though I made my way down each of these difficult roads, there are others I have avoided. One road toward reconciliation with a friend of years ago still seems blocked to me. We all have roads like that where we don't want to travel. A friend of mine, for instance, knows what his drinking is doing to his marriage and career, but he is not yet desperate enough to travel the road of admitting he is an alcoholic who needs to enter a treatment program. A graduate student I know enrolls in one program after another, fearing the road of permanent employment because he does not believe he has any skills. Another acquaintance won't allow anyone to date her, because years ago a man abused her and now she is skittish to travel any road that points in the direction of intimacy.
Nations come to crossroads as well, and their leaders read signs indicating a variety of paths to take. When Abraham Lincoln became president, he had made it clear in which direction he would move the United States in issues related to slavery. A number of states could not see themselves traveling down that road, and so seceded, fighting desperately to move the country in another direction. In the 1930s, a group of Christians within the established churches of Germany banded together to form the Confessing Church, resisting at every turn the road that Adolf Hitler wanted the nation to travel.
The passages in today's lectionary are about signs that were posted at forks in the roads being traveled by familiar Bible characters. Each faced at least one road he did not want to travel, and after reading the signs, needed to make a choice about that road. Ahaz chose not to travel where God was pointing, and refused even to look at the signpost lifted by Isaiah the prophet. Paul found himself traveling a road that he resisted long and hard, only to find that it was, in fact, the road of grace and hope. Joseph was planning to take the high road of moral rectitude, only to find that the sign of the angel pointed to a path mapped in ways he could not have understood, leading to an outcome only God could produce.
Each of us makes choices every day. Most are little ones, but now and again we come to the crossroads that Robert Frost talks of in his marvelous and mystic poem "The Road Less Traveled." There we must make a decision -- a truly religious decision. There we must read the signs and determine which road has been traveled before us by our Lord. There we must make a decision that will change the fundamental shape of our existence. Sometimes it is a road of trust in the darkness. Sometimes it is a road of repentance, a true U-turn. Sometimes it is a road of fear mixed with awe. But, always it is a road of pilgrimage (as John Bunyan so powerfully put it in The Pilgrim's Progress).
Isaiah 7:10-16
Ahaz is in a tough spot. Assyria, the major power of the Fertile Crescent, is on a campaign of expansion and conquest that feels about as politically sensitive as that of an elephant seeking room to roll and romp in a savannah owned otherwise by grasshoppers. To the north, Syria and Israel have formed a feeble pact, knowing that they will likely die with a fight or without one. Either way, Assyria is taking over the neighborhood.
Ahaz stands at a crossroads with four possible roads to take. First, he could give in to the pressure from Syria and Israel, and reluctantly join a fight he knows cannot be won. There are blood ties to consider, of course: Ahaz is the grandson of great Israelite king Ahab, and may still owe a little family allegiance to his northern neighbor. Furthermore, Israel and Judah, in spite of their differences, shared a common history that lifted them to a place that some might call a religious superiority complex. They were part of the old Israelite collection of desert wanderers who still told stories of defeating great nations like Egypt, Moab, Edom, the Philistines, and the ten nations of the Canaanites. Because of their unique and divine calling, they had once been the scourge of Yahweh among the nations of the Middle East. Perhaps it was time to rise again and fight a holy war.
Second, Ahaz could do an end run around Syria and Israel, and send ambassadors to Nineveh (the capital of Assyria) promising tribute and loyalty in exchange for safety and self-rule when the Assyrian steamroller crushed Syria and Israel and obliterated everything in its path on its march toward Egypt. This may, in fact, be what Rezin and Pekah, the kings of Syria and Israel, feared. It would be tough enough for them to send the sons of their countries' women to sure slaughter on one front. But, to have to fight a rear guard action also against Judah, if that little pipsqueak nation dared make an alliance with Assyria, would be too much. So, the two bullies were staring down Ahaz before they scrambled for battle on the northern front.
Third, Ahaz could turn to Egypt for aid. This was a constant temptation for Judah. In fact, Isaiah will declare a mighty divine judgment against Egypt in chapter 19, and will tie to it God's divine displeasure on all in Judah who think that their southern neighbor is a safe and helpful ally (ch. 20).
Finally, Ahaz could simply stay aloof from the swirling chaos of world politics roiling around Judah. There were different reasons to make such a choice: hope that isolation in the hill country would provide safety while the big nations battled it out on the plains, fear of getting involved, or even a declaration of trust in a higher power.
Some might consider this fourth choice foolhardy, and use it as a campaign slogan against what they would perceive as the mark of a weak and indecisive king. Yet it was precisely the counsel urged to Ahaz by Isaiah in this outdoor conference. Why? Because Judah needed to learn that it had a divine role still to play among the nations of the world. Its primary strength did not come through international alliances but from its religious reliance on Yahweh. Strong as the bullies to the north might seem, they would pass quickly from the scene. And powerful as Assyria was perceived among the nations of the Fertile Crescent, she too would soon slip and fall, and her colors would fade from the map.
Standing at the crossroads, Ahaz could not easily make the right choice. Isaiah was dispatched by God to point Ahaz down the fourth road, and the prophet was commissioned to offer a divine sign nudging Judah in that direction. Ahaz likely knew Isaiah well. They were, perhaps, distant relatives (hence their mutual awareness of which "young girl" would be giving birth in a few months). In any case, Isaiah was certainly a widely respected religious leader in the ceremonial cult of the temple that remained tightly tied to the royal house.
Ahaz was afraid of both the choice he needed to make and also of God's leading in that decision. He knew the divine road would be difficult, so he piously pleaded to be left in the dark. But the sign was given anyway -- a young girl (the Hebrew word does not necessarily mean virgin) that they both knew (probably Isaiah's own wife) would soon be pregnant; her child would be a male, and before he was two or three, Israel and Syria would have disappeared from the scene.
This was, in fact, the political outcome. Assyria obliterated both Syria and Israel within the next few years, and Judah was divinely delivered (see Isaiah 37). But Ahaz played almost no part in that process because he would not read the signs at the crossroad, and vacillated in irreligious indecision.
Romans 1:1-7
When Paul wrote this letter he was completing his third mission journey (see Acts 19-20), and was spending the winter at the home of his friend Gaius in Corinth (Romans 16:23). While the bulk of Paul's time on his second mission journey was spent in Corinth (Acts 18), Paul's major stop on his third mission journey was Ephesus (Acts 19). While he was staying in Ephesus, the Corinthian congregation experienced a great deal of turmoil and sent a delegation to Paul seeking his advice. In response, Paul wrote at least four letters of concern and advice. Our New Testament letters 1 and 2 Corinthians are just two of these pieces of correspondence that Paul wrote from Ephesus.
After Paul's work in Ephesus was well established, he made a quick tour around the Aegean Sea, renewing his relationship with the congregations he and Silas had worked to found. His final stop before heading back to Palestine was Corinth. As he brought reconciliation and maturity to his relationship with that congregation, Paul looked forward to his next major mission push. It would send him further west, he thought -- certainly to Rome and possibly to Spain (Romans 15:23-29).
Since two of the most difficult challenges to Paul's lengthy ministry with the Corinthian congregation were their resistance to his apostolic authority and their tendency to step back from his theology of divine grace, Paul wants now to ensure that these will be presented clearly to the church in Rome before ever he arrives there. Hence, when he learned that Phoebe, one of the church leaders from Cenchrea (Corinth's suburban port city), was traveling to Rome on business (Romans 16:1-2), he dictated a letter to Tertius (Romans 16:22) to be delivered by Phoebe to Paul's friends in Rome.
The opening of Paul's letter is informative in several respects. First, it is more focused on Paul himself than are most of his greetings. Rather than list those who share the ministry with him, he spends more time detailing his clear calling as a missionary to the Gentiles. Second, he briefly, but powerfully, ties together the historic Jewish religious faith with the new revelation of God in Jesus. In this way, Paul immediately addresses the two major issues that he has had to wrestle with in every one of his fledgling mission congregations: challenges to his authority as a divinely appointed teacher, and attempts to pull apart his teachings into either a new form of Pharisaic asceticism or some version of Hellenistic hedonism.
Both of these themes will be developed much more fully in the body of Paul's letter. At this point, Paul's confirmation of each idea is simply Jesus. He indicates that Jesus is the one who called him to his special Gentile mission (vv. 1, 5); he points to Jesus as God's confirmation of the historic prophetic message (vv. 2-3); he identifies Jesus as the Messiah proven in power because of the resurrection (v. 4); and he declares Jesus to be the ensign under which the Christians in Rome find their identity (v. 6), just as the soldiers of Rome would march under the standard of the great Roman eagles.
In all of this, Paul is raising a sign at the crossroads of life. Whatever road any might be traveling, it always comes to a fork where the choice of paths leads to different outcomes. Paul is determined to point his friends in Rome down the Jesus trail. This will not be an easy way to go. It requires, first of all, that people admit their sinfulness and inability to do good, and the legitimacy of God's wrath against them (chs. 1-3). Further, it means that they will not be able to claim merit of their own in finding God's favor (chs. 4-11). Finally, it demands total sacrifice on their part (chs. 12-15).
This is the road no one wants to travel. But it is the only road of "good news." Down one road God wins the day by way of reasserting God's righteousness (1:16-17) as demonstrated and delivered in Jesus. Down all the other paths, no matter how wholesome they may seem, lies either a trap of divine judgment or one of self-destruction.
Matthew 1:18-25
Many of us start reading the Gospel of Matthew at this point; we are not thrilled with the evangelist's list of names in the first seventeen verses. Yet without the genealogical records, the punch of this story is not as evident. The genealogies locate Jesus in both divine and human time. Matthew's three series of fourteen generations maps out the human landscape: Israel was created by God to be God's people in the land of covenant promise (Abraham through David; 1:2-6); Israel experienced times of both success and failure in Palestine (David through Jechoniah; 1:6-11); Israel was now reduced to the remnant of Judah that returned from exile and was waiting for the Messiah to come (Jechoniah through Joseph; 1:12-16). Thus, these are the days of expectation; the Messiah should come about now.
Furthermore, on the divine timeline, two covenants need fulfillment. God made a promise to Abraham that all of the nations of the earth would be blessed through him and his descendents (Genesis 12:1-3). Later, God made a promise to David that he would always have a descendent on the throne (2 Samuel 7). At the time of Matthew 1:18, the remnant of Israel was hardly significant to bless its few Palestinian neighbors, let alone the whole wide world. At the same time, even though the descendents of David's family kept their genealogical records intact, updating them with every baby born, they certainly were not kings or rulers.
So it is that Matthew's words in verse 18 are freighted with expectation: this is the right time, and Jesus is the one who will bring together the fulfillment of each covenant. But Joseph does not know this. He cannot stand above the times to see the big picture, and he is not aware of God's plans. What God is doing in Mary, his youthful pledged bride, seems to him to be merely a nasty act of immorality on her part. How can she, the woman of his hopes and dreams, be pregnant when he has circumspectly maintained their propriety?
In order to bring Joseph on board, God sends an angel to stand at the crossroads of his life and point in a new direction, one Joseph would not otherwise have considered. God has performed a miracle in Mary's womb; the one who will be born will finally stitch together both Israel's human time and God's divine time. The covenants and the covenant people will give birth, through Mary, to the Messiah of the covenant. God will again come close ("Immanuel").
Joseph has to make a choice. Before he went to sleep, he had been headed in one direction (v. 19). After the nighttime vision, and the signpost presented by the angel, Joseph turned and went down another path (v. 24). And the rest, as they say, is history.
Application
The Sundays of Advent are signposts in our time. While the culture around us prepares for Christmas by way of parties and pageants and purchases, Christians are scanning the horizon for the dawn when every day of the year will be Christmas. The Messiah came once and brought convergence between the two great covenants of the Old Testament and the covenant people; then he left for a time, declaring that the nations needed opportunity to come on board with God's age-old plan.
Now the church of Jesus holds up the signposts of Advent Sundays each year to remind those in the family of Jesus of who they are and whose they are. And, in a world that is constantly at crossroads of political tensions, ethnic antagonism, materialistic kingdom building, cultural elitism, individualistic isolationism, agnostic questing, and atheistic denial, there is constantly a need to raise high these signposts in the marketplaces and among the societies of our times. We are not counting down the remaining days of Christmas shopping; we are keeping vigil at the crossroads of life, giving people another opportunity to find the right road -- the road of non-alignment among the political superpowers of our day (cf. Ahaz), the road of Jesus' good news among the religions of our world (cf. Paul), and the road of divine initiative and redemptive purpose among the cluttered calendars of our times (cf. Joesph).
This is not an enviable task. We are guides interrupting the paths of those who have already chosen their own roads, and telling them that they need to change course. We are heralds of the way of the Messiah few desire. We point to the road less traveled in an age that follows gurus with stories of the trampled paths to success. This is the way of Advent: "Prepare ye the way of the Lord...."
An Alternative Application
Isaiah 7:10-16; Matthew 1:18-25.
A focus on just the Isaiah and the Matthew passages may be used to reflect on the idea of "Immanuel." Ahaz had chosen to secularize his little kingdom, and he was not thrilled with the idea of a God who came too close. He did not want the sign that Isaiah offered, nor did he want a divine king who would compete with him for both the allegiance of the people and the values of the kingdom. In spite of his refusal of the sign, God gave him one anyway. In the sign of "Immanuel," the nearness of God was both a threat and a promise.
Similarly for Joseph, the nearness of God in the birth of Mary's son was both a threat and a promise. It would cause him embarrassment. It would cause Mary pain. It would cause conflict among the Jews. It would cause unrest in the world ruled by the god emperors of Rome.
But "Immanuel" is also a promise. Only God could deliver Judah and Ahaz in a time of overwhelming political odds against them. Only God could bring meaning back to a world that was drifting in the days of post-exilic Judaism. The God who had been too distant from the world, and the world that had been too distant from its God were now coming close in divine acts of deliverance. Nothing would ever be the same again.
Preaching The Psalm
Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19
The recurring phrase, "let your face shine" (vv. 3, 7, 19), offers an interesting opportunity to reflect on the meaning of God's presence in our world. This reflection takes on a particular significance during the Advent season.
The images of light and "shining," are associated with God throughout the Bible. From the moment God said, "Let there be light," light has been the defining characteristic of God's presence. God appears as light to Moses in the bush that seems to burn. God burns like a pillar of fire as he leads Israel out of Egypt. The light is even infectious. After Moses spends time with God on the mountain, Moses himself begins to glow.
The light is symbolic of God's power and purity. Light is the opposite of darkness, which is often associated with evil. Light is good, life-giving.
But the light associated with God is otherworldly. It does not have its origin in this world. The shining character of God's presence overwhelms us, drives us to our knees, and humbles us. We become like Isaiah in the temple, cowed by God's glorious appearance and by the rush of awareness of our sin that becomes evident in God's light.
That's one reason the imagery of light is so prevalent during the Advent season. The "light of the world" has come. We celebrate this glorious coming with candles and bright lights -- all dim reminders of the hope and life that are found in God's presence. We sing with the psalmist "let your face shine," and bring to us the salvation we need.
God does just that. Ironically, the shine of God's face is a human face. The ultimate appearing of God in our world is not as a supernatural shaft of light, but rather as a humble human being. The fullness of God's glory is revealed in a human face.
This, of course, changes everything. It changes the way we think about God and God's glory. God is with us, like us. It changes how we think about power and influence. God doesn't overpower us or force us or blind us. Rather, God walks with us, embraces us, becomes one of us.
Of course it changes everything we think about ourselves. Whatever view we held of our human existence, and the value of being a human, is transformed forever in the belief that God became human with us. It changes how we think about one another. How can we ever call another person our enemy when that person reflects in his or her face the divine glory? How can we neglect the needs of a single hurting person when we realize that by neglecting them we neglect God?
We prayed with the psalmist, "let your face shine." And it has. God's face has illuminated the world for all time. The brightness of God's glory has sent its beams into every dark crevice and hole. The light of the world has come; God's face is shining. We have seen him, beheld his glory, and touched his flesh and heard his voice and felt his tears and watched him die.
Shine, O Lord, shine. Let your face shine in the life of your Son in our presence.
