What Time Is It?
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For December 8, 2024:
What Time Is It?
by Tom Willadsen
Luke 3:1-6, Philippians 1:3-11, Malachi 3:1-4, Luke 1:68-79
In the waning days of the administration of Joe Biden, as president-elect Donald Trump is nominating cabinet members, the autumn when the Los Angeles Dodgers defeated the New York Yankees in a reprise of the most frequent World Series pairing, as Israel is fighting a two front war in Gaza and against Hezbollah, and famines continue in Yemen and Sudan, when Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song” set the record for most weeks at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100…can we hear the voice of one crying out in the wilderness? Are we preparing the way for the Lord?
In the Scriptures
Luke 3:1-6
One could argue that Luke 3:1 is really the start of Luke’s gospel. Chapters 1 and 2 are sort of a prequel or backstory. Luke really gets down to business in 3:1, very specifically setting the moment of John the Baptizer’s emergence in the wilderness in a moment in history.
The fifteenth year of the Emperor Tiberius would have been around 29 Common Era (CE).
Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea from 26-36 CE.
Herod Antipas ruled Galilee from 4-29 CE.
Philip ruled Ituraea and Trachonitis from 4 BCE till 34 CE.
Lysanias ruled Abilene from around 25-30 CE.
“Annas, high priest 6-15 CE when deposed by Rome. He was succeeded by his sons, then his son-in-law Caiaphas (18-36 CE).” (The Jewish Annotated New Testament, New Revised Standard Version, Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler, editors, New York: Oxford University Press, 2011, p. 104n.)
Since the fifteenth year of Tiberius’s rule is within the window all the other rulers mentioned, we can take 29 CE as the year of John’s debut. There.
“The wilderness” was not just any wild place, but the site of Israel’s encounter with God at Sinai.
John’s baptism was different from the mikvah, the Jewish ritual immersion for purity. John’s baptism was a demonstration of repentance, apparently not intended to be repeated. The Jewish baptism, as an outward sign of converting to Judaism, is not attested until after 70 CE. It appears that John’s baptism was a new, radical innovation.
John quoted Isaiah 40:3-4, which pointed to salvation being Israel’s return from exile in Babylon.
Malachi 3:1-4
An echo of Isaiah 40, Malachi describes God’s sending a messenger who will prepare the way and will appear “suddenly” at the temple. The messenger will have power to purify and cleanse. We all know what refiners do. Fullers used strong substances like potash and lye to purify wool. This was not 21st century body wash. Fullers’ soap had a strong, offensive odor, and fullers would trample or beat on the wool to achieve a “whiter than white” effect. This sort of thing was described in the Transfiguration (Matthew 17, Mark 9 and Luke 9). Mark 9:3 describes Jesus’ radiance as “dazzling.”
Luke 1:68-79
This reading is the second canticle in Luke, commonly called “the Benedictus,” which is Latin for “blessed.” The first canticle is Mary’s Magnificat, Luke 1:46-55. “Blessed be the Lord” is a common blessing in the Hebrew scriptures. In the very first verse, Zechariah appears to say that the redemption his son will precede has already occurred. There is repeated foreshadowing of Luke 3, and echoes from Malachi 3, throughout Zechariah’s song.
Philippians 1:3-11
Paul’s delight in his connection with the Philippian Christians leaps off the page in these verses. They are an impoverished and vulnerable church, yet they have supported and encouraged Paul during his struggles and time in prison.
Baruch 5:1-9
Baruch is not considered a canonical writing by Protestants, but this reading does appear in some lectionaries for the Second Sunday of Advent. Here is a brief discussion of it, included because fellow The Immediate Word contributor Dean Feldmeyer included it in this week’s assignment. (At this point, I am grateful to Wikipedia, the friend of Sophists the world over.)
Tradition had it that the book of Baruch was written by the prophet Jeremiah’s scribe, Baruch. The name is Hebrew for “blessed” — the same Hebrew root as Barack Obama’s first name.
Today’s verses are about the return to Jerusalem from exile. Verse 7 has particular resonance with the readings from Malachi and Luke 3:
“For God hath appointed that every high hill, and banks of long continuance, should be cast down, and valleys filled up, to make even the ground, that Israel may go safely in the glory of God...”
In the News
It appears the president-elect Donald Trump is better prepared to take office this time than in 2016. Through late November he announced a flurry of nominees for posts in his cabinet. Many of them are current or recovering Fox network personalities who have grabbed his attention. To my mind, the most alarming of them is Robert Kennedy Jr., the president-elect’s nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. Mr. Kennedy is the founder of Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine advocacy group. During the Covid-19 pandemic he spread misinformation about the pandemic and the public health efforts to fight it.
It’s also the second week of Advent. My congregation’s calendar designates “Peace” as this Sunday’s theme. This comes in the midst of efforts to negotiate a cease fire between Hezbollah and Israel in northern Israel and southern Lebanon. There are no public talks about a cease fire in Gaza.
This is also a very short Christmas shopping season because Thanksgiving falls on the latest possible date this year. Retailer Target has reported it expects lower sales this year. There are also efforts to bring shoppers into physical stores, swimming against the tide of purchasing online. Shopping is always in the news this time of year.
In the Sermon
The reading from Luke 3 dates John the Baptizer’s emergence with great precision. The reader knows exactly when in history John staged his mission of repentance. To put it in modern terms, you could set your watch by Luke.
It’s easy to forget that our various systems of timekeeping are all human inventions. Even the precision of the Atomic Clock, which uses meticulous observation of the frequency of vibrations of electromagnetic radiation of cesium-133 atoms, was constructed by people to measure something that is, itself, only a concept.
I heard about a person who called a radio talk show in high dudgeon about the change to Daylight Saving Time one spring. The caller reasoned, “If God meant for the Sun to rise at 6 a.m. man has no right to change that!” Where does one begin?
Driving across the continent over the past month, I tuned into a lot of radio stations that featured the hits of my youth. That these stations play “retro,” “classic,” “vinyl,” and “dusty” music, only reminded me of how much time has passed since my salad days. Popular music in the early 1980s appears to have been obsessed with time.
But time keeps flowin’ like a river
To the sea
“Time” by The Alan Parsons Project, written by Alan Parsons & Eric Norman Woolfson
Because time won’t give me time
And time makes lovers feel like they’ve got something real
But you and me, we know they’ve got nothing but time
“Time (Clock of the Heart)” by Culture Club, written Jonathan Aubrey Moss, Roy Ernest Hay, George Alan O’Dowd, aka Boy George, Michael Emile Craig
She thinks time is a concept by which we measure our age
She wants to say it again, but she don’t have time
“Like Clockwork” by The Boomtown Rats, written by Bob Geldof, Pete Briquette, Simon Crowe
It’s time to come together
It’s up to you, what’s your pleasure?
Everyone around the world, come on!
“Celebration” by Kool and the Gang, written by Claydes Smith, Ronald Nathan Bell, Robert Bell, Robert Mickens, Dennis Thomas, George Brown, James Taylor, Eumir Deodato, Earl Toon
Chronological time is a shared convention, communally accepted. Just as Kool and the Gang’s celebration requires other people, so does chronological timekeeping require mutual buy-in.
John the Baptizer is, of course, pointing to a different sense of time, a moment. This gets at the other Greek word rendered into English as time, καιρος, kairos. In Mark 1:15, immediately after his baptism, Jesus says, “The time (καιρος) is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” (NRSV)
John quoted the 800-year-old words of the prophet Isaiah to tell the people that time is now!
Chronological (χρονος) time and kairos time collide as John begins his mission. It’s as though the eternal has intruded and broken into the ordinary. An idea rendered visually by this cross (from First Presbyterian Church in Wilmar, Minnesota) where the horizontal represents chronological time and the vertical represents Christ’s coming to earth in bodily form. This moment is what Isaiah, Zechariah, John’s father, and Malachi, point us to in today’s readings.
There is a special quality to kairos moments. The late Catholic theologian, Richard Gaillardetz, records some of his experiences of kairos in his book While I Breathe, I Hope: A Mystagogy of Death (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2024). Gaillardetz recorded his experience of dying from pancreatic cancer on his Caring Bridge site. His illness made him experience the passage of time differently. “We lose ourselves in the gaze of a sublime work of art or in the look of delight on the face of a friend upon seeing us unexpectedly. It is a moment ripe with memory, expectation, hope, and fullness-time suffused with the eternal ‘now’ of the divine...the kairotic moment is not simply consumed, receding into a forgotten past; it is pregnant with possibility” (p. 60).
Let’s circle back to John’s baptism. Mark’s gospel says, “And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the Jordan….” (1:5, NRSV) It was a public, communal act. Baptism is an inherently social act; one cannot baptize oneself. “In order to make this powerful affirmation of faith, a Christian must become vulnerable to at least one other person, who will pour the water or guide the immersion. The act of baptism is itself a reminder that our individual salvation is intertwined with that of the entire body of Christ.” (Catherine Healy, “December 8, Second Sunday of Advent,” The Christian Century, December 2024, p. 25.)
Just as a vaccine is an individual act for the good of the wider community (in order to achieve herd immunity), the salvation that John the Baptizer is leading us to is for all of us, not each of us.
SECOND THOUGHTS
Determining What Really Matters
By Chris Keating
Philippians 1:3-11
Advent can send even the most disciplined lectionary preacher off the rails in mad pursuit of texts that may feel more seasonably appropriate. Just two weeks into the new lectionary year, and already it feels as if the RCL editors have waged some sort of war on Christmas. While the bright lights of Christmas twinkle around us, the church gathers by the flickers of two small candles.
“Ho-ho-ho-no!” we may groan in reviewing this week’s scriptures. Do we lead with Malachi’s stark pronouncement of the coming of the Lord’s messenger? “But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?” Well, there’s a cheery thought. Searching for an alternative, we might consider softening John the Baptist’s rough edges or perhaps playing up his odd sartorial and culinary choices. Yet those details are missing from Luke. We meet only a paradoxical preacher who stands knee-deep in the river waters of sin.
Advent, however, remains a time of pregnancy and expectation. For this reason, we should not abandon the lectionary’s messages of apocalyptic hope. Instead, by embracing these varied themes we allow for hope’s gestation. Our efforts smooth out the roads and pathways where God’s love will be seen. Truth be told, there are many in our congregations (and even more beyond the walls of the church) who understand the darkness of which Zecheriah sings. Many are awaiting the tender mercies of our God, as they pray continuously for the dawn to break from on high.
There are trans people concerned about the impact of Donald Trump’s proposed agenda. Scores of immigrants are bracing for pending deportation, even though such deportations will likely result in “devastating economic” hardships for the nation and our world. The president elect’s promises are not limited to non-citizens, either. There is growing fear that the second Trump administration will pursue aggressive action against non-partisan government employees. Many Department of Justice employees are reported to be harboring fears of retaliation from Trump.
As the day of Trump approaches, a cold wind settles across the culture. Last weekend, several famed collegiate football rivalries transformed into brutal fights. Traditional college football rivalries turned into chaotic bloodsports across several campuses this weekend, most notably in Columbus, Ohio. At the end of Michigan’s 13-10 win against Ohio State, Michigan players planted a Wolverine flag in Ohio’s turf. Not surprisingly, the gesture wasn’t warmly welcomed. Each school has been fined $100,000 for the resulting melee.
Our weary world does not seem to be rejoicing. That compels me to consider the powerful invitation Paul offers the church during Advent. Along with Zechariah’s prayerful descriptions of the tender mercies of God, Paul’s message to the Philippians exudes confidence in the promise of the gospel. Unexpected joy gushes across this letter, beginning with his effusive prayer of thanks for their partnership.
Not unlike last week’s text from 1 Thessalonians, Philippians 1:3-11 describes the purifying possibilities of overflowing love. He sees in them something they may have even forgotten about themselves — the power of love to unlock a congregation’s missional paralysis. His prayer for them is anchored in the hope that the tender affection of Christ would lead them to be “pure and blameless” in discerning what truly matters as the day of Christ approaches.
“Pure and blameless” may sound more like advertisements for shampoo or laundry detergent. “Tough stains? Try new and improved Malachi — the refiner’s choice!” But purity is more than getting the stains out, and it is certainly more than telling kids to avoid sex before marriage. It is, indeed, much more than removing undocumented immigrants or keeping trans children from seeking medical support. It is more than granting pardons, more than merely reciting the commandments. The purity for which Paul prays is rooted in a simplicity of faith, as Daniel Migliore notes. “Already in this prayer it is clear that for Paul, Christian life is not simply a matter of following a set of rules; it involves the creative act of discernment in concrete situations of “what is best” among a multitude of possible options.” (Daniel L. Migliore, Philippians and Philemon, ed. Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher, First edition., Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2014, 39.)
Creative discernment about what is best holds innumerable possibilities for the church in this time and place. Instead of wailing about our losses of membership, prestige, or political positions, the church this Advent is called to the expectant and eager proclamation that Christ is coming. We are called to new possibilities that focus not on blame, but in pursuing the abundance of God’s love. Paul rejects the idea that works can produce our hope; instead, he reminds us that the architect of faith continues to be at work among us.
Take heart, O church. Allow Paul’s prayer to inform your Advent mission, and be guided by the soulful stirrings of Zechariah’s proclamation of impossible hope. While the darkness surrounds us, we await God to guide our feet in the ways of peace. Prepare for the coming of the Lord and be at peace.
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Dean Feldmeyer:
Luke 3:1-6 – The appearance of John the Baptizer is introduced by Luke with a very precise delineation of the year and date in which he appeared. Time, it would seem, is very important to Luke, as it is to most of us.
Different Culture, Different Time
The website culturallymodified.org explains how different cultures view time differently. They start with America:
“For an American, time is truly money. In a profit-oriented society, time is a precious, even scarce, commodity. It flows fast, like a mountain river in the spring, and if you want to benefit from its passing, you have to move fast with it. Americans are people of action; they cannot bear to be idle. The past is over, but the present you can seize, parcel and package and make it work for you in the immediate future.”
Northern Europeans tend to share the American, linear, monochromic understanding of time.
Southern Europeans, not so much. They tend to be “multi-active, rather than linear-active. The more things they can do at the same time, the happier and the more fulfilled they feel. They organize their time (and lives) in an entirely different way from Americans, Germans and the Swiss. Multi-active people are generally not very interested in schedules or punctuality…they consider the present reality to be more important than appointments. In their ordering of things, priority is given to the relative thrill or significance of each meeting.”
“Spaniards, Italians and Arabs will ignore the passing of time if it means that conversations will be left unfinished. For them, completing a human transaction is the best way they can invest their time. For an Italian, time considerations will usually be subjected to human feelings. ‘Why are you so angry because I came at 9:30?’ the Italian asks a German colleague. ‘Because it says 9:00 in my diary,’ says the German. ‘Then why don’t you write 9:30 and then we’ll both be happy?’ is a logical Italian response.”
* * *
Indigenous Understandings Of Time
While there are literally hundreds of native American cultures in the Americas, all with their own theologies and philosophies, many of them share a common understanding of time that is different from the linear understanding brought by Europeans.
It has been said that, in some native cultures, the shortest measurement of time is a day.
Unlike Western understandings of time that tend to be linear and segmented into fixed measures such as minutes, hours, days, weeks, and months, many indigenous perspectives take their cue from nature and the rhythm of the seasons. They see time as cyclical and intertwined, just as the earth and its people are intertwined with the seasons.
* * *
Baruch 5:1-9 – Baruch gives us a description of the joy and celebration that they all expect to occur when the children of Israel return to their home after the Babylonian captivity. (Note, however, that what actually happened when they arrived at the ruins of Jerusalem, was bitter disappointment.)
Coming Home Again
by Anonymous
There’s joy in sailing outward,
Tho we leave upon the pier,
With faces grieved and wistful,
Our very dearest dear;
And the sea shall roll between us
For perhaps a whole round year.
There’s a joy in climbing mountains,
In fording rushing brooks,
In poking into places
We’ve read about in books,
In meeting stranger people
With unfamiliar looks.
But the joy of joys is ours,
Untouched by any pain,
When we take the home-bound steamer
And catch the home-bound train;
There’s nothing half so pleasant
As coming home again.
(Observer, Volume XLI, Issue 2, 11 September 1920, Page 24)
* * *
Philippians 1:3-11 – Paul rejoices in the persistence of the church in keeping faithful to the gospel message he imparted to them.
Well Placed Persistence
Persistence in and of itself is not a virtue. It is only persistence in the pursuit of a worthwhile cause that makes persistence something to be emulated. The trick is determining which causes are worthwhile, a task that often requires, well, persistence.
Here are some fun examples of persistence paying off:
Unwise Persistence: God’s Little Acre
In Erskine Caldwell’s scandalous 1933 novel, God’s Little Acre, the main character, Ty Ty Walden is convinced that his father buried a cache of gold somewhere on the family farm and, if he can find that gold, all of his problems will be solved. So, instead of working the farm, he hires two African American men to do that, and he spends all his time with his two worthless sons, digging holes all over the farm looking for the gold.
Eventually, he even hires an albino man who he is convinced has magical powers to find the gold and pays him what he has promised to pay his farm hands. His hired men are the only ones who realize that if there is gold to be found in the soil of the farm, it is to be found not in an empty pipe dream of discovered wealth but in the soil’s ability to reward honest labor with marketable crops. Ty Ty is unconvinced, however, so he keeps on digging. Of course, he never does find any gold.
* * *
LUKE 3:1-6 – John the Baptizer quotes the 800-year-old text from Isaiah as to what kind of activity the coming messiah will undertake.
Jesus The Bulldozer
Many of us carry around images of Jesus, the Messiah, that were instilled in our brains as children and never grow past those images. “Gentle Jesus Meek and Mild” holding lambs, looking off into the horizon with a warm, vacant expression on his face as he contemplates…what? Who knows? But the image is unfailingly passive. John the Baptizer, however, offers a much different image for our imaginations to ponder.
This messiah fills valleys and levels mountains and hills, he makes crooked paths into straight roads, and he paves rough paths to make them smooth.
This is no passive kind of activity. It is active in the extreme.
We’re talking bulldozers and road graders, here, backfiring and belching diesel fumes into the air. Or, short of that, ten thousand people with pickaxes and shovels hacking away, ten hours a day, six days a week.
Or maybe Isaiah is thinking about the power of nature. Tornadoes level entire forests and change the course of rivers. Hurricanes fill valleys and earthquakes level mountains and hills.
Whatever force is at work, the metaphor is clear. This Messiah is going to shake things up, change things in a profound, and maybe even scary, way.
* * * * * *
From team member Mary Austin:
Philippians 1:3-11
Giving Thanks
Paul begins his letter to Philippi by giving thanks for the people there.
Frances Wattman Rosenau says that if we want to follow Paul’s example of gratitude, we should not think about our blessings every day. Nope. Research says that “people who take time each day to call to mind things they’re grateful for do not have the same happiness benefit as people who have a weekly gratitude practice. Same for kindness: people who practice one act of kindness every day do not get the same happiness benefits as people who practice several acts of kindness all in one day.”
But why? “It seems counter-intuitive but here’s the reasoning: If gratitude becomes a chore or just another thing to check off our to do list, it loses the benefit. In fact, the more we measure ourselves on whether or not we fulfilled our obligation, the less we focus on the gratitude itself. Whereas a weekly gratitude practice is periodic enough that it remains novel and doesn’t become a chore.”
She also says that Paul has the right idea when he composes this epistle. “Just thinking you’re grateful isn’t as good as writing it down, or better yet, saying it out loud.” Researchers found that people who wrote a gratitude letter once a week “reported significantly better mental health four weeks and twelve weeks after their writing exercise ended.” Even if they didn’t share the letter with the intended recipient, they still experienced the same improved mental health just for having written it down.
We can take Paul as an example in living with thanksgiving.
* * *
Luke 3:1-6
People on the Edges
In her book, The First Advent in Palestine, author Kelley Nikondeha notes what Luke’s gospel goes to great lengths to tell us. “In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas,” the author begins, and then tells us that the word of God skipped past all the important people and came to John, way out in the wilderness.
Nikondeha emphasizes what Luke says, “Advent pays attention to the people, places, and politics of generations awaiting God’s arrival.” She adds, “Western Christianity has forsaken a deep understanding of Advent for strands of twinkling lights and the anticipation of seasonal pleasures. When we accept sentimental expressions and concede to holiday hurry, we miss the original gravity of Advent. We miss understanding how God’s arrival, how God with us, shapes our ability to see the breaking in of God into a landscape, a people, a narrative — and what the earthly trajectory of the life of Jesus implied then and implies now.”
Paying attention to John helps us see the meaning of Advent.
* * *
Luke 1:68-79
A Note That Keeps Playing
Zechariah, echoing the Hebrew prophets, picks up the themes of God’s faithfulness and deliverance. These themes play throughout Israel’s history and into the life of the Messiah, and Zechariah paints a picture of the future, based on the past.
Bina Venkataraman writes about how we look into the future. She says, “Around the world, other groups are setting anchors for the imagination in the distant future. In Halberstadt, Germany, the St. Burchardi Church has rigged its organ to play a John Cage piece with ambiguous time signature, As Slow as Possible, at a pace that will last more than six hundred years. The organ will be built and disassembled as the piece goes on, to add and subtract pipes for the notes to be struck next. Notes sound twice a year — at most. In a sense, the musical piece is a collaboration across generations, and an invitation to maintain the relevance of an institution and an instrument over time.” (from The Optimist’s Telescope)
The hopeful notes that Zechariah sings may play rarely, but they play on, from the past into the future.
* * *
Luke 1:68-79
Arriving in the Future
As he looks to the future, Zechariah proclaims that God “has raised up a mighty savior for us in the house of his child David, as he spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, that we would be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us.” We’re still waiting for his vision to come to fulfillment, even all these years later.
Author Mia Birdsong says the future always comes this way. “We don’t get to the future we want by following a linear path plotted out from point A to B to C. The future we want is a spark inside us that says yes to joy and laughter and pleasure. It says yes to creativity and art and music. It says yes to transformative healing and care, and I am because we are. It says yes to vulnerability and our collective well-being and love. The more we fan and feed it, the more it sustains and grows. It lives in us and then we live in it and — the future is here. We get to the future we want by practicing it now.” (from How We Show Up: Reclaiming Family, Friendship, and Community)
We’re still bringing to life the future that Zechariah saw.
* * *
Luke 1:68-79, Philippians 1:3-11
Peeking at the End of the Book
Author Emily P. Freeman explains, “I have a friend who reads the last page of every novel to ensure it ends well. If not, she won’t read the book at all. Once I worked through my outrage at what I considered to be the greatest insult to a storyteller that you could possibly inflict (right up there with reading spoilers on the internet or shuffling a carefully curated playlist), I asked her more questions about this practice. Over time, I learned she also records key sports events and only watches them if she knows her team wins. I’d never heard of someone orchestrating their lives in such a way as to only ever watch a winning game or read a happy ending. Where is the mystery, the adventure, the joy and anticipation of not knowing how something ends?” (from How to Walk into a Room: The Art of Knowing When to Stay and When to Walk Away)
For all those who feel this way, God is always telling us how the story will end. Zechariah, now that he can speak, proclaims that God has already “raised up a mighty savior for us in the house of his child David.” Paul writes to the churches in Philippi that they don’t need to worry. “I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work in you will continue to complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.”
God lets us peek at the end of the story all the time.
* * *
Luke 1:68-79
Anticipation
As Zechariah breaks his silence here, he sees ahead to the world that God is bringing to life. He praises God, saying, “Because of the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to shine upon those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
As Debra Rienstra writes, Advent holds both hope and fear. In Advent, we “anticipate not only the coming of the infant in the manger but also the return of Christ in judgment at the end of history. That double anticipation makes for an uncomfortable juxtaposition, a startling concoction of sweet coziness and mortal terror. It’s tempting to turn Advent into merely a lovely time of evergreen swags and glowing candles, beloved hymns about angels, joyful anticipation of warm feelings about a nice baby. But that’s not what Advent is supposed to be.”
Instead, “Advent is about a clash of kingdoms. The whole reason for that baby to arrive is to overturn the powers of this world in all their corruption and cruelty. That baby is supposed to become the Prince of Peace, ushering in the grace, justice, and beauty the scriptures claim God intends for the world. To prepare for this, we’re invited to dwell in that painful tension between what’s actually happening and what God promises.”
Like Zechariah, “We sink into the truth about our world’s deep sicknesses in order to awaken our full Advent longing. After all, we hardly need a savior if we’re comfortable with the way things are.” (from Refugia Faith: Seeking Hidden Shelters, Ordinary Wonders, and the Healing of the Earth)
* * * * * *
WORSHIP
by George Reed
Call to Worship
One: Blessed be the God of Israel who has redeemed the people.
All: God has raised up a mighty savior for us in David’s house.
One: God has shown us the mercy promised to our ancestors.
All: God has remembered the holy covenant made to Abraham.
One: The dawn from on high will break upon us.
All: Our feet will be guided into the way of peace.
OR
One: We come to prepare for the coming of our Christ.
All: We await Christ’s coming and the peace he brings.
One: Let us prepare by opening our hearts to God’s love.
All: We welcome God’s love and seek God’s wisdom.
One: May the peace of God rest on us and all God’s children.
All: We will seek peace in all we do and say.
Hymns and Songs
Blessed Be the God of Israel
UMH: 209
H82: 444
GTG: 109
CH: 135:
ELW: 552/250
W&P: 158
Renew: 128
Savior of the Nations, Come
UMH: 214
PH: 14
GTG: 102
LBW: 28
ELW: 263
W&P: 168
I Want to Walk as a Child of the Light
UMH: 206
H82: 490
GTG: 377
ELW: 815
W&P: 248
Renew: 152
Let There Be Light
UMH: 440
NNBH: 450
NCH: 589
STLT: 142
Come Down, O Love Divine
UMH: 475
H82: 516
PH: 313
GTG: 282
NCH: 289
CH: 582
LBW: 508
ELW: 804
W&P: 330
Take Time to Be Holy
UMH: 395
NNBH: 306
CH: 572
W&P: 483
AMEC: 286
Seek Ye First
UMH: 405
H82: 711
PH: 333
GTG: 175
CH: 354
W&P: 349
CCB: 76
Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing
UMH: 400
H82: 686
PH: 356
GTG: 475
AAHH: 175
NNBH: 166
NCH: 459
CH: 16
LBW: 499
ELW: 807
W&P: 68
AMEC: 77
STLT: 126
Deck Thyself, My Soul, with Gladness
UMH: 612
H82: 339
PH: 506
NCH: 334
LBW: 224
I Come with Joy
UMH: 617
H82: 304
PH: 507
NCH: 349
CH: 420
ELW: 482
W&P: 706
Renew: 195
We Are One in Christ Jesus
CCB: 43
They’ll Know We Are Christians
CCB: 78
GTG: 300
Music Resources Key
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
GTG: Glory to God, The Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELW: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day/Collect
O God who has all wisdom and knowledge:
Grant us the grace to allow your love to overflow in us
so that we may be filled with your wisdom and knowledge;
through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We praise you, O God, because you are full of wisdom and knowledge. You understand all things in heaven and on earth. Help us to allow your great love to so overflow in us that we might partake of your wisdom. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
One: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially our failure to center ourselves in what really matters.
All: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We seek wisdom and knowledge from many sources but too often fail to seek it in your love. We think that wisdom is found in raw power and fails to honor the power of your love. We get sidetracked by the things that are not important in the long run. We are blinded by our wants and desires. Forgive us and renew your Spirit within us that we may produce a true harvest of righteousness. Amen.
One: God desires to pour eternal love into all our hearts. Receive God’s grace and forgiveness and allow that love to make you wise in all you do.
Prayers of the People
We worship you, O God, because you are the true fount of wisdom. You are the very essence of all that exists and you understand us better than we understand ourselves.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We seek wisdom and knowledge from many sources but too often fail to seek it in your love. We think that wisdom is found in raw power and fails to honor the power of your love. We get sidetracked by the things that are not important in the long run. We are blinded by our wants and desires. Forgive us and renew your Spirit within us that we may produce a true harvest of righteousness.
We give you thanks for all the ways in which you lavish your love upon us and all creation. We thank you for offering your wisdom to us so that we might be pure and blameless. We thank you for your peace that holds us in the midst of all turmoil and stress.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for your children whether near or far from us. We lift up to you those who find themselves in places where violence or war surround them. We pray for your peace that is eternal and for an end to violence.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
Hear us as we pray for others: (Time for silent or spoken prayer.)
All these things we ask in the Name of our Savior Jesus Christ who taught us to pray saying:
Our Father....Amen.
(Or if the Our Father is not used at this point in the service.)
All this we ask in the name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
* * * * * *
CHILDREN’S SERMON
John the Baptist
by Katy Stenta
Luke 3:1-6
Supplies: Figure for a nativity scene (could be a “fun” one or a regular extra one)
This week we are going to talk about John the Baptist.
He is one of the people who is a truth-teller and helper for the people of God.
He prepares people for Jesus.
In a way, everything he says points to Jesus.
(If you have a Jesus in the manger have the kids point to Jesus, if not have them point to a cross.)
We are going to practice being John the Baptist, and pointing to Jesus.
Ready? Point!
Say “Prepare.”
Say “God is coming.”
Say “God will be with us!”
John the Baptist is also a person who helps us get ready for Christmas.
He could be part of the nativity scene.
Should we add him to the nativity scene this week?
(Place the figure with the nativity scene.)
There he is, telling everyone to prepare for Jesus’ coming.
Let’s pray…
Dear God,
Thanks for helping us
Get ready
For Jesus
With people
Like John,
Sowing the seeds
Of justice,
hope,
And peace.
Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, December 8, 2024 issue.
Copyright 2024 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
- What Time Is It? by Tom Willadsen based on Luke 3:1-6, Philippians 1:3-11, Malachi 3:1-4, Luke 1:68-79.
- Second Thoughts: Determining What Really Matters by Chris Keating. The flickering of the Advent candles inspires us to a hope we cannot fully imagine.
- Sermon illustrations by Mary Austin, Dean Feldmeyer.
- Worship resources by George Reed.
- Children’s Sermon: John the Baptist by Katy Stenta based on Luke 3:1-6.
What Time Is It?by Tom Willadsen
Luke 3:1-6, Philippians 1:3-11, Malachi 3:1-4, Luke 1:68-79
In the waning days of the administration of Joe Biden, as president-elect Donald Trump is nominating cabinet members, the autumn when the Los Angeles Dodgers defeated the New York Yankees in a reprise of the most frequent World Series pairing, as Israel is fighting a two front war in Gaza and against Hezbollah, and famines continue in Yemen and Sudan, when Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song” set the record for most weeks at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100…can we hear the voice of one crying out in the wilderness? Are we preparing the way for the Lord?
In the Scriptures
Luke 3:1-6
One could argue that Luke 3:1 is really the start of Luke’s gospel. Chapters 1 and 2 are sort of a prequel or backstory. Luke really gets down to business in 3:1, very specifically setting the moment of John the Baptizer’s emergence in the wilderness in a moment in history.
The fifteenth year of the Emperor Tiberius would have been around 29 Common Era (CE).
Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea from 26-36 CE.
Herod Antipas ruled Galilee from 4-29 CE.
Philip ruled Ituraea and Trachonitis from 4 BCE till 34 CE.
Lysanias ruled Abilene from around 25-30 CE.
“Annas, high priest 6-15 CE when deposed by Rome. He was succeeded by his sons, then his son-in-law Caiaphas (18-36 CE).” (The Jewish Annotated New Testament, New Revised Standard Version, Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler, editors, New York: Oxford University Press, 2011, p. 104n.)
Since the fifteenth year of Tiberius’s rule is within the window all the other rulers mentioned, we can take 29 CE as the year of John’s debut. There.
“The wilderness” was not just any wild place, but the site of Israel’s encounter with God at Sinai.
John’s baptism was different from the mikvah, the Jewish ritual immersion for purity. John’s baptism was a demonstration of repentance, apparently not intended to be repeated. The Jewish baptism, as an outward sign of converting to Judaism, is not attested until after 70 CE. It appears that John’s baptism was a new, radical innovation.
John quoted Isaiah 40:3-4, which pointed to salvation being Israel’s return from exile in Babylon.
Malachi 3:1-4
An echo of Isaiah 40, Malachi describes God’s sending a messenger who will prepare the way and will appear “suddenly” at the temple. The messenger will have power to purify and cleanse. We all know what refiners do. Fullers used strong substances like potash and lye to purify wool. This was not 21st century body wash. Fullers’ soap had a strong, offensive odor, and fullers would trample or beat on the wool to achieve a “whiter than white” effect. This sort of thing was described in the Transfiguration (Matthew 17, Mark 9 and Luke 9). Mark 9:3 describes Jesus’ radiance as “dazzling.”
Luke 1:68-79
This reading is the second canticle in Luke, commonly called “the Benedictus,” which is Latin for “blessed.” The first canticle is Mary’s Magnificat, Luke 1:46-55. “Blessed be the Lord” is a common blessing in the Hebrew scriptures. In the very first verse, Zechariah appears to say that the redemption his son will precede has already occurred. There is repeated foreshadowing of Luke 3, and echoes from Malachi 3, throughout Zechariah’s song.
Philippians 1:3-11
Paul’s delight in his connection with the Philippian Christians leaps off the page in these verses. They are an impoverished and vulnerable church, yet they have supported and encouraged Paul during his struggles and time in prison.
Baruch 5:1-9
Baruch is not considered a canonical writing by Protestants, but this reading does appear in some lectionaries for the Second Sunday of Advent. Here is a brief discussion of it, included because fellow The Immediate Word contributor Dean Feldmeyer included it in this week’s assignment. (At this point, I am grateful to Wikipedia, the friend of Sophists the world over.)
Tradition had it that the book of Baruch was written by the prophet Jeremiah’s scribe, Baruch. The name is Hebrew for “blessed” — the same Hebrew root as Barack Obama’s first name.
Today’s verses are about the return to Jerusalem from exile. Verse 7 has particular resonance with the readings from Malachi and Luke 3:
“For God hath appointed that every high hill, and banks of long continuance, should be cast down, and valleys filled up, to make even the ground, that Israel may go safely in the glory of God...”
In the News
It appears the president-elect Donald Trump is better prepared to take office this time than in 2016. Through late November he announced a flurry of nominees for posts in his cabinet. Many of them are current or recovering Fox network personalities who have grabbed his attention. To my mind, the most alarming of them is Robert Kennedy Jr., the president-elect’s nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. Mr. Kennedy is the founder of Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine advocacy group. During the Covid-19 pandemic he spread misinformation about the pandemic and the public health efforts to fight it.
It’s also the second week of Advent. My congregation’s calendar designates “Peace” as this Sunday’s theme. This comes in the midst of efforts to negotiate a cease fire between Hezbollah and Israel in northern Israel and southern Lebanon. There are no public talks about a cease fire in Gaza.
This is also a very short Christmas shopping season because Thanksgiving falls on the latest possible date this year. Retailer Target has reported it expects lower sales this year. There are also efforts to bring shoppers into physical stores, swimming against the tide of purchasing online. Shopping is always in the news this time of year.
In the Sermon
The reading from Luke 3 dates John the Baptizer’s emergence with great precision. The reader knows exactly when in history John staged his mission of repentance. To put it in modern terms, you could set your watch by Luke.
It’s easy to forget that our various systems of timekeeping are all human inventions. Even the precision of the Atomic Clock, which uses meticulous observation of the frequency of vibrations of electromagnetic radiation of cesium-133 atoms, was constructed by people to measure something that is, itself, only a concept.
I heard about a person who called a radio talk show in high dudgeon about the change to Daylight Saving Time one spring. The caller reasoned, “If God meant for the Sun to rise at 6 a.m. man has no right to change that!” Where does one begin?
Driving across the continent over the past month, I tuned into a lot of radio stations that featured the hits of my youth. That these stations play “retro,” “classic,” “vinyl,” and “dusty” music, only reminded me of how much time has passed since my salad days. Popular music in the early 1980s appears to have been obsessed with time.
But time keeps flowin’ like a river
To the sea
“Time” by The Alan Parsons Project, written by Alan Parsons & Eric Norman Woolfson
Because time won’t give me time
And time makes lovers feel like they’ve got something real
But you and me, we know they’ve got nothing but time
“Time (Clock of the Heart)” by Culture Club, written Jonathan Aubrey Moss, Roy Ernest Hay, George Alan O’Dowd, aka Boy George, Michael Emile Craig
She thinks time is a concept by which we measure our age
She wants to say it again, but she don’t have time
“Like Clockwork” by The Boomtown Rats, written by Bob Geldof, Pete Briquette, Simon Crowe
It’s time to come together
It’s up to you, what’s your pleasure?
Everyone around the world, come on!
“Celebration” by Kool and the Gang, written by Claydes Smith, Ronald Nathan Bell, Robert Bell, Robert Mickens, Dennis Thomas, George Brown, James Taylor, Eumir Deodato, Earl Toon
Chronological time is a shared convention, communally accepted. Just as Kool and the Gang’s celebration requires other people, so does chronological timekeeping require mutual buy-in.
John the Baptizer is, of course, pointing to a different sense of time, a moment. This gets at the other Greek word rendered into English as time, καιρος, kairos. In Mark 1:15, immediately after his baptism, Jesus says, “The time (καιρος) is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” (NRSV)
John quoted the 800-year-old words of the prophet Isaiah to tell the people that time is now!
Chronological (χρονος) time and kairos time collide as John begins his mission. It’s as though the eternal has intruded and broken into the ordinary. An idea rendered visually by this cross (from First Presbyterian Church in Wilmar, Minnesota) where the horizontal represents chronological time and the vertical represents Christ’s coming to earth in bodily form. This moment is what Isaiah, Zechariah, John’s father, and Malachi, point us to in today’s readings.
There is a special quality to kairos moments. The late Catholic theologian, Richard Gaillardetz, records some of his experiences of kairos in his book While I Breathe, I Hope: A Mystagogy of Death (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2024). Gaillardetz recorded his experience of dying from pancreatic cancer on his Caring Bridge site. His illness made him experience the passage of time differently. “We lose ourselves in the gaze of a sublime work of art or in the look of delight on the face of a friend upon seeing us unexpectedly. It is a moment ripe with memory, expectation, hope, and fullness-time suffused with the eternal ‘now’ of the divine...the kairotic moment is not simply consumed, receding into a forgotten past; it is pregnant with possibility” (p. 60).
Let’s circle back to John’s baptism. Mark’s gospel says, “And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the Jordan….” (1:5, NRSV) It was a public, communal act. Baptism is an inherently social act; one cannot baptize oneself. “In order to make this powerful affirmation of faith, a Christian must become vulnerable to at least one other person, who will pour the water or guide the immersion. The act of baptism is itself a reminder that our individual salvation is intertwined with that of the entire body of Christ.” (Catherine Healy, “December 8, Second Sunday of Advent,” The Christian Century, December 2024, p. 25.)
Just as a vaccine is an individual act for the good of the wider community (in order to achieve herd immunity), the salvation that John the Baptizer is leading us to is for all of us, not each of us.
SECOND THOUGHTSDetermining What Really Matters
By Chris Keating
Philippians 1:3-11
Advent can send even the most disciplined lectionary preacher off the rails in mad pursuit of texts that may feel more seasonably appropriate. Just two weeks into the new lectionary year, and already it feels as if the RCL editors have waged some sort of war on Christmas. While the bright lights of Christmas twinkle around us, the church gathers by the flickers of two small candles.
“Ho-ho-ho-no!” we may groan in reviewing this week’s scriptures. Do we lead with Malachi’s stark pronouncement of the coming of the Lord’s messenger? “But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?” Well, there’s a cheery thought. Searching for an alternative, we might consider softening John the Baptist’s rough edges or perhaps playing up his odd sartorial and culinary choices. Yet those details are missing from Luke. We meet only a paradoxical preacher who stands knee-deep in the river waters of sin.
Advent, however, remains a time of pregnancy and expectation. For this reason, we should not abandon the lectionary’s messages of apocalyptic hope. Instead, by embracing these varied themes we allow for hope’s gestation. Our efforts smooth out the roads and pathways where God’s love will be seen. Truth be told, there are many in our congregations (and even more beyond the walls of the church) who understand the darkness of which Zecheriah sings. Many are awaiting the tender mercies of our God, as they pray continuously for the dawn to break from on high.
There are trans people concerned about the impact of Donald Trump’s proposed agenda. Scores of immigrants are bracing for pending deportation, even though such deportations will likely result in “devastating economic” hardships for the nation and our world. The president elect’s promises are not limited to non-citizens, either. There is growing fear that the second Trump administration will pursue aggressive action against non-partisan government employees. Many Department of Justice employees are reported to be harboring fears of retaliation from Trump.
As the day of Trump approaches, a cold wind settles across the culture. Last weekend, several famed collegiate football rivalries transformed into brutal fights. Traditional college football rivalries turned into chaotic bloodsports across several campuses this weekend, most notably in Columbus, Ohio. At the end of Michigan’s 13-10 win against Ohio State, Michigan players planted a Wolverine flag in Ohio’s turf. Not surprisingly, the gesture wasn’t warmly welcomed. Each school has been fined $100,000 for the resulting melee.
Our weary world does not seem to be rejoicing. That compels me to consider the powerful invitation Paul offers the church during Advent. Along with Zechariah’s prayerful descriptions of the tender mercies of God, Paul’s message to the Philippians exudes confidence in the promise of the gospel. Unexpected joy gushes across this letter, beginning with his effusive prayer of thanks for their partnership.
Not unlike last week’s text from 1 Thessalonians, Philippians 1:3-11 describes the purifying possibilities of overflowing love. He sees in them something they may have even forgotten about themselves — the power of love to unlock a congregation’s missional paralysis. His prayer for them is anchored in the hope that the tender affection of Christ would lead them to be “pure and blameless” in discerning what truly matters as the day of Christ approaches.
“Pure and blameless” may sound more like advertisements for shampoo or laundry detergent. “Tough stains? Try new and improved Malachi — the refiner’s choice!” But purity is more than getting the stains out, and it is certainly more than telling kids to avoid sex before marriage. It is, indeed, much more than removing undocumented immigrants or keeping trans children from seeking medical support. It is more than granting pardons, more than merely reciting the commandments. The purity for which Paul prays is rooted in a simplicity of faith, as Daniel Migliore notes. “Already in this prayer it is clear that for Paul, Christian life is not simply a matter of following a set of rules; it involves the creative act of discernment in concrete situations of “what is best” among a multitude of possible options.” (Daniel L. Migliore, Philippians and Philemon, ed. Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher, First edition., Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2014, 39.)
Creative discernment about what is best holds innumerable possibilities for the church in this time and place. Instead of wailing about our losses of membership, prestige, or political positions, the church this Advent is called to the expectant and eager proclamation that Christ is coming. We are called to new possibilities that focus not on blame, but in pursuing the abundance of God’s love. Paul rejects the idea that works can produce our hope; instead, he reminds us that the architect of faith continues to be at work among us.
Take heart, O church. Allow Paul’s prayer to inform your Advent mission, and be guided by the soulful stirrings of Zechariah’s proclamation of impossible hope. While the darkness surrounds us, we await God to guide our feet in the ways of peace. Prepare for the coming of the Lord and be at peace.
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Dean Feldmeyer:Luke 3:1-6 – The appearance of John the Baptizer is introduced by Luke with a very precise delineation of the year and date in which he appeared. Time, it would seem, is very important to Luke, as it is to most of us.
Different Culture, Different Time
The website culturallymodified.org explains how different cultures view time differently. They start with America:
“For an American, time is truly money. In a profit-oriented society, time is a precious, even scarce, commodity. It flows fast, like a mountain river in the spring, and if you want to benefit from its passing, you have to move fast with it. Americans are people of action; they cannot bear to be idle. The past is over, but the present you can seize, parcel and package and make it work for you in the immediate future.”
Northern Europeans tend to share the American, linear, monochromic understanding of time.
Southern Europeans, not so much. They tend to be “multi-active, rather than linear-active. The more things they can do at the same time, the happier and the more fulfilled they feel. They organize their time (and lives) in an entirely different way from Americans, Germans and the Swiss. Multi-active people are generally not very interested in schedules or punctuality…they consider the present reality to be more important than appointments. In their ordering of things, priority is given to the relative thrill or significance of each meeting.”
“Spaniards, Italians and Arabs will ignore the passing of time if it means that conversations will be left unfinished. For them, completing a human transaction is the best way they can invest their time. For an Italian, time considerations will usually be subjected to human feelings. ‘Why are you so angry because I came at 9:30?’ the Italian asks a German colleague. ‘Because it says 9:00 in my diary,’ says the German. ‘Then why don’t you write 9:30 and then we’ll both be happy?’ is a logical Italian response.”
* * *
Indigenous Understandings Of Time
While there are literally hundreds of native American cultures in the Americas, all with their own theologies and philosophies, many of them share a common understanding of time that is different from the linear understanding brought by Europeans.
It has been said that, in some native cultures, the shortest measurement of time is a day.
Unlike Western understandings of time that tend to be linear and segmented into fixed measures such as minutes, hours, days, weeks, and months, many indigenous perspectives take their cue from nature and the rhythm of the seasons. They see time as cyclical and intertwined, just as the earth and its people are intertwined with the seasons.
* * *
Baruch 5:1-9 – Baruch gives us a description of the joy and celebration that they all expect to occur when the children of Israel return to their home after the Babylonian captivity. (Note, however, that what actually happened when they arrived at the ruins of Jerusalem, was bitter disappointment.)
Coming Home Again
by Anonymous
There’s joy in sailing outward,
Tho we leave upon the pier,
With faces grieved and wistful,
Our very dearest dear;
And the sea shall roll between us
For perhaps a whole round year.
There’s a joy in climbing mountains,
In fording rushing brooks,
In poking into places
We’ve read about in books,
In meeting stranger people
With unfamiliar looks.
But the joy of joys is ours,
Untouched by any pain,
When we take the home-bound steamer
And catch the home-bound train;
There’s nothing half so pleasant
As coming home again.
(Observer, Volume XLI, Issue 2, 11 September 1920, Page 24)
* * *
Philippians 1:3-11 – Paul rejoices in the persistence of the church in keeping faithful to the gospel message he imparted to them.
Well Placed Persistence
Persistence in and of itself is not a virtue. It is only persistence in the pursuit of a worthwhile cause that makes persistence something to be emulated. The trick is determining which causes are worthwhile, a task that often requires, well, persistence.
Here are some fun examples of persistence paying off:
- NASA experienced 20 failures in its 28 attempts to send rockets into space.
- Henry Ford’s early businesses failed and left him broke five times before he founded Ford Motor Company.
- Walt Disney went bankrupt after failing at several businesses. He was even fired from a newspaper for lacking imagination and good ideas.
- It took Thomas Edison 1,000 attempts, by his own estimation, before inventing the light bulb.
- Dr. Seuss’s first book was rejected by 27 publishers before it was accepted.
- American author Jack London received 600 rejections before his first story was accepted.
- Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team for not being good enough.
- J.K. Rowling was nearly penniless, severely depressed, divorced, and a single mom, who went to school while writing Harry Potter. Rowling went from needing government assistance to being one of the richest women in the world in a five-year span.
Unwise Persistence: God’s Little Acre
In Erskine Caldwell’s scandalous 1933 novel, God’s Little Acre, the main character, Ty Ty Walden is convinced that his father buried a cache of gold somewhere on the family farm and, if he can find that gold, all of his problems will be solved. So, instead of working the farm, he hires two African American men to do that, and he spends all his time with his two worthless sons, digging holes all over the farm looking for the gold.
Eventually, he even hires an albino man who he is convinced has magical powers to find the gold and pays him what he has promised to pay his farm hands. His hired men are the only ones who realize that if there is gold to be found in the soil of the farm, it is to be found not in an empty pipe dream of discovered wealth but in the soil’s ability to reward honest labor with marketable crops. Ty Ty is unconvinced, however, so he keeps on digging. Of course, he never does find any gold.
* * *
LUKE 3:1-6 – John the Baptizer quotes the 800-year-old text from Isaiah as to what kind of activity the coming messiah will undertake.
Jesus The Bulldozer
Many of us carry around images of Jesus, the Messiah, that were instilled in our brains as children and never grow past those images. “Gentle Jesus Meek and Mild” holding lambs, looking off into the horizon with a warm, vacant expression on his face as he contemplates…what? Who knows? But the image is unfailingly passive. John the Baptizer, however, offers a much different image for our imaginations to ponder.
This messiah fills valleys and levels mountains and hills, he makes crooked paths into straight roads, and he paves rough paths to make them smooth.
This is no passive kind of activity. It is active in the extreme.
We’re talking bulldozers and road graders, here, backfiring and belching diesel fumes into the air. Or, short of that, ten thousand people with pickaxes and shovels hacking away, ten hours a day, six days a week.
Or maybe Isaiah is thinking about the power of nature. Tornadoes level entire forests and change the course of rivers. Hurricanes fill valleys and earthquakes level mountains and hills.
Whatever force is at work, the metaphor is clear. This Messiah is going to shake things up, change things in a profound, and maybe even scary, way.
* * * * * *
From team member Mary Austin:Philippians 1:3-11
Giving Thanks
Paul begins his letter to Philippi by giving thanks for the people there.
Frances Wattman Rosenau says that if we want to follow Paul’s example of gratitude, we should not think about our blessings every day. Nope. Research says that “people who take time each day to call to mind things they’re grateful for do not have the same happiness benefit as people who have a weekly gratitude practice. Same for kindness: people who practice one act of kindness every day do not get the same happiness benefits as people who practice several acts of kindness all in one day.”
But why? “It seems counter-intuitive but here’s the reasoning: If gratitude becomes a chore or just another thing to check off our to do list, it loses the benefit. In fact, the more we measure ourselves on whether or not we fulfilled our obligation, the less we focus on the gratitude itself. Whereas a weekly gratitude practice is periodic enough that it remains novel and doesn’t become a chore.”
She also says that Paul has the right idea when he composes this epistle. “Just thinking you’re grateful isn’t as good as writing it down, or better yet, saying it out loud.” Researchers found that people who wrote a gratitude letter once a week “reported significantly better mental health four weeks and twelve weeks after their writing exercise ended.” Even if they didn’t share the letter with the intended recipient, they still experienced the same improved mental health just for having written it down.
We can take Paul as an example in living with thanksgiving.
* * *
Luke 3:1-6
People on the Edges
In her book, The First Advent in Palestine, author Kelley Nikondeha notes what Luke’s gospel goes to great lengths to tell us. “In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas,” the author begins, and then tells us that the word of God skipped past all the important people and came to John, way out in the wilderness.
Nikondeha emphasizes what Luke says, “Advent pays attention to the people, places, and politics of generations awaiting God’s arrival.” She adds, “Western Christianity has forsaken a deep understanding of Advent for strands of twinkling lights and the anticipation of seasonal pleasures. When we accept sentimental expressions and concede to holiday hurry, we miss the original gravity of Advent. We miss understanding how God’s arrival, how God with us, shapes our ability to see the breaking in of God into a landscape, a people, a narrative — and what the earthly trajectory of the life of Jesus implied then and implies now.”
Paying attention to John helps us see the meaning of Advent.
* * *
Luke 1:68-79
A Note That Keeps Playing
Zechariah, echoing the Hebrew prophets, picks up the themes of God’s faithfulness and deliverance. These themes play throughout Israel’s history and into the life of the Messiah, and Zechariah paints a picture of the future, based on the past.
Bina Venkataraman writes about how we look into the future. She says, “Around the world, other groups are setting anchors for the imagination in the distant future. In Halberstadt, Germany, the St. Burchardi Church has rigged its organ to play a John Cage piece with ambiguous time signature, As Slow as Possible, at a pace that will last more than six hundred years. The organ will be built and disassembled as the piece goes on, to add and subtract pipes for the notes to be struck next. Notes sound twice a year — at most. In a sense, the musical piece is a collaboration across generations, and an invitation to maintain the relevance of an institution and an instrument over time.” (from The Optimist’s Telescope)
The hopeful notes that Zechariah sings may play rarely, but they play on, from the past into the future.
* * *
Luke 1:68-79
Arriving in the Future
As he looks to the future, Zechariah proclaims that God “has raised up a mighty savior for us in the house of his child David, as he spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, that we would be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us.” We’re still waiting for his vision to come to fulfillment, even all these years later.
Author Mia Birdsong says the future always comes this way. “We don’t get to the future we want by following a linear path plotted out from point A to B to C. The future we want is a spark inside us that says yes to joy and laughter and pleasure. It says yes to creativity and art and music. It says yes to transformative healing and care, and I am because we are. It says yes to vulnerability and our collective well-being and love. The more we fan and feed it, the more it sustains and grows. It lives in us and then we live in it and — the future is here. We get to the future we want by practicing it now.” (from How We Show Up: Reclaiming Family, Friendship, and Community)
We’re still bringing to life the future that Zechariah saw.
* * *
Luke 1:68-79, Philippians 1:3-11
Peeking at the End of the Book
Author Emily P. Freeman explains, “I have a friend who reads the last page of every novel to ensure it ends well. If not, she won’t read the book at all. Once I worked through my outrage at what I considered to be the greatest insult to a storyteller that you could possibly inflict (right up there with reading spoilers on the internet or shuffling a carefully curated playlist), I asked her more questions about this practice. Over time, I learned she also records key sports events and only watches them if she knows her team wins. I’d never heard of someone orchestrating their lives in such a way as to only ever watch a winning game or read a happy ending. Where is the mystery, the adventure, the joy and anticipation of not knowing how something ends?” (from How to Walk into a Room: The Art of Knowing When to Stay and When to Walk Away)
For all those who feel this way, God is always telling us how the story will end. Zechariah, now that he can speak, proclaims that God has already “raised up a mighty savior for us in the house of his child David.” Paul writes to the churches in Philippi that they don’t need to worry. “I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work in you will continue to complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.”
God lets us peek at the end of the story all the time.
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Luke 1:68-79
Anticipation
As Zechariah breaks his silence here, he sees ahead to the world that God is bringing to life. He praises God, saying, “Because of the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to shine upon those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
As Debra Rienstra writes, Advent holds both hope and fear. In Advent, we “anticipate not only the coming of the infant in the manger but also the return of Christ in judgment at the end of history. That double anticipation makes for an uncomfortable juxtaposition, a startling concoction of sweet coziness and mortal terror. It’s tempting to turn Advent into merely a lovely time of evergreen swags and glowing candles, beloved hymns about angels, joyful anticipation of warm feelings about a nice baby. But that’s not what Advent is supposed to be.”
Instead, “Advent is about a clash of kingdoms. The whole reason for that baby to arrive is to overturn the powers of this world in all their corruption and cruelty. That baby is supposed to become the Prince of Peace, ushering in the grace, justice, and beauty the scriptures claim God intends for the world. To prepare for this, we’re invited to dwell in that painful tension between what’s actually happening and what God promises.”
Like Zechariah, “We sink into the truth about our world’s deep sicknesses in order to awaken our full Advent longing. After all, we hardly need a savior if we’re comfortable with the way things are.” (from Refugia Faith: Seeking Hidden Shelters, Ordinary Wonders, and the Healing of the Earth)
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WORSHIPby George Reed
Call to Worship
One: Blessed be the God of Israel who has redeemed the people.
All: God has raised up a mighty savior for us in David’s house.
One: God has shown us the mercy promised to our ancestors.
All: God has remembered the holy covenant made to Abraham.
One: The dawn from on high will break upon us.
All: Our feet will be guided into the way of peace.
OR
One: We come to prepare for the coming of our Christ.
All: We await Christ’s coming and the peace he brings.
One: Let us prepare by opening our hearts to God’s love.
All: We welcome God’s love and seek God’s wisdom.
One: May the peace of God rest on us and all God’s children.
All: We will seek peace in all we do and say.
Hymns and Songs
Blessed Be the God of Israel
UMH: 209
H82: 444
GTG: 109
CH: 135:
ELW: 552/250
W&P: 158
Renew: 128
Savior of the Nations, Come
UMH: 214
PH: 14
GTG: 102
LBW: 28
ELW: 263
W&P: 168
I Want to Walk as a Child of the Light
UMH: 206
H82: 490
GTG: 377
ELW: 815
W&P: 248
Renew: 152
Let There Be Light
UMH: 440
NNBH: 450
NCH: 589
STLT: 142
Come Down, O Love Divine
UMH: 475
H82: 516
PH: 313
GTG: 282
NCH: 289
CH: 582
LBW: 508
ELW: 804
W&P: 330
Take Time to Be Holy
UMH: 395
NNBH: 306
CH: 572
W&P: 483
AMEC: 286
Seek Ye First
UMH: 405
H82: 711
PH: 333
GTG: 175
CH: 354
W&P: 349
CCB: 76
Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing
UMH: 400
H82: 686
PH: 356
GTG: 475
AAHH: 175
NNBH: 166
NCH: 459
CH: 16
LBW: 499
ELW: 807
W&P: 68
AMEC: 77
STLT: 126
Deck Thyself, My Soul, with Gladness
UMH: 612
H82: 339
PH: 506
NCH: 334
LBW: 224
I Come with Joy
UMH: 617
H82: 304
PH: 507
NCH: 349
CH: 420
ELW: 482
W&P: 706
Renew: 195
We Are One in Christ Jesus
CCB: 43
They’ll Know We Are Christians
CCB: 78
GTG: 300
Music Resources Key
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
GTG: Glory to God, The Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELW: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day/Collect
O God who has all wisdom and knowledge:
Grant us the grace to allow your love to overflow in us
so that we may be filled with your wisdom and knowledge;
through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We praise you, O God, because you are full of wisdom and knowledge. You understand all things in heaven and on earth. Help us to allow your great love to so overflow in us that we might partake of your wisdom. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
One: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially our failure to center ourselves in what really matters.
All: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We seek wisdom and knowledge from many sources but too often fail to seek it in your love. We think that wisdom is found in raw power and fails to honor the power of your love. We get sidetracked by the things that are not important in the long run. We are blinded by our wants and desires. Forgive us and renew your Spirit within us that we may produce a true harvest of righteousness. Amen.
One: God desires to pour eternal love into all our hearts. Receive God’s grace and forgiveness and allow that love to make you wise in all you do.
Prayers of the People
We worship you, O God, because you are the true fount of wisdom. You are the very essence of all that exists and you understand us better than we understand ourselves.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We seek wisdom and knowledge from many sources but too often fail to seek it in your love. We think that wisdom is found in raw power and fails to honor the power of your love. We get sidetracked by the things that are not important in the long run. We are blinded by our wants and desires. Forgive us and renew your Spirit within us that we may produce a true harvest of righteousness.
We give you thanks for all the ways in which you lavish your love upon us and all creation. We thank you for offering your wisdom to us so that we might be pure and blameless. We thank you for your peace that holds us in the midst of all turmoil and stress.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for your children whether near or far from us. We lift up to you those who find themselves in places where violence or war surround them. We pray for your peace that is eternal and for an end to violence.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
Hear us as we pray for others: (Time for silent or spoken prayer.)
All these things we ask in the Name of our Savior Jesus Christ who taught us to pray saying:
Our Father....Amen.
(Or if the Our Father is not used at this point in the service.)
All this we ask in the name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
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CHILDREN’S SERMONJohn the Baptist
by Katy Stenta
Luke 3:1-6
Supplies: Figure for a nativity scene (could be a “fun” one or a regular extra one)
This week we are going to talk about John the Baptist.
He is one of the people who is a truth-teller and helper for the people of God.
He prepares people for Jesus.
In a way, everything he says points to Jesus.
(If you have a Jesus in the manger have the kids point to Jesus, if not have them point to a cross.)
We are going to practice being John the Baptist, and pointing to Jesus.
Ready? Point!
Say “Prepare.”
Say “God is coming.”
Say “God will be with us!”
John the Baptist is also a person who helps us get ready for Christmas.
He could be part of the nativity scene.
Should we add him to the nativity scene this week?
(Place the figure with the nativity scene.)
There he is, telling everyone to prepare for Jesus’ coming.
Let’s pray…
Dear God,
Thanks for helping us
Get ready
For Jesus
With people
Like John,
Sowing the seeds
Of justice,
hope,
And peace.
Amen.
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The Immediate Word, December 8, 2024 issue.
Copyright 2024 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
