The Interruption Of Advent Somberness
Sermon
Sermons On The First Readings
Series I, Cycle A
On many Advent altars Christians often place a wreath holding four candles. Some hang this wreath high in the chancel, lowering it to light the Advent candles Sunday by Sunday. Advent announces a somber penitential season, so three of the candles are purple or dark blue. However, one candle disrupts this somberness with its pink hue. Advent forces us to ponder our lapses in faith and the ways in which we have allowed evil to exist in the world. We light one of the purple or blue candles on the first two Sundays of the season. But since we cannot thrive on a steady diet of recalling our "manifold sins and wickedness," we light the pink candle on the third Sunday. This qualifies our penitent mood so that we avoid spiritual despair over our sins and short comings. The soft pink candle reminds us that our sins are well within the love of God who:
Is merciful and gracious,
Slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
For as the heavens are high above the earth,
So great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;
As far as the east is from the west.
So far he removes our transgressions from us.
- Psalm 103
Our scripture comes from Isaiah on this third Sunday of Advent. Isaiah's lyrical depiction of the restoration of Zion is an interruption to the preceding gloomy message of Isaiah. Most of the recorded utterances of Isaiah 1--34 are harsh denunciations of the enemies of Israel and the faithlessness of Israel. These chapters are strong warnings about the wrath of God, a wrath that is presently experienced in the devastating destruction of God's people.
Suddenly, Isaiah 35:1--10 steps away from judgment and announces a wonderful day when God's mercy will lead to the joyful restoration of Zion. What is going on here? Perhaps Isaiah has shifted his words from gloom to glory. A better explanation is that this passage comes from a later time. Isaiah 35:1--10 seems to fit the hopeful mood in Isaiah chapters 40--55. Someone, not wanting to lose these inspiring words, placed them in their present place in Isaiah. Such a person may not have realized that he was making this error - but what a serendipitous error it has become. The gospel is always good news. Gloom always gives way to grace, and the church wisely makes use of this in its Advent worship.
I
But first we must consider that there is no exemption from being confronted with our sins. Our biblical heritage will not allow this. Now sin is not really a big seller in American culture or in the church. Some congregations have almost banished sin from the church. Newer worship styles have eliminated congregational prayers of confession. Confession is reduced to being "optional." Sermons typically are upbeat and deal with handling our anxious lives in our struggle for success and prosperity. "Feel good" worship is the order of the day, dismissing anything that hints at judgment.
The main goal of life in our culture has become feeling good about ourselves, the church, society, the U.S.A., and the world. We seek those places where we become blind to disaster or danger or judgment. Sadly, our churches have become some of those places. It ought to give us pause when the observation comes not from a theologian or preacher, but one of the therapeutic giants of our time. Dr. Karl Menninger, a psychiatrist, has written a "now just a doggoned minute" little book, Whatever Happened To Sin? When it is clear that most of the church is putting out bland sermons on personal matters and creates a liturgy designed to avoid being confronted with our moral inadequacy, the good doctor wonders whether our pseudo--therapeutic soothing church and our success--oriented society are not inviting the wrath of God upon us.
Advent can be a time when we do a little negative thinking. Our American optimism and self--congratulating ways invite the stern readings of Advent to render us open to the qualifications of God upon our ways. In America since September 11, 2001, we have been awash in layers of patriotic self--justification and declarations of our national righteousness and innocence. Of course, there ought to be no quarter given those who flew those planes into the Towers, the Pentagon, and the hard ground of Pennsylvania. Their act was desperate and cowardly. But their pitiless violence has surprised Americans who can hardly comprehend that anyone would be angry at the U.S.A., or that others would be ungrateful for the "blessings" of western technology that we have bestowed on them. September 11, 2001, could become our moment to consider our national sinfulness, calling us to promote arrangements that discourage the despair and hostility prompting terrorism in our world.
II
But we cannot exist on a diet of sins and shortcomings. We cannot thrive on the negative alone. Unrelieved judgment can create spiritual cancers that eat away at healthy life and outlook. Ben Franklin said he was born in Philadelphia at the age of seventeen. Even if Franklin's characterization of colonial New England is overdrawn, it illustrates what can happen when the emphasis is heavily on human sinfulness. New England was not a joyful place in Franklin's time. We need a sense of hopefulness, as Isaiah 35:1--10 puts before us.
World War I is often called the Great War of 1914--18. A whole generation of men from Britain, France, and Germany were killed off in its slaughter. It caused some sensitive Christians to begin to re--consider some of the classic biblical affirmations about sin - our tendency to purchase our security at the expense of others. Sin came back in the vocabulary of worship, preaching, and devotion of Christians.
Soon this trend became a movement and often was called neo--orthodoxy, partly because it revived the classical doctrine of human sinfulness. A whole generation of pastors and church leaders were trained in this more grim outlook. This trend became a healthy corrective to the unfounded optimism of that time.
But we cannot live without some glimmer of hope. Soon neo--orthodoxy gave way to chastened forms of optimism. There is an old preacher's story about a time of economic depression in France. The government decided that it would find work for the unemployed, so it put them to work building roads. At first all was well. The men were receiving paychecks, their spirits were high, and the government was pleased with itself. Then some of the men began to ask where the roads were leading. The government confessed that these roads were going nowhere, with most of them ending in a dismal swamp. This broke the spirit of the workers. They began to lose the sense of purpose in their work. They had to have some hope that they were making life better for others and themselves. We need a useful hope.
III
This third Sunday of Advent is an interruption to the somberness of this season. As someone placed our lection into the somber text of Isaiah, so we also find this passage bringing a note of hope and joy amid Advent's serious look at ourselves and our world. This passage becomes a welcome interruption to unrelieved moments of the righteous judgments of God.
The Christmas Christ will come in the midst of Advent darkness. In a world that fears the human race may not have a reliable future, the third Sunday of Advent will yet invite our trust in the grace of God that is beyond all human deviousness. The Advent Christ can steady our deep anxieties, causing us to rejoice beyond our somber hopelessness. Christ is always an interruption of our gloomy conclusions that life is utterly bound over to those inner or outer forces that destroy us. Christ is an interruption to our gloom--driven attempts to deny our precariousness and to lose ourselves in an exhausting round of self--striving and contrived distractions. Advent's Christ interrupts such paralytic or hyper--active responses, assuring us that in God's way it is ultimately all joy. Occasionally joy breaks in upon our lives and fills them with a gladness that makes all the difference.
There is a story about Karl Barth, the original apostle of neo--orthodoxy. His theological views were grounded in the destruction and atrocities of the First World War. He roared that the theology of his time was superficially optimistic and had no answer to the killing of the war. He went back to biblical sources and jettisoned the theology of comfortable optimism and reasonableness. Barth heard the scriptures speaking of a God who is "wholly Other," beyond our reason and experience of God. He said the Bible tells of a great chasm between God and humans, resolved only in the crucified Jesus. His views were startling to the prevailing theologies of Europe and America. He stirred up a great controversy inside the church. Barth was surprised, however, at the notoriety he received. He said he felt like someone climbing up the bell tower stairs to place a lantern in the steeple on a dark night. Suddenly he slipped, grabbed hold of the rope of the church bell, and awakened the whole village.
Over the years, as his point was made, Barth softened his stern message. He began to speak of the humanity of God in addition to God's otherness. As an elderly man, Barth came to America and he visited the Divinity School at the University of Chicago, a school noted for its more optimistic mood, and became engaged in dialogue with the divinity students. One student asked how Barth would characterize the gospel. The old man paused for a moment and said the gospel can be summed up in a ditty he learned at his mother's knee: "Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so." So his fierce prophecies were always grounded in what another hymn calls "a love that will not let me go." This third Sunday of Advent reminds us of this wonderful truth. Even in the terrible honesty of Advent, we find a hope amid its somberness.
Is merciful and gracious,
Slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
For as the heavens are high above the earth,
So great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;
As far as the east is from the west.
So far he removes our transgressions from us.
- Psalm 103
Our scripture comes from Isaiah on this third Sunday of Advent. Isaiah's lyrical depiction of the restoration of Zion is an interruption to the preceding gloomy message of Isaiah. Most of the recorded utterances of Isaiah 1--34 are harsh denunciations of the enemies of Israel and the faithlessness of Israel. These chapters are strong warnings about the wrath of God, a wrath that is presently experienced in the devastating destruction of God's people.
Suddenly, Isaiah 35:1--10 steps away from judgment and announces a wonderful day when God's mercy will lead to the joyful restoration of Zion. What is going on here? Perhaps Isaiah has shifted his words from gloom to glory. A better explanation is that this passage comes from a later time. Isaiah 35:1--10 seems to fit the hopeful mood in Isaiah chapters 40--55. Someone, not wanting to lose these inspiring words, placed them in their present place in Isaiah. Such a person may not have realized that he was making this error - but what a serendipitous error it has become. The gospel is always good news. Gloom always gives way to grace, and the church wisely makes use of this in its Advent worship.
I
But first we must consider that there is no exemption from being confronted with our sins. Our biblical heritage will not allow this. Now sin is not really a big seller in American culture or in the church. Some congregations have almost banished sin from the church. Newer worship styles have eliminated congregational prayers of confession. Confession is reduced to being "optional." Sermons typically are upbeat and deal with handling our anxious lives in our struggle for success and prosperity. "Feel good" worship is the order of the day, dismissing anything that hints at judgment.
The main goal of life in our culture has become feeling good about ourselves, the church, society, the U.S.A., and the world. We seek those places where we become blind to disaster or danger or judgment. Sadly, our churches have become some of those places. It ought to give us pause when the observation comes not from a theologian or preacher, but one of the therapeutic giants of our time. Dr. Karl Menninger, a psychiatrist, has written a "now just a doggoned minute" little book, Whatever Happened To Sin? When it is clear that most of the church is putting out bland sermons on personal matters and creates a liturgy designed to avoid being confronted with our moral inadequacy, the good doctor wonders whether our pseudo--therapeutic soothing church and our success--oriented society are not inviting the wrath of God upon us.
Advent can be a time when we do a little negative thinking. Our American optimism and self--congratulating ways invite the stern readings of Advent to render us open to the qualifications of God upon our ways. In America since September 11, 2001, we have been awash in layers of patriotic self--justification and declarations of our national righteousness and innocence. Of course, there ought to be no quarter given those who flew those planes into the Towers, the Pentagon, and the hard ground of Pennsylvania. Their act was desperate and cowardly. But their pitiless violence has surprised Americans who can hardly comprehend that anyone would be angry at the U.S.A., or that others would be ungrateful for the "blessings" of western technology that we have bestowed on them. September 11, 2001, could become our moment to consider our national sinfulness, calling us to promote arrangements that discourage the despair and hostility prompting terrorism in our world.
II
But we cannot exist on a diet of sins and shortcomings. We cannot thrive on the negative alone. Unrelieved judgment can create spiritual cancers that eat away at healthy life and outlook. Ben Franklin said he was born in Philadelphia at the age of seventeen. Even if Franklin's characterization of colonial New England is overdrawn, it illustrates what can happen when the emphasis is heavily on human sinfulness. New England was not a joyful place in Franklin's time. We need a sense of hopefulness, as Isaiah 35:1--10 puts before us.
World War I is often called the Great War of 1914--18. A whole generation of men from Britain, France, and Germany were killed off in its slaughter. It caused some sensitive Christians to begin to re--consider some of the classic biblical affirmations about sin - our tendency to purchase our security at the expense of others. Sin came back in the vocabulary of worship, preaching, and devotion of Christians.
Soon this trend became a movement and often was called neo--orthodoxy, partly because it revived the classical doctrine of human sinfulness. A whole generation of pastors and church leaders were trained in this more grim outlook. This trend became a healthy corrective to the unfounded optimism of that time.
But we cannot live without some glimmer of hope. Soon neo--orthodoxy gave way to chastened forms of optimism. There is an old preacher's story about a time of economic depression in France. The government decided that it would find work for the unemployed, so it put them to work building roads. At first all was well. The men were receiving paychecks, their spirits were high, and the government was pleased with itself. Then some of the men began to ask where the roads were leading. The government confessed that these roads were going nowhere, with most of them ending in a dismal swamp. This broke the spirit of the workers. They began to lose the sense of purpose in their work. They had to have some hope that they were making life better for others and themselves. We need a useful hope.
III
This third Sunday of Advent is an interruption to the somberness of this season. As someone placed our lection into the somber text of Isaiah, so we also find this passage bringing a note of hope and joy amid Advent's serious look at ourselves and our world. This passage becomes a welcome interruption to unrelieved moments of the righteous judgments of God.
The Christmas Christ will come in the midst of Advent darkness. In a world that fears the human race may not have a reliable future, the third Sunday of Advent will yet invite our trust in the grace of God that is beyond all human deviousness. The Advent Christ can steady our deep anxieties, causing us to rejoice beyond our somber hopelessness. Christ is always an interruption of our gloomy conclusions that life is utterly bound over to those inner or outer forces that destroy us. Christ is an interruption to our gloom--driven attempts to deny our precariousness and to lose ourselves in an exhausting round of self--striving and contrived distractions. Advent's Christ interrupts such paralytic or hyper--active responses, assuring us that in God's way it is ultimately all joy. Occasionally joy breaks in upon our lives and fills them with a gladness that makes all the difference.
There is a story about Karl Barth, the original apostle of neo--orthodoxy. His theological views were grounded in the destruction and atrocities of the First World War. He roared that the theology of his time was superficially optimistic and had no answer to the killing of the war. He went back to biblical sources and jettisoned the theology of comfortable optimism and reasonableness. Barth heard the scriptures speaking of a God who is "wholly Other," beyond our reason and experience of God. He said the Bible tells of a great chasm between God and humans, resolved only in the crucified Jesus. His views were startling to the prevailing theologies of Europe and America. He stirred up a great controversy inside the church. Barth was surprised, however, at the notoriety he received. He said he felt like someone climbing up the bell tower stairs to place a lantern in the steeple on a dark night. Suddenly he slipped, grabbed hold of the rope of the church bell, and awakened the whole village.
Over the years, as his point was made, Barth softened his stern message. He began to speak of the humanity of God in addition to God's otherness. As an elderly man, Barth came to America and he visited the Divinity School at the University of Chicago, a school noted for its more optimistic mood, and became engaged in dialogue with the divinity students. One student asked how Barth would characterize the gospel. The old man paused for a moment and said the gospel can be summed up in a ditty he learned at his mother's knee: "Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so." So his fierce prophecies were always grounded in what another hymn calls "a love that will not let me go." This third Sunday of Advent reminds us of this wonderful truth. Even in the terrible honesty of Advent, we find a hope amid its somberness.
