Day 384 - The Gracious Deeds of the Lord

A Sermon Given at First Presbyterian Church, Soddy Daisy, TN, December 29, 2013
OT Reading: Isaiah 63:7-9
NT Reading: John 1:1-18

Sometimes fortuitous things happen. I begin this sermon by thanking Billy Crowe for asking me a week ago for some notes to use in a talk on John.  My preparation for Billy caused me to think over how this lectionary text and the whole Gospel of John fit into the Christmas story.

When a person distills the history of a Gospel into a short summary, things take on a different perspective and one begins to see how the pieces fit together. Today I would like to share some of those thoughts on John that do that.

If you sit down and read Matthew, Mark and Luke one after the other, you will find some differences but overall you should realize you are hearing a fairly consistent Gospel Story. We find most of the same parables, most of the same events and relatively similar language and timeline.  The major differences are Matthew and Luke fill in details about the birth and about the post resurrection of Jesus that Mark does not mention. Overall you hear three versions of the basic story of the Good News, so we call them the “Synoptic Gospels.”

One author¹ says that if you then pick up John and read it, your reaction might be like leaving your home for a long vacation and returning to find the house has been remodeled and all the furniture rearranged. It is the same house but everything looks different. The Gospel of John poses dramatic differences from Mark, Matthew and Luke. Some events are missing, The timeline is much longer, Jesus stays in Jerusalem longer at the time of the crucifixion. There are many more I could list. However, my purpose is to explain how John is powerfully faithful to the Gospel story.

When we read the first 18 verses didn’t you get a sense of sweeping, grand imagery?  Frequently in the Psalms we read a deep theological statement and find the word single selah appended to it. For example Psalm 85: 1-2: “LORD, you were favorable to your land; you restored the fortunes of Jacob. You forgave the iniquity of your people; you pardoned all their sin. Selah.”

One of my old pastors, Rev. Charles Evans, who was a professor at Shorter College in Rome once said in a sermon, we really don’t exactly know what that Hebrew word selah means but the closest we can get to it is the strong exclamation, “How about that! Let’s stop and think about what was just said.” Isaiah 63:7-9 captures the spirit of selah.

Another minister² says you cannot preach these eighteen verses, you can only open the Book, stand it up on the pulpit, knell and pray about it.  Maybe we should place selah after verse 18 and just do that?

If you do step back into that prayerful stance reading John, you come to the sense that John is the story of the Good News told from a perspective that the message of the Good News is far more important than the physical perspective presented in Mark, Luke and Matthew.  John seems really not so much a book for missionaries and one-on-one conversion as it is a book to build and uphold the faith of practicing Christians. These 18 verses underscore that view.

My sermon would run way over the time if I talked about all the interesting details of these verses. I want only to leave with you several points about God and Jesus for your thoughts this coming week.

John gives us his perspective of the salvation of the world.  He starts with what is almost certainly a very ancient liturgical hymn of the earliest Christian congregations. It captures the whole Christmas story and also the entire relationship of God to humanity from the preexistence of time (the reality that existed before time began) until this moment.

John uses the word, “Word” in a special way. The Word means the revelation or communication by God of God. Word, Jesus Christ and God are one in the same, and not. By “The Word” John means Jesus is the revelation and communication of God to humanity.  In verse 18, John tells us that Jesus is the only way we know God. This is a subtle but important point that moves us towards our later idea of the Trinity and I’ll return to that in a minute.

The word “World” is a translation of the Greek cosmos. Cosmos does not mean just the earth but everything that exists and is sensible from the dust under our feet to the stars in the most remote part of the sky. (Quite literally by using a word to define everything that is known, the Greek defines all that is not known - “everything else.”)  When we read verse 10, “He was in the world, and the world came into being through him,” we could say “in the beginning the system was in place and it was God.” In other words, everything exists because of, or as God’s Divine plan.

When John writes in verse 12 and 13, “ ¹²But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, ¹³who were born, not of Day 3 or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God,” The word flesh does not mean carnality or sensuality but simply human existence.³ The believer is not born of human existence but of God.  Selah!

Verse 14 (and 10) says, “the Word (=Jesus=God’s revelation) lived among us,” but the actual Greek (and Hebrew) actually reads, “When he pitched a tent among us.” John is connecting the Jesus, the Word, to ancient Jewish theology, Joel 3:16-17 “The LORD roars from Zion, …and the heavens and the earth shake. But the LORD is a refuge for his people so you shall know that I, the LORD your God dwell in Zion, my holy mountain.” and Ezekiel 43:7, “He said to me: Mortal, this is the place of my throne and the place for the soles of my feet, where I will reside among the people of Israel forever.” It recalls the ark carried by the Israelites as they fled Egypt to the Promised Land.

So you see, this hymn is a grant summary of our existence connecting the heart to Jesus. It captures the core of our faith. How does the John’s gospel begin?  It begins with the exact words of Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Here is Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth,  2 the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.  3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.” With this verse John drives home the point that Jesus was the Word (revelation or communication of God) in the beginning, which means he was before time began, He was (in) that wind that swept over the deep; Jesus is God. Selah! (Do you get what I mean about John and Selah?)

Even more profoundly important, this passage declares that all that exists now is a fulfillment of a preexistent Divine plan, a plan that has been in existence in the beginning, or before time began. Of course you know I like those words if you remember I often tell you we all have a calling, a vocation that rests in the preexistent Divine cosmic plan.

Verses 3 -5 say, “ All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people…and the darkness did not overcome it.” This verse hearkens back to Gen 1:4, “And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.”  That is, Jesus brought all things into existence from the primordial darkness that was before everything. The words “he was the light of all people” means Jesus is the revelation of God to humanity and we are all part of that light.

Then we reach the core of Christian belief in verses 10-13.  “He came into the world through God, the world did not know him and his people did not accept Him but to all who do accept him and believe in his name receive the power of God’s children who are born not of flesh and blood but of God.”

We find the last message in verse 16, ¹From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace,” in other word, God did this because he loved the world, his creation. Do you recall John 3:16, where John writes, “For God so loved the world he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life?”

Then John cements in our minds the Divine power of what has just been sung (remember this is a Hymn), “ (17)…Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. (18) No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.”  It is only through Jesus that we know God, and now that Jesus is gone and sits beside God, we have the Holy Spirit to inform us.

John has captured the whole Christmas story, down to John the Baptist preparing the way as the lamp holder for the coming Light and the Easter story. (1) Jesus was with God forever, eternally. (2) Jesus brought all things into existence from the darkness. (3) John the Baptist prepared the way as a lamp holder. (4) Jesus lived in the world as human among us and was unknown or denied by his own people but he gave grace of life to those who believed in him because (5) God loves the world. As I said at the beginning of this sermon, sometimes the best we can do is read these words and just think of the blessing of grace we have received in this Christmas season and say selah! 

Let’s step back and take in a bit of information about who we think was John’s community. After the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple, the Jews were once again left only with the Law as happened in the Babylonian Captivity. As is often the case when the existence of a religious group is threatened it turns to a very conservative perspective of its religious belief and holds it tightly against any dilution or change since it is all it has left as spiritual identity.  After Rome crushed the Jewish rebellion in 70CE many of the Jews who had embraced Christianity and remained faithful Jews in the synagogues became objects of persecution as polytheistic heretics. The priests and Pharisees of the synagogues chased them out, excommunicated them from fellowship and even martyred some.

Although the book clearly speaks to Gentiles  (I am preaching from John today), its original intent was to buttress the faith and hope of those Christians who were chased from the synagogue and under siege. John gives them the message “Do not worry, the existence of the faithful is guaranteed.” That is what it says to us today.

Many of us feel the modern church is under siege, or perhaps a better way to say it, feel that the pressures and temptations of the world undermine faith. We might take this Word of John as a sign for us today that we have not lost our identity or way when Jesus ascended into heaven. We have no need to fear loss because the kingdom of God is here. We are part of that Divine preexisting plan. The world cannot defeat Christianity. Our job is to hold onto that faith embodied in the two greatest commandments and always look for ways to reflect the light of Christ into the darkness of the world.

The greatest value of history is that it is a record of mistakes and successes. Its study helps us avoid the errors and build on the successes of the past.

We celebrate the founding of this congregation 185 years ago on Dec. 1, 1828; the congregation we affectionately call, “Our Zion.” As Dr. Fowle says in the foreword of its history, it was the first non-Indian church in the area and has faithfully been the “Torch of the Gospel.” I wonder if this is not a good time to re-read John 1:1-18 and think about where the torch of “Our Zion,” First Presbyterian Church, has traveled and where God wants us to take that light today?

John tells us our only path in this world is through darkness so we may bring His Light. The book of Revelation tells us God will take care of his people, he will take care of his church until he comes again. Let us open our ears and minds to the only Son, the Word, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known and find the strength to carry on. Selah!

1. Carl R. Holladay, A Critical Introduction to The New Testament, The Gospel of John, Abingdon Press: Nashville (2005)  198

2. George Hermanson, http://www.holytextures.com/2010/11/john-1-1-9-10-18-year-a-b-c-christmas-2-sermon.html

3. Brian Blount: http://jointhefeast.blogspot.com/2008/12/jan-4-2009-john-11-9-10-18-brian-blount_1920.html

Note: Scripture is NRSV from the Oremus Bible Viewer.

Day 380 - A Christmas Story

On this Christmas day, something caused me to think about the circumstances of the time when John the Baptist was in Herod’s prison (Mark 6:1-44). Swept by doubt, he sent his disciples to inquire if Jesus was truly the Messiah (see my sermon 12/15/2013, Day 370). Jesus so affirmed this reality of his Messiahship and praised John the Baptist as the one who prepared the way.

Jesus sent his disciples on their first mission, to go out with only the clothes on their back and their sandals and proclaim the Good News. Herod heard of this proclamation and imprisoned John the Baptist fearing he was Jesus. John had been a gadfly to Herod criticizing him for marrying his brother’s wife.

The disciples returned after their mission with good news of their success but apparently, according to Mark, also informing Jesus that Herod had John the Baptizer beheaded.  

Jesus and the disciples commenced preaching and ministering to the crowds incessantly.  Finally, even Jesus remarked that they had to go away for a rest as they did not even have leisure to eat.  In grief over John and exhaustion over their work they set sail across the Sea of Galilee to the wilderness on the other side.

Yet the crowds followed on foot around the sea and were there to greet Jesus upon his arrival. Surely you can imagine the clamor of the sick, the parents or other family carrying or helping sick children or relatives to find the healing power of Jesus, the lame, the spiritually hungry, the blind and deaf, all the destitute people of the countryside in search of this promise of God looking for faith as well as  the curious and schemers.

When he arrived the Gospel says he looked out over the crowd about 5,000 strong and was struck with extreme, heart-wrenching compassion. Perhaps he felt the intensity of emotion we describe as the grief we feel upon seeing our own child helpless and in dire straights pleading for aid. He said they seemed like sheep without a shepherd.

God came to earth for this very reason: to give succor to God’s children who are hungry and thirsty for living water and bread as the Gospel of John tells us. Jesus the man understood and felt the grief of the crowd, something Jesus the Creator already understood.

The disciples were concerned also, but only to a point. They told Jesus to send them away because it was late and they need to find something to buy to eat. Jesus replied, “You give them something to eat.” But, they could not and Jesus ended up feeding the crowd of five thousand with five loaves of bread and two fish.

Every Christian must find in the heart this heart-rending compassion of Jesus for humanity. If you do not, you do not truly understand the nature of our own predicament as lost people in search of grace.

I will tell you a certain recipe to find this compassion. Volunteer or begin full time work with the people Jesus described, the people Jesus said he had come to minister in Luke 4: 4-21, the poor, hungry, blind and captives. Do it ceaselessly and put it before all your other wants.

Today, Christmas Day, 2013, that compassion pierced my own heart and thoroughly as it did when I was working on recovery in Mississippi after Katrina. I have been working with a fellow who has a long prison record. It is not a pretty record. It can be explained or understood by poor legal advice in the judicial system that took advantage of a naive and confused person, by bad choices, by not thinking but acting out in emotion. We can blame it on living in a family that took care of him when he grieved by supplying drugs and alcohol. He said to me at age 51 that he could not remember a day in his life from being a teenager on when he was not involved on one or the other.

Why it happened does matter to him, but not to us. He is the one who must understand the choices he made, the ones to avoid and to make now, but he cannot do it alone. He does not know how to do it alone.

He has been in our shelter for homeless men as we work with him to focus on concrete personal objectives that make for a Christian vocation. If he can do that, he has a path forward.

When I first met him he was a broken man, with a world view consisting of nothing but despair.

He lost his only anchors, first his mother then his wife. Because of his record, no matter how hard he tries, no one will hire him and no one will rent to him. His parole officer gives him supportive tolerance that my friend earns but another parole officer tells him that he is looking and will get my friend back in jail.

He lost his mother to a familiar illness and it almost destroyed him. Thank goodness for his wife. He had known his wife since they were children. They shared the same families and homes. He married her and she, as he says, was his rock. He got a job and was putting her through school. He went to prison for a crazy circumstance. After he got out, she became very ill due to a chronic disease. She had an adverse reaction to medication at the hospital and died.

  

His entire stable world collapsed when he lost his mother and his wife. He is still struggling with the anger and grief over those losses. It went with him to prison where he suffered violence and brought those losses plus that experience back home with him. It is like he has PTSD.

Over the last few months he has had the benefit of some good medical treatment for his despair and has been on the longest stretch of focused positive behavior. He is making positive steps towards regaining his place. We told him we are his brothers. We told him we would stick with him and help him as long as he struggled to help himself. We would be there if he stumbled and will help him stand up again if he desires it. We told him he faced a choice, to identify and pursue the vocation God called him for, or to walk away from it. 

It is a choice we all face.

Then last Saturday as a result of some petty argument the day before (that I call a “he said, she said” argument) he gets booted out on the street from our shelter before I find out about it.  With his history, everyone concluded he goes out. He has no place to go. The supervisor at the organization that identifies persons for us says, “He’s got family all over town he can stay with.”  He does, it is true, but 99+% of them are drug dealers or addicts.

The only place he can stay is at a relative who has a new gang in the neighborhood pushing against the existing one, and a family pushing drugs. That makes for a dicey, if not insane situation.

This morning, a frosty Christmas Day when the rising temperature was about 23F, I missed a call from the downtown homeless facility because I had my cell on “buzz.”  I find a message on my phone. It is from him. “I need help, I have been staying on this friend’s front porch in the cold. Mr. Henry I have to get out of here. These guys stay up all night selling drugs and shooting guns. I can’t stay here because I can’t stay around this stuff for long. And, if there is trouble and the police come and find me in the same yard, I’m back in jail for sure.”

One of the things you learn in this job is that people often try to scam you. You hear the same stories over and over. It is like they are reading from some textbook on how to scam people. I hear stories of being out of gas with family stranded in a car; Stories of broken serpentine belts and “I only need $20 for the belt to fix it,” stories of having to get to the VA hospital and needed a bus ticket.

It is really easy to develop a jaded attitude and assume everyone is scamming you. It is really easy to do that. The tragedy is when the people who are supposed to help them start thinking that way. Suddenly every one is judged a scam artist. What is really hard is to help compassionately knowing it might be  a scam.

That is what has happened to my friend with the staff at the facility. He has a history of of boozing, drugging and prison that spans almost 4o years. Even the folks who “help” him have decided that his history is more important than his actions in the present. But are we ever justified to be judges?

What would be our recourse if we said, “I repent,” and receive God’s grace and like we always do, sin again? Would Jesus say, “Sorry, I gave you a chance, now give it back, and it is off to perdition for you?”

You know the answer.

So, I drive down to the facility and we go by the pace he was staying and get his clothes. I take him to a local motel in town for the night until I can get him back in our shelter. 

Now, while you are in your cozy, warm homes enjoying a nap after a big Christmas repast,  I invite you to come down to a place where you will see real grief, destitution, failures, lies, organ failure, lung cancer, cardiac problems and no recourse. A place where despair is the rule of the day.  There is one in almost every community. If you cannot find one, you and some people in your congregation start one. The people are there.

Go out and listen to the people everyone ignores, the people we can look at and never see. Listen to them, explore their history and learn who they are as a person. Within this poor morass of humanity you will find a few people who thirst for that living water, who need a hand, hope. Desperate people, lost sheep, who but for a twist of fate are you. You’ll find the people Jesus saw when he got out of the boat next to the wilderness and understood their despair. The sheep without a shepherd.

If you do that with the earnestness we Christians are supposed to have, and truly approach the other with love, as a person who holds hopes and fears as real as your own, you will never be the same. Your life will change for the better.

Driving back from my conversation with my friend today I was swept by emotions. I was angry over how he is being treated, over what was done to him in his past and done only a few days ago.  Part of me wants to give up, it is so hard and so dehumanizing. I am angry that he is just another number in a table that  the facility can use to show how many people they have processed through their doors so their next grant application is funded.

Then I was overwhelmed by grief over his situation. I may be the only one who is giving him the chance to prove himself, standing between him and a bottomless abyss. I may be them only person with some wherewithal who cares enough to help. My grief over his almost hopeless situation, and the overwhelming sense of obligation to him brought me to the point of tears.

The saddest thing is that even if he is not playing me (I do not think he is), the chances of him making it out of his dark world are very, very slim. I owe him the chance to do it.

When you realize you may be the last person between life and death for someone, that is when you realize your life will never be the same.  Money will never be the same, loyalties will never be the same. The way you look at people will never be the same. 

In my flawed and limited human way, I think I have an infinitesimal glimmer of the compassion Jesus felt when he looked over that crowd on the far shore of Galilee. I think I have an infinitesimal glimmer of the compassion Jesus feels today for this crowd we call humanity.

Come on down and join me searching for your vocation. Your life will never be the same. Perhaps neither will be someone else's.

Grace and Peace and Merry Christmas!

Day 370 - Weak Hands and Feeble Knees

A sermon* delivered Dec. 15, 2013 at First Presbyterian Church, Soddy Daisy, TN

OT Reading: Isaiah 35: 1-12.

NT Reading: Matthew 11:2-11.

It seems like human nature wants certainty in the worst way.  We fear the threat of hostile countries, or gangs because we want control of our destiny. Most of us fear change because change means the future is uncertain. We doubt the future is going to be better than the way it was.

Where does that doubt put faith? Faith seems to be the opposite of certainty. We have faith in an unseen presence of God who can’t be proved by measuring and touching. Doubt seems to be an ever present sister of certainty.

A lot of religious folks think doubt is a sign of weakness that threatens faith. I am not sure that is the case. It seems to me we do people an injustice to read and preach the Word but not recognize doubt can be present even in those with the strongest faith.

No lesser an authority than Martin Luther read the question brought from John the Baptists by his disciples to Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” and refused to accept that John doubted who Jesus was. Martin Luther said John had to be acting on behalf of his disciples who doubted.

In his sermon on this passage Martin Luther said,“(Most preachers conclude) this Gospel (shows) John the Baptist (questioned) that Jesus was the true Christ, although this question is unnecessary and of little importance… it is evident John knew very well that Jesus was (the one prophesied to come), for he had baptized him and testified that Christ was the Lamb of God that (takes) away the sin of the world, and he had also seen the Holy Spirit descending upon him as a dove, and heard the voice from heaven: ‘This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.’ All four Evangelists tell us this. Why then did John ask this question?, he continued. Because it is certain …it is certain that John asked it for the sake of his disciples, as they did not yet (believe) Christ is who he really was. …John (was doing his job,)… to lead everybody to Christ and to make all the people subject to him.”

I am inclined to reject Martin Luther’s interpretation because this passage shows plainly the question,  “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” and its  answer was between John and Jesus, not Jesus and John’s disciples. Jesus replied to John that seeing is believing, do you see that the blind see, the lame walk, the sick are healed, the deaf hear, the captives are free?”

Martin Luther's rationalization seems to emphasize that we still seem to have a problem with doubt (especially when someone doubts us) because we feel it betrays our confidence in Jesus. After all, what does the Gospel of John say of Jesus: “John 3:18 Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”

You might then ask, “How can we be saved if we doubt, or Can one believe and hold onto faith and still doubt?”

You may remember what happened after John had been executed by Herod (Matt. 14:13-33).  Jesus fed the crowds of 5,000 and he and his disciples got into a boat to travel to the other side of the Sea of Galilee for some rest. A storm came up in the night and the disciples see Jesus standing on the water calling Peter to come to him. “If it is you, Lord, I’ll come.” We know what happens, everything is ok until Peter feels the wind and looks down on water under his feet and sinks in fear.  Jesus says, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” If walking on the water wasn’t proof enough, Jesus stills the storm before the eyes of everybody in the boat. They say, “truly you are the son of God,” but in just a little while they will doubt again. What did Peter do in the courtyard the night of Jesus’ arrest? Where were the disciples when Jesus was crucified?

Jesus understands doubt is our constant companion.

You all may have heard the story of Mother Teresa. She dedicated her life to working in the slums of Calcutta as a penitent and devoted servant of God. There has been some criticism of her methods and from whom she took gifts, but her Christian piety and compassion are undeniable. She felt the call to ministry in early childhood and went on to become a sister in the Catholic Church. She founded and shepherded the “Missionaries of Charity,” into an order of 4500 nuns in 133 countries. She served her church for 68 years, and had an active ministry to the poor in India for 50 years. Yet through those 50 years she was tormented by doubt. (from "Mother Teresa: Come be My Light,") Near her death She said, “I am told God lives in me — and yet the reality of darkness and coldness and emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul,… I want God with all the power of my soul — and yet between us there is terrible separation. I feel just that terrible pain of loss, of God not wanting me, of God not being God, of God not really existing… If there be God—please forgive me. When I try to raise my thoughts to Heaven, there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives and hurt my very soul ... How painful is this unknown pain—…If there be no God, there can be no soul. If there be no soul then, Jesus, You also are not true.” She carried this doubt for 50 years all the while in loyal service and in conversation with the God she doubted.

Imagine John the Baptist in our scripture. He sat in a dark, isolated jail in the bowels of Herod’s palace probably tormented and harassed by the guards telling him his execution was imminent. He had to fear for his life just like Peter on the water who doubted that Jesus would save him. So John sends his disciples to ask Jesus to quell his doubt with assurance he was truly the Messiah and going to come save him.

I have a hard time stretching this scene to conform to Martin Luther’s idea that John didn’t doubt.  I think Martin Luther could not balance doubt with the faith he thought John must have had. John baptized Jesus and heard that voice from heaven, “You are my son in whom I am well pleased.” But, Martin Luther chose to overlook the constant lament of Jesus about his followers, “Oh you of so little faith."

I think Martin Luther felt that way because of the way he found God. He was a budding young lawyer and one day was caught outdoors in a terrible storm with lightening strikes all around. He fell face down into the mud and driving rain praying, bargaining, “God spare me and I will devote my life to Your service.” Maybe that experience of surviving the lightening removed all his doubt, but you know what gas station wisdom says, “The bit dog barks the loudest.”  Maybe Martin Luther was afraid or uncertain of what he would do if he admitted his doubt.

Many people who talk to me about faith and doubt struggle with the contradictions of bad things happening to good people, or of wishes and prayers not being unfulfilled but fulfilled in inexplicable ways. The remarkable thing about many of these people who confront doubt is their Christian strength to work for the Glory of God and look to the day of resurrection that they doubt.

We all carry doubt. I am envious of those who face death calm and comfortably prepared to go. I pray that it will be that way with me. Maybe we all misunderstand God’s promise and are like Isaiah who said we see but not perceive, hear but don’t understand. When doubt gets to me, I hearken to Isaiah’s prayer to God to “strengthen weak hands and feeble knees.”

Isaiah knew that fear and doubt are in control in the time of waiting. He offered encouragement in our reading: “They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God. ...(4) Say to those who are of a fearful heart, “Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God. … He will come and save you…(5)Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped;...⁽¹⁰⁾And the redeemed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; … and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.”

I also find comfort in the words of Jesus sent to John the Baptist by way of his disciples, “they have seen blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them as Isaiah said the Messiah would do.”  I also take comfort in the sure praise by Jesus of John to the crowd after John’s disciples had left, “John is more than a prophet, he is my messenger and no one like him has come before, but even for him, when he comes home to the Lord, he will find the least in heaven greater than him.” In spite of his doubt, John was OK with God.

Sitting in a jail cell worried and tormented by the prospect of death, John had doubts about how this new Messiah planned his Kingdom and how he would save John….He had to wonder, “Can you believe and harbor doubt?”  Yes you can.

Doubt, my friends, is a powerful human emotion motivated by fear or uncertainty. It sharpens the mind. Mother Teresa struggled with doubt even as she worked for 50 years in faith waiting for God’s comforting voice. Perhaps Mother Teresa struggled for the unknowable answer to the question only God can answer, "Why does God allows the misery that surrounded her, why can I not know God’s mind?"  Peter had a ringside seat to the glory of Jesus’ actions but when he saw he was walking on water he realized what an impossible thing he was doing. Even loyal Peter doubted, but he did get out of the boat.

This is Advent. We enter this season waiting for Christmas, and for the Kingdom of God to fully reveal itself. I believe it is coming…I really do, but doubt dogs me sometimes and I wonder when will it come. We should appreciate and be thankful if Advent causes only one thing, that we confront our doubt and refine our faith in the most outrageous and impossible events we can imagine, a man will come to us from the poorest of society, will challenge the powers of his world with his weakness and bring the worldly empire to its knees in his defeat of death by his resurrection, all this done by a man named “God is with Us,” Emmanuel. It is a story that defies reason and logic that we are called to accept on faith.

Advent ought to humble us. It ought to cause us to acknowledge honestly that our doubt does not extinguish our faith in the comfort of the home we await.

It is a time to remember the desperation, doubt and faith of the father of the epileptic son who had violent seizures that caused him to fall into the fire and injure himself. (Mark 9:14-29)The disciples could not heal the son, and the father begged, “Jesus heal my son if you are able. Jesus said to him, “If you are able! —All things can be done for the one who believes.” Immediately the father of the child cried out, “I believe; help my unbelief!” …and Jesus said, "This can only be done by prayer.”

Let us use Advent as a time to celebrate that Jesus Christ is the only one who can help our unbelief. It is a time to dream and to pray for the promise that Isaiah delivered, that the Lord will strengthen weak hands and feeble knees.

Merry Christmas and may Jesus Christ bless you all. Amen.

* Note: All scripture is the New Revised Standard Version, and links are to the Oremus bible Browser. I often draw on resources found in the url for "The Text This Week: http://www.textweek.com. The author does a wonderful job of connection many resources and views on the lectionary test for the week. Ideas in the children's lesson can also be found at this link. Further links in today's post are to Christianity Today and Time Magazine.