Third Sunday in Advent Year C 2009

03 Advent C 09
December 13, 2009

Zephaniah 3:14-20
14 Sing aloud, O daughter Zion; shout, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter Jerusalem! 15 The LORD has taken away the judgments against you, he has turned away your enemies. The king of Israel, the LORD, is in your midst; you shall fear disaster no more. 16 On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem: Do not fear, O Zion; do not let your hands grow weak. 17 The LORD, your God, is in your midst, a warrior who gives victory; he will rejoice over you with gladness, he will renew you in his love; he will exult over you with loud singing 18 as on a day of festival. I will remove disaster from you, so that you will not bear reproach for it. 19 I will deal with all your oppressors at that time. And I will save the lame and gather the outcast, and I will change their shame into praise and renown in all the earth. 20 At that time I will bring you home, at the time when I gather you; for I will make you renowned and praised among all the peoples of the earth, when I restore your fortunes before your eyes, says the LORD.

Isaiah 12:2-6 (psalm)
2 Surely God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid, for the LORD God is my strength and my might; he has become my salvation. 3 With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. 4 And you will say in that day: Give thanks to the LORD, call on his name; make known his deeds among the nations; proclaim that his name is exalted. 5 Sing praises to the LORD, for he has done gloriously; let this be known in all the earth. 6 Shout aloud and sing for joy, O royal Zion, for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.

Philippians 4:4-7
1 Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved.
2 I urge Euodia and I urge Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. 3 Yes, and I ask you also, my loyal companion, help these women, for they have struggled beside me in the work of the gospel, together with Clement and the rest of my co-workers, whose names are in the book of life. 4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. 5 Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. 6 Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Luke 3:7-18
7 John said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our ancestor'; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. 9 Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire." 10 And the crowds asked him, "What then should we do?" 11 In reply he said to them, "Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise." 12 Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, "Teacher, what should we do?" 13 He said to them, "Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you." 14 Soldiers also asked him, "And we, what should we do?" He said to them, "Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages." 15 As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, 16 John answered all of them by saying, "I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 17 His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire." 18 So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.

The Hidden Truth

As Liz and I were driving toward Gloucester along Route 14 I happened to notice that church up on the hill, which is for most of every year more-or-less invisible. But in the season of Advent, this little church has a tradition of putting a star in the front yard and lighting it with a big spotlight, so that a large shadow is cast on the façade of the church. It’s quite dramatic and beautiful.

I then began to notice along the road the lights decorating houses, yards, trees, bushes, fences. Of course there are also the figures that are all lit up, Santas and angels and deer and nativity scenes and even pink flamingoes.

And I I thought of all this illumination as a kind of revelation, as if all these things had been here all along, like that church on the hill, but somehow invisible, hidden behind the ordinary world we usually see, and that as Christmas approaches, and the darkness of winter falls, these things pop out of hiding and shine before us. Heavenly beings stroll around in people’s yards. Ordinary little homes shine like palaces. Forest creatures light up with holiness. The space-time continuum slips and behold, first-century Bethlehem pops into the front yard.

“You brood of vipers” is not my favorite first line of a sermon. But as we read on in John’s diatribe, we get the sense that he is addressing a certain group within the crowd that has gathered around him. I can imagine the scene. John’s preaching had probably first attracted the radical element, and maybe those who were poor and oppressed in the culture of the day. But as the crowds grew around him, word reached the cosmopolitan centers, the seats of power, and some of the upscale people thought they’d go out and check him out.

His words for them were shocking. A wrath is coming, and they are its main target. John takes on their complacent belief that their status as Jews is all that’s necessary for their salvation. It seems that cheap grace was a problem for the Jews as much as it seems to be a problem for us. We’ve all heard preachers singing that sweet lullaby, “God loves you just the way you are.” We drift off to a pleasant sleep, secure in the knowledge that all is well.

But John shakes us awake. “Do not tell yourselves, you are children of Israel. That doesn’t mean a thing. Bear fruits worthy of repentance.”

“Nobody’s perfect.” You’ve heard that haven’t you? Maybe you’ve even said it. It’s that nice little dismissal we like to give to our sins. “Ah, well, nobody’s perfect.” But John is not settling for such half-hearted repentance, the kind of repentance that admits sin but does nothing about it. The Messiah is coming, you see. What is hidden, what is already there but invisible, all of it will be revealed.

And so Paul says, “Rejoice.” And Zephaniah says, “Rejoice.” And the psalmist says, “Rejoice.” And that wonderful sentence, “The Lord is near.”

Getting ready for the revelation, when things that are hidden will be revealed, is what repentance is really all about. And the revelation itself is what Christmas is really all about.

There is a veil, you see, that most of us call “reality.” It’s the whole system we have of figuring out what is true and what is not, what is good and what is evil, what is great and what is small. But hidden behind this system, behind what appears to be, is the truth. This truth is very close by, though most of us don’t know it. We’ve been talking throughout Advent about the kinds of things that disturb the veil, that rip holes in it and give us a glimpse of the truth that’s working behind it. Disasters, crises, sudden transitions, anything that disrupts the flow of our expectations of cause-and-effect, events that rip up our assumptions and preconceptions, this is the stuff of revelation.

We can, without a single crystal ball, predict that such revelation will happen, and within our lifetimes. The whole nature of the demonic is to convince us that somehow we have things under control, that God’s in his heaven, safely distant and pleasantly irrelevant, and all’s right with the world. The complaints of those who disagree are regarded as unreasonably negative and probably self-serving in some way. But then somehow everything blows up. Riots, rebellion, war, plague, attack, murder, the superpower loses the war, the shuttle blows up, the towers come down, the man in the tower shoots. You mean, we’re not indestructible? You mean, the whole world doesn’t love us? You mean, millions of Americans don’t think the economy’s fine? You mean, we’re actually bloodthirsty and cruel, and not a thousand points of light?

But Paul says “Rejoice,” and Zephaniah says, “Rejoice” and the psalmist says, “Rejoice.” This is the victory of our God, this is where the hidden and cosmic truth bursts into our safe little bubble of delusion. This is where the blind suddenly see and the deaf suddenly hear and the paralyzed stand up and run. This is the day of the Lord, and it is coming soon.

The veil is pulled back. We see the mighty Caesar on his throne, deep within his monolithic palace, surrounded by servants and ministers and generals. We see his thousands and his ten thousands, their finely polished swords gleaming. But the veil is pulled back and we see a festering cesspool of greed and violence and domination. We see a backwater town in a backwater region, a little stable behind an inn, a working poor couple, the girl pregnant out of wedlock, a wet and bloody newborn they could most likely barely afford to feed. But the veil is pulled back and we see the Lord of creation, surrounded by angels, singing “Glory, glory, glory.”

What should we do? What should we do to be ready for the veil to be pulled back? What should we do to be ready to be exposed as part of the problem or part of the solution, part of what is destroying God’s creation or part of what is saving it?

It depends, doesn’t it, on who we are, who we really are, behind the veil of appearances. Each one of us asks the question, and each one of us gets a different answer. To those who are ready, to those who know already what is behind the veil, to those who have been given the vision of the coming kingdom of God, to those who have embraced it and given themselves to its coming, the answer is “Rejoice.” Right now, such folks look ridiculous, unrealistic, foolish, weak. But when the veil is pulled back, they will be the multitudes robed in white, the holy ones of God singing joyful praises to the victory of God.

But for others, who hide their wickedness is denial and self-delusion, who secretly hate and condemn and thirst for blood, who covet and crave what doesn’t belong to them, who practice deceit of themselves and others, who willfully strive to dominate and exploit those who are weaker than they, the answer is “Bear fruits worthy of repentance.” It is not enough to say, “Nobody’s perfect,” because when the veil is pulled back it will be shown that someone is. That one is the baby in the manger, the Christ, and all who are in him on that day.

On the other side of the disaster, on the other side of the turmoil, on the other side of that day, there is a glorious vision of God’s new creation, a world of peace and justice, a world without weapons, a world without hunger, a world without violence, a world in which those who grieve will be comforted, and those who are weak will be cared for, and those who thirst after the justice of God will drink it in full measure.

God, in the new covenant that is coming, promises this. But every promise of God comes with a warning. Some will be there, and some will not. To those who are ready, God says, “Rejoice.” To those who are not, God says “Repent.”

What should we do?

Amen.