Henrietta United
Rev.
David Inglis Isaiah
40:3-5
2nd
Sunday of Advent
“What Do You Want for Christmas?”
Scripture: Isaiah
40:3-5 (The Message by Eugene Peterson)
Thunder in the desert!
"Prepare for God's arrival!
Make the road straight and smooth,
a highway fit for our God.
Fill in the valleys,
level off the hills,
Smooth out the ruts,
clear out the rocks.
Then God's bright glory will shine
and everyone will see it.
Yes. Just as God has said."
Sermon:
What do you want for Christmas? One year I got a bottle of fine aftershave
lotion, so I’ll be happy if I get something I can actually use, even if it’s
another tie. After years of trying to
manage my kids’ sibling rivalry, I’ll be happy if we can get through 24 hours
without snide put-downs and hurt feelings.
One year we put the turkey in the oven and put the oven on time bake so
we could go on a nice outing together.
We came back a few hours later to a
room-temperature turkey. We hadn’t set the
oven right, and had to throw out the turkey for fear of food poisoning. I’ll feel satisfied if we have a nice meal
where everything gets done and nothing gets burned. If I get all that, plus an extra bonus of
feeling inspired by the music of our choir and Handbell Choir on Christmas Eve,
I’ll call it another good Christmas that I’ve made it through. All I’ve got to do is drop some gift hints,
set a positive emotional tone for the family, help make sure the Christmas
dinner is carefully planned and executed, and show up for the Christmas Eve
services, which you pay me to do anyway.
I wonder if this is what the prophet Isaiah meant
when he thundered in the desert,
Prepare for God's arrival!
Make the road [to your heart] straight and smooth,
a highway fit for God.
Fill in the valleys [of low expectations]
Level off the hills [of holiday hecticness and
obligations.]
Smooth out the ruts [of mindless habits and empty traditions.]
Clear out the rocks [of worry, pride and greed.]
Then God's
bright glory will shine [through you]
and everyone will see it.
Yes. Just as God has said."
The real gift God wants to give us for Christmas is
much, much bigger than anything on our wish list. God so loved the world that God sent Jesus
into our world of struggles and trials, fear and pain, to show us how we too
can live in this world with a living hope, life-changing love, unifying peace,
and irrepressible joy. We are the ones
of whom John wrote: “But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he
gave power to become the sons and daughters of God, who were born, not of blood
or of the will of the flesh or of human will, but of God” (John 1:13). We are the ones of whom Jesus said, “You are
the light of the world; you are the salt of the earth.”
What do you really want for Christmas this year? Is your spirit alive enough to want something
more than tinsel, trinkets, turkey, and small talk–something that lifts you to
a different level of living?
Would you like to receive the gift of Christ’s hope, that sees the world around you not only as it is, but
also as it can be–a hope that helps you embody that vision so that you can be a
partner with God in creating that world?
That’s what Jesus did when he created a community based on faith, hope
and love right in the midst of an oppressive, dehumanizing empire. Christ’s coming reminds us that we are now
the carriers of that vision of hope today, and right here and now we are
sending out rays of hope to the struggling families who need the food cupboard,
to the family who has been chosen to buy the Habitat house we’re building, to
the overwhelmed mothers who will be receiving our baby kits, to the
storm-ravaged Haitians who are receiving our Thanksgiving offering, to fearful
women who receive our peace shawls.
Isn’t it a gift to us to be agents of hope in the face of our world’s
problems and needs?
Would you like to receive the gift of Christ’s love
this Christmas? Do you dare to open
yourself fully to the compassion of Christ, who knows every part of you–the
good stuff you love to show the world and the wounded and shameful stuff you
don’t dare let show–and yet he loves you still and all. Christ totally loves you, not because you are
better than others, but because he sees who you really are–a child of
God, created in God’s image, yet He knows that you were born into a sometimes fearful,
confusing, spirit-numbing world, like he was.
Christ knows you weren’t born perfect; you were born to learn from your
mistakes and to grow through your trials. So he doesn’t judge you. When you have messed up, he is there to
forgive you so you are freed to try again.
When you are wounded, he is there to heal you so you are freed to love
again. When you are fearful, he is there
to encourage you so you are freed to risk again. But he doesn’t stop there. He invites you to follow him into the world,
meeting other people’s shame, wounds and fears with a love that dissolves them.
The more you love the people in your life without conditions, as Christ loves
you, the more you are filled with love.
Isn’t it a gift that our own imperfections and pain actually prepare us
to be compassionate agents of Christ’s love?
Maybe you want to receive the gift of Christ’s peace this Christmas–a peace that
dares to roll up its sleeves and create places of connection in the midst of
our human antagonism, intolerance, prejudice
and fear. Christ showed us how
to do that by helping us see that beneath our divisions and judgments, we are all
held in God’s eternal embrace. In God’s eyes we are all made of the same
stuff. Our differences are only in our human perceptions. Christ says, “Blessed are the
peacemakers”–those who lay down their weapons of judgment and fear, attack and
defense, and create shalom around them out of the deep peace they know by being
in tune with God’s unconditional love. Isn’t it a gift to be able to create
more peace in our own homes, community and world–by humbly speaking our truth,
compassionately listening to each other, asking for and offering forgiveness,
using our gifts to build up other people, and respecting each person’s eternal
worth?
And maybe you’d like to receive the gift of Christ’s
joy, a joy that’s bigger than any of our pain and deeper than any of our
fears–a joy that doesn’t depend on where we are, what we have, or what we’re
doing. When we give over to God all our
fears, our shame, our wounds, our judgments, our resentments, our pride, and
our wills, and simply abide in his love, Jesus says, “my joy will be in you and
your joy will be complete.” This joy
bubbles up as gratitude, life, love, and peace from the very essence of our
being. Isn’t it a gift to know that the more we let go of our small self into
God, the more we’ll feel the joy of our own essential, eternal self?
So what do you want for Christmas? What do you really want? Some useful
presents, a good dinner, and a day with our family or friends would give us a
pleasant little break before we get ready to charge into January. But God’s gifts of living hope, life-changing
love, unifying peace, and irrepressible joy–wow, that
could really change our lives. And that
could really change our little part of the world. What do we really want? Are we ready to start receiving God’s gifts
to us this Christmas?
Prepare for God's arrival!
Make the road [to your heart] straight and smooth,
a highway fit for God.
Fill in the valleys [of low expectations]
Level off the hills [of holiday hecticness and
obligations.]
Smooth out the ruts [of mindless habits and empty traditions.]
Clear out the rocks [of worry, pride and greed.]
Then
God's bright glory will shine [through you]
and everyone will see it.
Yes. Just as God has said."