Sermon - "Are you the one?" - December 12, 2010

“Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”

I was telling my mother earlier this week that one of the strongest memories I have of Christmas is a street corner in the little prairie town of Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, twenty miles from the farm where I grew up.

It’s about 5.00 o’clock in the afternoon, the little town is cloaked in snow, the gray of the clouds is deepening into darkness, the colored lights draped around the shop windows sharpen and glisten, and kitty-corner from where I’m standing is a store of men’s fine suits. In a town of large, boisterous cafeterias full of farmers and their families, a city bordered by cattle lots and machine shops, this one elegant store stands out. I’m not sure why. Maybe it just seemed right for the season. But I remember it clearly, and can still smell the leather and fabric - the beautiful gray flannel three-piece suits, the luxurious leather coats that only a few wore in that little town of coveralls and workboots.

And in my memory it’s late in the month, there aren’t many days left. I walk with my mother back from the suit store to the Co-op, back to the large, boisterous cafeteria where we’d gather before heading home to the farm, where my grandfather would spend most of the day shooting the breeze with other farmers and complaining about the price of 10 cent coffee. And then, with my grandparents and my sisters, eight of us would all crawl into my father’s station wagon. And on nights as cold as 20 or 30 below zero, I’d be jammed into the back seat with my grandfather who, after many hard years, had one of those beautiful leather coats. And I can smell him. I can smell the coat.

And I remember pulling out of the parking lot, rolling along the little, illuminated city streets, rolling along in deep ruts of snow and ice, hard enough to defy the toughest plow. Rolling out onto and along the empty highway toward the farm, where the approaching lights of another car could be followed for miles, the car lights glistening like the star lights above.

Rolling off the highway onto the dirt road toward the farm three miles north, six farms marking the path between the highway and home. Until, in the distance, the sight of the yardlight, and then the gray outline of the barn, the workshop, the equipment sheds, the grain bins, the trees that stand sentinel-like around the buildings, until finally the little flashes of green and red, the Christmas lights that my grandfather pinned to anything that would take a nail - on the house, on the roof, on the power pole, on his wooden reindeers.

You know, I think for the first time, this week, I realized why Christmas came to be so difficult to understand. I think I realized for the first time that I wasn’t just waiting for a colourful parcel. I waited for something more beautiful than the pastel sunsets on prairie fields blanketed with snow, I waited for something richer in smell and warmth than a barn filled with cooing cattle on a bitterly cold winter’s night, I waited for a place lovelier than our living room, with a new red carpet, a fragrant evergreen tree, and my pretty baby sister crawling around on the floor.

I think for the first time, this week, I realized why Christmas came to be so difficult to understand. I longed for a place more beautiful than a place whose beauty I could not imagine surpassed.

“Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”

Children are created to hope and believe and anticipate deeply. But friends, the years pass. And hopes are disappointed - misplaced hopes because they are misplaced. But even some of the nobler hopes we’re capable of - hopes for our communities, our families, ourselves - some of them fail and are disappointed. Years pass, and the protective shield of childhood slips away. And we begin to hope for what we think we can settle for, for what we think it is realistic to expect.

“Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”

What had John expected?

“One more powerful than I,” he said. One who will baptize with fire, he said. One who will separate the wheat and burn the chaff “with unquenchable fire,” he said (Mt 3:11-12).
It was the hope for a conquering King, who would rule the people, and judge their enemies. It was for a King as strong as King David before him. As hard as the cruel world in which tiny Israel sought its place.

These were his hopes. This was the king for whom he had bravely sought to prepare the people. But for all he himself had done to prepare, what had come of it?

Scripture records that John was imprisoned by a mercurial king. A king fascinated by John, but cowed by the court which surrounded him. A king in debt to his own indiscretions. A king for whom the lives of the weak were pawns on the playing board for him to dispose of as he saw fit.
Brave, righteous John, prophet to the people, prophet for the Messiah - brave and righteous John in prison because of an oaf like Herod. The years pass and even the greatest, noblest hopes are hit hard in a tough world.

What does John hope for?

The harder and sadder question is what little left does John expect?

“Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”

And it is against that backdrop of darkness, imprisonment, fear, anger and imminent death - against that background of bitter disappointment - that the remarkable answer of Jesus is offered in return. And I would have you notice one astonishing thing.

Taken together, Jesus’ answer to the disciples of John summarize what the prophet Isaiah foretold.

From Isaiah 35: “The eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped.”

From Isaiah 61: “He has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted.”

And from Isaiah 29: “Out of their gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind shall see . . . and the neediest people shall exult in the Holy One of Israel.”

With one difference.

All of these passages from the prophet are, in the book of Isaiah, wrapped in warnings of judgement - the very warnings of John the Baptist. But the report which Jesus sends back leaves out the warnings and looks past the judgement to the new world which follows.
John has battle on his mind. Jesus announces instead the restoration, justice and peace for which the prophets finally longed.

Do you remember what happened when King David captured and entered Jerusalem for the first time? The Scripture says that as he approached, his enemies from within leaned over the city walls and poured scorn down upon him. “Not in a thousand years will you ever get in. So certain are we that even our blind are strong enough to resist you.”

Do you remember what happened? King David captured the city, and returning insult with insult, he cursed the blind and forbade them from entering Jerusalem (2 Sam. 5.6-10). In a bloody fight, King David won. In a hard world, King David replied in kind to the enemies who taunted him.

But do you remember the very last thing that Jesus did before his royal entry into Jerusalem (Mt. 20.29-34)? It says at the side of the road were two blind men, begging for mercy. It says the crowd, receiving their king, told the blind to be quiet. But it says that Jesus heard them, and called them, and restored their sight. It says that Jesus put them back on their feet so that they could enter the city, too.

Jesus sent back an answer to John far beyond what a weary man in a prison cell could ever have expected or imagined to hear. The people are being judged, but judged by the purity of Jesus’ life in a way they never imagined. The people are already in battle, but the final battle being fought by Jesus against sin and death itself, a battle no one expected anyone to wage. But for those with eyes to see and ears to hear, the sights of paradise are already in view, the sounds of children’s songs already ring.

Friends, Advent is as important to Christmas as Good Friday is to Easter. And if we do not contemplate Advent, if we fail to make Advent time the time by which we mark our days, we will not understand what has already happened in Jesus Christ. With our senses dulled and distracted, we will lose the taste for the beauty of God. With our hearts weighed down, we will lose confidence for lives of truthfulness, integrity and forgiveness which the grace of God frees us to live.

Because in this world scarred by ugliness, our Lord restores our sight now to glimpse paradise and to anticipate through our lives the final glory still to come. In this world wounded by injustice, our Risen Lord strengthens us now to live justly and to anticipate through our lives the final and perfect peace still to come. For the promise of Christmas is nothing less than the recreation of the world and the redemption of our hearts and lives, beginning now and anticipating the climax - through the humblest flower sneaking up through the concrete, through the humblest life radiating the love of God. And the One who carried the love of God by way of the cross to the furthest depths of sin and death, who was raised on the third day and vindicated by the Lord of heaven and earth, is the One holding us in his embrace and carrying us through each day. And in the tender words of Jesus, concluding this chapter:

“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)