Comfort, comfort
my people!
Sermon for December
4, 2005
1. Good morning. Let’s pray. O Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing to You O Lord our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
2. Opening Comments: God wants
to comfort us this morning. Listen to
the opening words of our first reading:
Is. 40:1 Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.
Can you hear the heart of our Good Shepherd – Comfort, comfort my people . . .
The first words that John Paul the Second said in his inaugural speech after being consecrated Pope were “Be not afraid my children.”
The Father
of all Creation wants to sing a Christmas carol of “comfort” over us this
morning. He wants to calm his children in exile.
You see, we live in a state of exile here on earth.
Because of the Fall, we were exiled from the Garden of Eden. And so we live – all of us - with a sense of “Paradise Lost.”
Our daily existence is filled with impermancy and contingencies:
·
will we have enough
money to make it to the end of the month or to the end of our lives.
·
will we live to see our
grandchildren?
·
Jim and Cheryl Orefice are wondering – will that
infection in Jim’s back go away or not and if not what will happen?
·
will I make it to
college?
·
will I be able to send
my children to college?
·
will this war end
before my son has to go to
·
will my company fail?
What will I do then?
And so on and so on . . . Can you see that this is what living in exile feels like? We live in a fallen and broken world.
Now some of us are more in touch with this state of exile than others. Some of us have been able to deny it while others of us haven’t – we’re all too aware that this world in which we live is terribly fallen and is in fact a very very poor imitation of paradise – indeed it’s hell on earth – there is so much more that we’re destined for when we leave our exile!
Now last week’s Scripture readings and reflection sought to get us in touch with living in this state of contingency. God wanted to get us in touch with our “longing” for our paradise lost.
We reflected on that sense of “waiting” – ever waiting - for our Lord who seems to linger too long in the coming. You see, the season of Advent is a season or penitential reflection. It’s focus is to get us in touch with our longing for His coming!
This all leads up to Christmas day when we remember with great great joy our Lord’s first coming and we sing “Joy to the World – the Lord has come!” And we remember with renewed expectation His soon Second Coming! Ah! and so we live in faith and in hope – delightful faith filled hope!
But we’re not there yet – Christmas Day is coming but is not yet. It’s the second Sunday of Advent and today our Lord wants to comfort us and remind us that our exile is soon coming to an end!
3.
The
Reason: Now the reason I mention all
of this is that our first reading
was from Second Isaiah chapter 40 and was written by its author to the
Israelites in exile in
They didn’t know it at the time but their 50 years of exile were about to come to an end and they would soon be returning to the Promised Land - to their beloved Jerusalem, and God wanted to comfort them and draw them out of the incarceration of what Theologians call their sense of “the Absolute Present!” Their present exile was all that they could comprehend. It dominated their minds and souls! It was absolute!
God wanted to draw them out of the imprisonment of their conviction that their exile would never ever ever end and that they had better get comfortable in their unfortunate exile. This is the consequence of being defeated by the “absolute present!”
How many of us are dominated by the “absolute present?” How many of us have forgotten about whose we are and who we are and because of that where we’re destined for?
Ah! How many of us have decided to forget who we are and whose we are and where we’re destined for and have chosen instead to make the most of this state of exile?
It’s called “cultural accommodation” or “cultural assimilation” and it looks a lot like what most of Christians in the western world have become – some more, some less but most of us have become somewhat accommodated to our state of exile.
This is a hard truth isn’t it? But ask yourself how much you and I look like those around us.
Ask yourself how much you and I have bought into the values of our culture. Oh, we wrestle sometimes with it but we have, in some ways adopted the values of our culture – or perhaps another way of saying it is that we’ve allowed them to creep into our Christian values and to that extent they have polluted them. And so we’ve become more or less comfortable in our exile.
God wants to come to us this morning and remind us about who we are and whose we are and that we are in fact in exile but it will soon come to an end!
He is going to remind us that this sense of the “Absolute Present” is a mirage – God is in fact “The Absolute” and He is inexorably coming for us!
And so he comforts us in “the getting ready” for His Second Coming!
4. Focus on Scripture: Listen now to His words of comfort to us:
Is. 40:1 Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. 2 Speak tenderly to
In the
middle of all of your fears and even denials He comes to us right now and sings
to us – “Don’t be afraid – I’ve come to comfort you my precious children . . .”
Now
look with me at verse 3:
3 A voice of one calling: “In the desert prepare the way for
the LORD; make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God. 4 Every valley shall be raised up,
every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the
rugged places a plain. 5 And the
glory of the LORD will be revealed, and all mankind together will see it. For
the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”
We
hear these same words – exactly the same words - coming from the mouth of John
the Baptism in our Gospel reading:
Mark 1:2-3 It is written in Isaiah the
prophet: “I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way”— 3
“a voice of one calling in the desert, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make
straight paths for him.’”
What’s going on
here? First God gives us comfort then He
calls for us to “Prepare the way for His coming!”
Ah!!!! He’s coming!!! Our
exile is nearing its end! Our King is
coming to rescue us – to return us to the Promised Land –
But before He
comes we must “prepare the way!”
What does this
mean?
It means getting rid of all of the obstacles in our lives that will
hinder His coming! It means getting rid
of the trappings of our exile. It means
getting rid of the trappings of our accommodations!
What are the exilic values that so easily seduce us: More and bigger is better,
I deserve it, keeping current with the newest fashion in your clothing – in
your care, your toys.
It means ridding ourselves of all of the accommodations we’ve made
in our exile – those mountains and valleys – those rough and rugged places in
our lives – sins, that in our state of surrender to the “Absolute Present” seem
– just fine, OK – no big deal, but in the light of our King’s “soon coming”
they seem so terrible, so unbecoming – so ugly – things that we don’t want our
precious Lord to see when He comes! Are you beginning to see what I’m getting
at here?
And so He comes
to comfort us and encourage us “to prepare the way . . . for His coming.”
And that’s why
the Season of Advent is known as a Penitential Season – it’s a season of
preparation – preparing for His coming!
5. But how do we prepare? Ah!
But how do we prepare for our Lord’s coming? How do we prepare the ground in our
lives? How do we straighten the road of
our life?
St. Peter tells us in our Second Reading. Turn with me if you wish to Second Peter chapter 4 verses 8 through 14:
I’ll be reading from The Message by Eugene Peterson:
2Pet.
3:8 Don’t overlook the obvious here,
friends. With God, one day is as good as a thousand years, a
thousand years as a day. 9 God isn’t late with his promise as some
measure lateness. He’s restraining himself on account of you, holding back the
End because he doesn’t want anyone lost. He’s giving everyone space and time to
change.
2Pet. 3:10 But when the Day of God’s
Judgment does come, it will be unannounced, like a thief. The sky will collapse
with a thunderous bang, everything disintegrating in a huge conflagration,
earth and all its works exposed to the scrutiny of
Judgment.
2Pet. 3:11 Since everything here today might
well be gone tomorrow, do you see how essential it is to live a holy life? 12 Daily expect the Day of God, eager
for its arrival. The galaxies will burn up and the elements melt down that day—
13 but we’ll hardly notice. We’ll be looking the other way, ready for
the promised new heavens and the promised new earth, all landscaped with
righteousness.
2Pet. 3:14 So, my dear friends, since this is what you have to look
forward to, do your very best to be found living at your best, in purity and
peace.
What do you hear our Lord saying to us this morning? He’s telling us that we must cleanse our lives. We must live holy lives – lives that seem in contradiction to the surrounding culture.
He’s calling us to live lives which
anticipate our liberation! No longer
captive to the “Absolute Present” but rather enraptured by the anticipation of
His Coming to liberate us!
2Pet. 3:14 So, my dear friends, since this is what you have to look
forward to, do your very best to be found living at your best, in purity and
peace.
Ah! “living at
your best, in purity and peace! Are you
and I living at our best – in purity and peace today?
Are you and I at peace with everyone in our
family, in this Church community? If not
then make peace today!
Concluding
Comments: Jesus says to us this morning
“Comfort, comfort my people. Get ready
for my coming – I’m coming soon! Prepare
the way in your life for my coming.
Straighten out your life. Get rid
of all excess luggage.
Weed your gardens. Let go of all
beliefs that keep you locked in the Absolute Present and prepare now for my
coming soon! Don’t be afraid – I am
coming for you my beloved children! I am
most certainly coming!”
Let us be so –
Amen and Amen!
Let’s pray . . .