1st Advent: When God Comes Down

Isaiah wanted God to come down, but Isaiah wanted God to come down big.  Instead God comes in the form of a baby.  Not big by first century standards, but life-changing in ways no one could imagine. That’s what Advent is about — anticipating God’s coming in love and power. 

When God Comes Down

¹ Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down,
that the mountains would tremble before you!
² As when fire sets twigs ablaze
and causes water to boil,
come down to make your name known to your enemies
and cause the nations to quake before you!
³ For when you did awesome things that we did not expect,
you came down, and the mountains trembled before you.
⁴ Since ancient times no one has heard,
no ear has perceived,
no eye has seen any God besides you,
who acts on behalf of those who wait for him.
⁵ You come to the help of those who gladly do right,
who remember your ways.
But when we continued to sin against them,
you were angry.
How then can we be saved?
⁶ All of us have become like one who is unclean,
and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;
we all shrivel up like a leaf,
and like the wind our sins sweep us away.
⁷ No one calls on your name
or strives to lay hold of you;
for you have hidden your face from us
and made us waste away because of our sins.

⁸ Yet, O LORD, you are our Father.
We are the clay, you are the potter;
we are all the work of your hand.
⁹ Do not be angry beyond measure, O LORD;
do not remember our sins forever.
Oh, look upon us, we pray,
for we are all your people.  – Isaiah 64:1-9 NIV’84

The Beginning of the Christian Year

Here we are again.  Usually on this Sunday after Thanksgiving, although there is the rare exception, we find ourselves at the beginning of the Christian Year, which is the beginning of the story of Jesus.

This first season in the Christian Year is called advent, which simply means “coming” or “coming toward” from the Latin adventus.  But adventus is itself Latin for the Greek word parousia which means “appearing.”

In other words, the season of Advent is the anticipation of the coming of the Christ, the Messiah.  So, it is fitting that we begin our journey through the life of Christ with the anticipation of Christ’s coming, both as the promised messiah and as the future coming king of all creation.

Advent incorporates both a looking back to the promises of the messiah, and of course to his actual birth, and a look forward into the future when “this same Jesus” shall come again, as the apostles believed and taught.  This is not just religious history then, but a story whose beginning and end are both marked by the appearance of this extraordinary figure we call Jesus.

Let’s get started then.  Today we start with the scene in Isaiah’s day, about 600 years before the birth of Christ.  Because Isaiah’s life spans several kings, the fall of the northern kingdom, and prophesies the Babylonian captivity, Isaiah has a lot to say about a nation that needs God.

When God Comes Down, We Want Him To Come Big

In the passage we read today, Isaiah is pleading for God to come back to his people.  As I mentioned, the kingdoms of Israel and Judah are no longer united as they were under David and Solomon.  They are divided, and the northern kingdom has been splintered by the Assyrians in 722-721 BC.

Although Isaiah’s actual lifetime does not encompass the Babylonian captivity, he prophesies the result of that tragedy when he speaks to God in the verses we did not read and observes:

¹⁰ Your sacred cities have become a desert;
even Zion is a desert, Jerusalem a desolation.
¹¹ Our holy and glorious temple, where our fathers praised you,
has been burned with fire,
and all that we treasured lies in ruins.

This sounds very much like the situation after the Babylonians captured the southern kingdom of Judah and overran Jerusalem in 587-586 BC.  The “holy and glorious temple” – Solomon’s temple – had been destroyed, and the city pulled down to rubble.

Isaiah then pleads,

¹² After all this, O LORD, will you hold yourself back?

Will you keep silent and punish us beyond measure?

But the heartcry of Isaiah is in verses 1-3 –

¹ Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down,
that the mountains would tremble before you!
² As when fire sets twigs ablaze
and causes water to boil,
come down to make your name known to your enemies
and cause the nations to quake before you!
³ For when you did awesome things that we did not expect,
you came down, and the mountains trembled before you.

The idea that Israel had during this period, and which persisted until the first century, was that if they were in exile being ruled by a pagan power, that God had left them.

Why did they think that?  Because God’s promise to Abraham was to make his off-spring into a great nation, a nation with their own special place, a nation that would be blessed and be a blessing to the world.

The story of Israel was built on that idea.  They were God’s chosen people, and when things were going well, God was blessing them. But when things went badly, God had deserted them.  So, their prayer, and Isaiah’s prophetic cry is that God will come down from his throne of indifference, but come down in God’s unmistakable majesty.

But Isaiah doesn’t want God to come down from his throne in just any old way.  Isaiah wants a show, a spectacle, a little supernatural shock-and-awe when God makes his appearance.

Both Old and New Testament writers connect the manifest presence of God – God’s intervention – with cataclysmic events.

Here Isaiah talks about the mountains trembling, and the nations quaking before God.  As though he needed to remind God of what God’s appearances had been in the past, Isaiah says –

³ For when you did awesome things that we did not expect,
you came down, and the mountains trembled before you.

Perhaps Isaiah has in mind God’s brooding presence on Mount Sinai.  The mountain peak was covered with fire and cloud, thunder and lightning, and all the nation of Israel was afraid.  So they sent Moses to meet with God on the mountain.  It was unmistakable that God was there, and when Moses came down off the mountain, his own face glowed with the glory of God, so much so that he wore a veil to keep the people from being afraid.

But here’s the problem.  Isaiah was sure that God was so displeased with Israel being held captive by Babylon that God would come down and show those pagans a thing or two.  And that God would come down big and hard.  Mountains would tremble, fire would fall, lightning would strike, thunder would roll.  It would be spectacular!

And don’t we still want that today?  Don’t we still want God to intervene in a big way?  And don’t we still try to explain natural disasters as God’s judgment on some group or people.

When the tsunami hit one of the most stridently Islamic sections of Indonesia – Banda Aceh – there were American Christians who impetuously explained that natural disaster as God’s punishment on that Islamic region.

We want God to come big, and we want to see his coming in the quaking mountains, or in the case of Indonesia, in the earthquake and tsunami that followed.

But be careful because when God did come to his people about 600 years later, he didn’t come big.  He came in the form of a baby.  That’s about as small, as helpless, and as insignificant as you can get when compared to the power of world kingdoms.

The first lesson of Advent is this:  God comes to us in many ways.  And as Elijah found out, God comes not always in the wind, earthquake, and fire, but sometimes in the still small voice.

When God Comes Down He Comes To Save

But Isaiah recognizes that God isn’t just coming down from heaven to put on a spectacular display.  When God comes down, he comes judging his people.

Isaiah is right to say that God has come to those who wait on Him.  But then, Isaiah continues by admitting –

⁵ You come to the help of those who gladly do right,
who remember your ways.
But when we continued to sin against them,
you were angry.
How then can we be saved?
⁶ All of us have become like one who is unclean,
and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;
we all shrivel up like a leaf,
and like the wind our sins sweep us away.
⁷ No one calls on your name
or strives to lay hold of you;
for you have hidden your face from us
and made us waste away because of our sins.

How can we be saved is the question.  How is it possible for God’s people who have disobeyed God’s law, broken God’s commands, and with them God’s heart, how is it possible for God to come and not destroy this rebellious people?

Because when God comes down He comes to save us.  Isaiah articulates the sins of the nation.  We are unclean, he says.  Even our religious practice – our righteousness – is like a filthy rag, unfit for the presence of worship much less God’s presence. As a result of the sin Isaiah identifies, he said that they are shriveling up like November’s leaves, with no more substance than to be swept away by the wind that blows them about.

So, how do we know that when God comes he comes to save us?  Because we have the words of Jesus, reading from the same scroll, the scroll of Isaiah.

As Jesus begins his ministry, Luke records the scene.  Jesus has gone back home to Nazareth, to the synagogue there.  Here Luke picks up the story in the 4^th chapter –

¹⁶ He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. And he stood up to read. ¹⁷ The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:

¹⁸ “The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
¹⁹ to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”^[e]

²⁰ Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, ²¹ and he began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

And there it is.  Right from the very same prophet, from the very same scroll.  Jesus identifies himself at God’s anointed – that’s what the word “messiah” means – and them proceeds to describe what he has come to do.  It all sounds like salvation to me.

“To preach good news to the poor;

to proclaim freedom for prisoners;

the recovery of sight for the blind;

to release the oppressed;

to proclaim a Jubilee – the year of the Lord’s favor in which all debts are canceled and things are restored to their rightful order.

 

When God comes down, he comes to save us.  And so to get people ready for the coming of the messiah, John the Baptist calls the nation to repentance, and as a sign of that change of heart, baptism in the Jordan.  Which in itself was a kind of crossing over into the promised land again, only this time to get it right, to follow God’s messiah, the Lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world.

When God Comes Down, He Comes Because He Loves Us

I may be stretching this passage a little here, but Isaiah identifies God as “our father.”  Which is also how Jesus tells us to address God in prayer – “our Father who art in heaven.”

And the idea of God as our father means that God not only brought us into being, and that we are his children, but that God also cares for us, guides us, nurtures us, corrects us, and has a purpose for us.

God does indeed have a plan for our lives. And that is why God sent Jesus.  Because when things look their darkest, when it appears as though God has forsaken his people, turned his back on them, and abandoned them to the mercies of the kingdoms opposed to everything God stands for, God comes down.

God comes down because he loves us.  He loves us so much that he sends his only son to show his love.  His son shares the father’s love.  His son also has a purpose.  His son will give himself a ransom for many, will become the sacrificial lamb, and will take on the sin of the world and the calamity of God’s people, to save them.

That’s what we look forward to during this Advent season.  We look back on the coming of Jesus as both a spiritual touchpoint, and a model for the future.  For God still comes in many ways to save his people because he loves us.  That is really something to look forward to.

 

Finding the rhythm of God’s grace

My post, Is Feb 3 Really Super Bowl Sunday?, has been viewed 1,263 times since I posted it on January 22.  We’re obviously interested in the Super Bowl and how our churches can be effective on that day.  My point was that for followers of Christ, Sunday does not belong to the NFL, it belongs to Christ and His church.  On Sunday morning in Chatham, we’re celebrating Transfiguration Sunday, not Super Bowl Sunday. 

Helping others find the rhythm of God’s grace in their lives is the mission of the church, in my opinion.  If we can lead others to pattern their lives with a consciousness of God’s work in God’s world, we go a long way toward helping people grow in their relationship to God.  Several years ago, I heard a preacher say, “You can tell what priorities people have by looking at two things — their calendars and their checkbooks.”  I think he was right, and the way we not only plan our time, but understand the meaning of time is important for followers of Christ.

So, that’s why I like the Christian Year as a framework for church worship and planning.  And, that’s why I preach from the revised common lectionary.  And, that’s why Debbie and I follow the practice of “keeping the hours” by praying the daily office each day.  Those rhythms govern our lives and remind us that we do indeed live in sacred time. 

The Old Testament examples of yearly festivals (Feast of Tabernacles, Passover, Pentecost, etc), and the 3-times daily prayer of people like Daniel are biblical examples of what I’m talking about.  These practices were long ago reinvented for the Christian church in the form of the Christian Year, the daily office, and recommended scripture readings.  Churches of all sizes — ours is small with about 80-100 each Sunday — can do the very things I am suggesting and bring a new awareness to their members.  We’re doing it here in Chatham in a 151-year old congregation that has embraced positively the Christian Year, the lectionary, and my references to the daily office. 

What’s your experience?  How is your church shaping the lives of your members each week, month, and year?  Others are interested in this issue, and I look forward to your comments and stories about how you find the rhythm of God’s grace in your life and your church. 

Is Feb 3 really Super Bowl Sunday?

This or this?

In the Christian Year, Sunday February 3 is Transfiguration Sunday. In popular culture, February 3 is Super Bowl Sunday. On that Sunday, churches have two choices for the heading in their worship bulletins or on their video screens:

1. Super Bowl Sunday -or-
2. Transfiguration Sunday

In the past, I have gone with Super Bowl Sunday. This year, I choose Transfiguration Sunday. Why? Because we as followers of Christ need to be shaped by something other than the pop culture calendar. Let me explain:

Here’s what the pop culture calendar looks like:

• Christmas: shopping starts before Halloween.
• New Year’s: parades, football, parties.
• Valentine’s: shopping for your romantic love, and named after a saint.
• March: basketball.
• Easter: more shopping for new clothes, school holidays, spring vacation.
• Mother’s Day: shopping for mom.
• Father’s Day: shopping for dad.
• 4th of July: food, flags, and more parades.
• Fall: Back to school. more shopping for school clothes.
• Halloween: national day of shopping for candy and costumes.
• Thanksgiving: food and football.

Notice a pattern? Our culture revolves around sports, shopping, and food. Churches do not need to help culture shape us into hyper-consumers.

Contrast the pop culture calendar with the Christian Year:

• Advent: waiting for the coming of Christ.
• Christmastide: the birth of Christ.
• Epiphany: the revealing of the Christ to the Wisemen.
• Baptism of Christ: the beginning of Jesus ministry.
• Transfiguration of Christ: the glory of God in Christ.
• Lent: 40-days of reflection taken from Christ’s 40-days in the wilderness.
• Palm Sunday: the triumphal entry of Christ into Jerusalem.
• Holy Week: the events in the last week of Christ — last supper, arrest, trial, crucifixion, burial.
• Easter: the resurrection of Christ.
• Pentecost: the coming of the Holy Spirit and the birthday of the church.
• Kingdomtide: a time of growth between Pentecost and Advent, when the cycle starts all over again.

But, many object that the Christian year is “too Catholic.” Actually, what could be more Christian than marking time by the events in the life of Christ? Thousands of churches of various denominations worldwide observe time this way. Isn’t it more in keeping with the mission of the church to shape our lives around the life of Christ? Isn’t this a part of our uniqueness as the people of God, that our lives have a unique rhythm?

You don’t have to break out the censers, candles, and paraments to observe the Christian Year. Just identify each Sunday in your bulletin and offer a quick word of explanation. Your church will understand what it means, and many might find a new way to order their lives. You can still have a Super Bowl party for your community that evening. But let’s identify the day we gather for worship by something other than Super Bowl Sunday. Let me know what you think.
If you need resources for the Christian Year, you can find them at Vanderbilt University’s Divinity School website here, or by searching the web.

Why I wear a robe

Last week I posted my thoughts about Preaching from the Lectionary.  I ended that article by saying that not only did this Baptist preacher take his text from the revised common lectionary, but I also preached in a robe.  Well, the robe-thing apparently intrigued a couple of readers who asked that I elaborate. 

Why do I preach in a robe?  This Baptist in the free church tradition?  Here’s why:

1. I like wearing a robe.  Mine is a black academic gown with black velvet panels — very plain, but nice.  About 20-years ago I started wearing a black robe for weddings, which eliminates having to be fitted for a tux.  I had worn robes on special occasions, but never regularly until 2003, when I was the interim pastor of a United Methodist church.  They wanted me to wear a robe, and I wore one every Sunday. 
2. Wearing a robe eliminates wardrobe problems.  Remember Janet Jackson’s infamous Superbowl “wardrobe failure?” I no longer have to worry if my tie is too bright, my shirt is untucked, or my zipper is …you guessed it.  “A robe,” as they say, “covers a multitude of sins.”
3. A minister’s robe fits our worship.  Okay, this is where I start to get serious.  We worship in an old Victorian Gothic sanctuary built in 1890.  We have a pipe organ and choir in a real loft (8-feet above the pulpit), and our worship style is Virginia traditional.  Lots of Baptist preachers in Virginia wear robes, which might be a holdover from Virginia’s Episcopal past. 
4. We observe the Christian Year.  The stoles of different colors — white, red, purple, and green — that I wear on appropriate Sundays help us mark the passing of the Christian Year. 
5. Our church likes for the pastor to wear a robe.  If the church objected, I wouldn’t wear a robe.  But several church members suggested that I renew a practice followed by several former pastors. 

So, there you are — my five reasons for wearing a robe.  There may be more, but that’s probably enough for a Sunday night. 

Preaching from the lectionary

I am a Baptist.  Each Sunday I preach from the texts of the revised common lectionary.  What’s wrong with this picture?

These are not contradictory statements, believe it or not.  Although I come from a free church, and not a liturgical tradition, I choose my preaching text each Sunday from the revised common lectionary.  Here’s why:

1. Millions of churches around the world read the same passages each Sunday.  I like being a part of the global church as it gathers for worship in thousands of different expressions, united by common scripture. 
2. The revised common lectionary covers the entire Bible in a three year cycle.  So, you want to preach through the Bible — use the lectionary as your guide.  Somebody else figured it out for you.  Saves you a lot of time, plus a lot of thought, prayer, and study was invested in choosing these texts. 
3. The RCL follows the church year or liturgical year.   I like the flow of the church year — advent, Christmastide, epiphany, lent, easter, pentecost, then ordinary time.  Two years ago, I announced that we would celebrate the “birthday of the church” on Pentecost Sunday.  Many had never heard the two connected.  On Pentecost Sunday, we all wore something red (the liturgical color of Pentecost) and celebrated together.  Our church loved it and we repeated it last year.  We were already using an advent wreath, we have community lenten services, so this was a natural addition for us.  To explore more about liturgical elements in an evangelical church, read Robert Webber’s Ancient Future Time and the other books in his  Ancient Future series.   Webber is a former Wheaton College professor-turned-Anglican who has brought liturgical worship to evangelicalism.  I don’t think it is an accident that emerging churches are using the symbols, practices, and format of ancient worship, and it’s more than candles and coffee. 
4. I preach from texts I would never preach from if I did not follow the lectionary.  Sometimes that poses a challenge.  Sometimes I think the texts are not that great (oh, don’t tell me you don’t like some passages better than others).  But I dig into them and have been blessed by that discipline.
5. Preaching becomes about God’s Word rather than my ideas.  I, too, have done the sermon series, God’s Way to Health, Wealth, and Happiness or 15 Ways to Deal with Your Teenager Who Wants to Get a Nose Ring.  Rick Warren calls this “preaching for life change” and I can’t argue with Rick’s success.  But, it’s not for me.  I want the text to speak to me, rather than me speak to the text.  I can’t tell you how many times the lectionary texts have hit right on a subject our church is dealing with.  Several times I have had to say to my congregation, “I didn’t choose this text, it’s in the lectionary.”  God’s timing is amazing, plus it gets me off the hook!
6. The readings tell a coherent story.  We are trying to do more reading the Bible in our church.   The readings each Sunday — from the Old Testament, Psalms, Gospels, Epistles — work together and weave a tapestry of witness and story that is majestic.
7. You can choose all or some of the texts each week.  The RCL tends to run in blocks — you’ll read from the same gospel for several weeks, for instance.  I lean toward preaching from the gospel reading, but this month I’m preaching from Isaiah.  I have also preached from the readings from the Psalms.  There is more to choose from than you can ever cover.
8. It creates a missional practice in worship that I like.  We are following an ancient arrangement of texts like millions of other churches.  We aren’t picking and choosing our favorite verses, passages, themes, or issues and then finding scripture to reinforce our own preconceived ideas.  We are trying to let scripture form us, rather than us form scripture.  If missional is about the missio dei, shouldn’t we let the text speak to us?

So, there you are.  A Baptist preaching from the lectionary each week.  One more thing — I also wear a robe, but that’s another post for another time. 

This post originally appeared at Amicus Dei, my blog about becoming a friend of God in a community of faith.