CHAPTER 1
A Reminder of the Future
Scriptures for the First Sunday of Advent
Isaiah 2:1-5
Romans 13:11-14
Matthew 24:36-44
There is hope, people! Hope that cannot be defeated by war and exile, hope that cannot be overpowered by lulls in faithful living. Hope that cannot be crushed by fear of the future.
This first Sunday of Advent, Christians need to hear hope proclaimed from every pulpit. To get the congregation to feel that holy hope, the preacher only need read the words of Isaiah 2:4 aloud:
God will judge between the nations,
and settle disputes of mighty nations.
Then they will beat their swords into iron plows
and their spears into pruning tools.
Nation will not take up sword against nation;
they will no longer learn how to make war.
What a powerful reminder that God has always had a vision of hope, with creation restored for God's people.
And this God continues to share this hope with the people of the new covenant. Our Epistle and Gospel readings are reminders to the first followers and the early church to be purposeful and deliberate in their faith every day. There is no time for lazy Christianity or half-hearted discipleship. It is time to wake from sleep and to live intentionally loving God and loving neighbor. For God's future offered to us through the Messiah is one of salvation and redemption! It is the ultimate reason for our hope, and we wholeheartedly pursue life within the kingdom of God.
And our God who showed us the Kingdom through Jesus offers us hope in the form of warnings. God sent the prophet Isaiah to his people with a message and a warning. God sent Jesus to warn his people of how to live. And the Spirit of God sent the apostles to keep the early church on task.
God cares enough to send hope and words and direction to God's people throughout time. God still cares enough to give us hope for our tomorrow.
These words call God's people out on our behaviors and hold us accountable for our choices not to condemn us, as if we will shape up and act better out of fear. Instead, each passage this week comes from the ultimate hope that we will experience God's glorious future. For God loves us enough to warn us. We get a glimpse of the glorious future, and we are alerted to prepare ourselves in all ways to be found faithful to be a part of this future. God cares. God really cares. God cares enough to warn us, cares enough to send reminders of our future in case we have forgotten. God reminds us of who we are called to be. There is hope, no matter how wretched we think we are ... we are loved.
NEW WAYS ISAIAH 2:1-5
The first chapter of Isaiah contains some hard words. Describing a desolate state for the people of Judah and Jerusalem, the prophet depicts these as God's judgment against the nation for their sinfulness and injustice. Just look at some of Isaiah's condemnations in this chapter:
This faithful town has become a prostitute!
She was full of justice;
righteousness lived in her —
but now murderers.
Your silver has become impure;
your beer is diluted with water.
Your princes are rebels,
companions of thieves.
Everyone loves a bribe and pursues gifts.
They don't defend the orphan,
and the widow's cause never reaches them.
Therefore, says the LORD God of heavenly forces, the mighty one of Israel:
Doom! I will vent my anger against my foes;
I will take it out on my enemies,
and I will turn my hand against you.
I will refine your impurities as with lye,
and remove all your cinders. (Isaiah 1:21-25)
In other words: You deserve all destruction and humiliation that befalls you. Ouch. What a harsh beginning.
In Isaiah Chapter 1, the prophet speaks such violent words of God's condemnation and disgust to Judah that it is hard to read. No one likes hearing what they've done wrong, having someone list their wrongdoings, or learning that they deserve exactly what has happened to them. The people of God were surely cringing and cowering after God's divine tirade, replete with such harsh language as:
Doom! Sinful nation, people weighed down with crimes,
evildoing offspring, corrupt children!
They have abandoned the Lord,
despised the holy one of Israel;
they turned their backs on God. (Isaiah 1:4)
Isaiah makes it clear that the people of God deserve any destruction, humiliation, or abandonment that might befall them, setting the scene and delivering a clear and compelling case for God's justified destruction of Judah and Jerusalem. It is with a sigh of relief, then, that we turn to Chapter 2 of Isaiah and hear about a redemptive path for Jerusalem and the people of God. They will not be destroyed or wiped out; God is gracious enough to offer them a new path, a new way forward. After a bit of God's refining, no longer will evil ways be the way of God's people. Justice and righteousness will be the way of the people of God. There is hope for a better day. There is hope for a better way.
That is the hope of Advent: the hope for a better way. It is the hope that all of our individual and collective evils are not the way life will continue to be. We can see a vision of how life can be better, and that the faithful can live into that righteousness. Isaiah 2:1 tells of what Isaiah sees regarding Judah and Jerusalem, and Isaiah's vision is glorious. He offers hope to a people undeserving of this graceful opportunity. In the days to come, the "mountain of the Lord's house" will be the highest of all, and "peoples will stream to it."
Mountains are important throughout our Old Testament history, and indeed into the New Testament, as places where people encounter God. Mount Sinai is where God appeared in the burning bush and revealed the divine name to Moses (Exodus 3:1-4, 13-15). It's where God later made a covenant with the whole people of Israel, giving them the Ten Commandments and other laws and instructions (Exodus 19:1-24:8). It's also where God gave instructions for building the Tabernacle and its instruments, so God's presence might go out from Sinai to be among the people of Israel as they traveled (Exodus 25-31).
We also recall the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus gave new teaching to God's people (Matthew 5–7), or the Transfiguration, where Jesus was revealed in glory before his closest disciples (Matthew 17:1-7). In the New Testament as well as the Old, mountains often become places where people encounter God.
In our passage from Isaiah, it is the temple mount in Jerusalem, Mount Zion, that the prophet envisions. So this new vision of Isaiah, Amoz's son, is that Gentiles, foreign nations, would be streaming up to the holiest of places to meet Jacob's God!
Whoa. The new path, the new way, includes Gentiles? Foreigners? The unclean, unwanted people? This is a different vision of life after God's restoration (see 1:26). Up to now in Isaiah, the prophet has been speaking about God's covenant people in Judah. Now the gentile peoples, the other nations, will be drawn to Jacob's God. No longer just the Israelites, but the gentile peoples will also want to learn God's ways and walk in God's paths. Here we see the inherent appeal of this God of power, reaching beyond just the covenant people. It is a shocking concept of a "new way." But at least the people were not destroyed, which seemed imminent in Chapter 1.
But this new way looks promising. It is interesting to notice that the wish of the gentile peoples is to learn God's ways and walk in God's paths. God offers instruction and settles disputes between nations (2:3-4). The result is a peace beyond comprehension. The unfathomable response to the gentile peoples meeting Jacob's God is shocking:
Then they will beat their swords into iron plows
and their spears into pruning tools.
Nation will not take up sword against nation;
they will no longer learn how to make war. (2:4)
God, who made the case through Isaiah in Chapter 1 of how evil and wretched the covenant people were, did not give up on them. Instead, God let them see the world through divine eyes. It is a world of peace and hope, with God reaching new people. It is a world different and new. Then, after seeing what God can do for others outside of the covenant, Isaiah offers the captivating invitation to God's people into this new world of hope: "Come, house of Jacob, let's walk by the LORD's light." After seeing what God can do for those other nations, after observing the peaceful ways of the gentile peoples who are responding to their God, Judah is invited to come and walk in God's light as well.
This good news is a joyous thing to preach to the church this Advent. In my tradition, it would be easy to link this to God's prevenient grace that goes before us. God is always beckoning, calling us to respond even when we are unable or unwilling to do so. The God of Jacob is calling all people to the mountain to encounter God. God still reaches out to every person with love and grace, calling them to learn God's ways and walk in God's paths. God's grace is open to all people today. Indeed, sometimes it is when God reaches the "outsider" that the "insiders" hear God's call afresh and anew in their own hearts.
Isaiah reminds us during this Advent season that God does not give up on God's people. God sends messengers of hope (like Isaiah) with visions of a new way, yet with the same ancient invitation: "Come. Let us walk by the Lord's light."
What new visions might God have for you or your community? How is God calling you to learn God's ways and walk in God's paths?
GET BUSY ROMANS 13:11-14
Most pastors and priests have that friend: the one who loves to give them funny religious presents. Now mind you, these gifts are never given maliciously, to hurt or to offend; they are simply gifts to remind us church workers not to take ourselves or our churches too seriously. These presents may make us smile, but we probably won't put them on display in our offices! Over the years I have received a bar of soap with instructions how to "wash your sins away," a Jesus action figure, and (most recently) a well-known portrait of Jesus with the added caption, "Jesus is coming. Look busy."
That last gift hit a little too close to home, for we Christians know that feeling all too well. When the teacher walks by our desk, the boss pops in unexpectedly, or the head coach drops by a workout, we all want to look busy. We want to appear as if we have been doing the right thing all along. "Of course, teacher, we have completed all of our homework assignments." "Of course, boss, we have been industrious and diligent with our work." "Of course, coach, we have been working out and staying in shape." And if we have not, we try to fake it, because we know exactly what we should have been doing. And yet, a little warning before they showed up for a visit would have been nice.
In a grace-filled way, this passage in Romans 13:11-14 gives a gentle warning from Paul of what the Roman church already knows. Now is the time to "wake up from your sleep" (13:11) and behave appropriately as people who live in the day (13:13). Paul writes these words at the end of a long description of what new life in Christ looks like (Romans 12:1-13:14). He tells his readers to think of themselves as a part of one body of Christ, echoing his language in 1 Corinthians 12 (Romans 12:4-8). He tells them to love "without pretending" (12:9). He tells them to repay good for evil, welcoming strangers and blessing those who harass them (12:13-17). He reminds them to live at peace with everyone, refusing to seek revenge (12:18-21), and he admonishes them to respect earthly authority (13:1-7). In other words, what Paul writes to the Roman church is an overview of the life that they must now live as a community that has been made new in Christ. Near the beginning of that section, Paul tells his readers, "Don't be conformed to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds so that you can figure out what God's will is — what is good and pleasing and mature" (Romans 12:2). Be transformed by the renewing of your minds. Paul envisions a full transformation of the ways we act, live, even think, in the world. In today's passage, Romans 13:11-14, he gives a powerful reason for exhorting them to live in this way. "The night is almost over, and the day is near. So let's get rid of the actions that belong to the darkness and put on the weapons of light" (13:12).
In other words, Paul reminds the Roman church that now is the time to get it together and act. Of course, they know this already. Just like a lazy student who knows the class rules, a careless worker who knows the boss's expectations, or the slacking athlete who knows the need for daily exercise, the Roman church knows what they are supposed to do as children of light. They are baptized believers who have previously "dressed themselves with the Lord" as they have become followers of Christ. They have encountered God and know of his goodness and grace. They are the church, trusting in the righteousness of God. But rarely does knowledge of something assure appropriate action in response. Just because we know we are to love our neighbor, does not mean that we do it. Just being told to pray for our enemies does not send us to our knees. Just because we know that cigarette smoke causes cancer doesn't mean that no one smokes. Likewise, just because the church in Rome knew to avoid the actions of darkness does not mean that they chose the "weapons of light" (13:12).
Perhaps this Advent season our churches can begin to see their reflection in the words of Paul. The Roman Christians may have become comfortable and relaxed, sleepy even, in their faith as the expected return of Christ was not immediate. Many in our churches today have been Christians a long time. They may have lost the fire and zeal that they felt when they first came to know this righteous God who came for the salvation of the world. The urgency and passion to live life showing the love of Christ by serving their neighbor could have easily waned. Perhaps the Roman church has lapsed in showing this love; perhaps our churches today have fallen asleep and forgotten to "live in the day" (13:13).
Verse 14 of this passage reminds the church, "Dress yourself with the Lord Jesus Christ, and don't plan to indulge your selfish desires." The word "plan" is significant as we read this passage today. As we make our plans in life, how many of our plans are about our own wants and desires rather than about preparing ourselves for a life honoring and glorifying God? What are the things we take time to plan in our world today? Do we plan our schedules to worship? Do we calendar around our time we have carved out to pray? Do we order our lives to serve our neighbor? More than likely, we plan around the things that give us momentary and temporary pleasure. We plan for education and work. We plan for family and vacation. We plan for lots of things that make us happy ... but we have not been intentional about planning for a life that glorifies and praises our God. The call of our desires looms large when we have fallen asleep in a complacent faith.
Thankfully, the season of Advent serves as our wake up call. Advent reminds us of who we are and what is at our core as believers. It calls us to prepare for the coming of the Lord. It is the blessing of Advent to remind us what we already know: We are called to live what we believe. It places things in right order. It boldly declares to us: You know how to live. ... Act like it. Jesus is coming. Get busy! You've been warned.
What do you spend your time planning for? How much of your energies go into planning how you will serve God each day?
DON'T WORRY, GET READY!
MATTHEW 24:36-44
"It takes a great deal of preparation to appear this carefree." These are the words I tell any new staff who join our ministry team at church. At this point in life I just own my quirks and foibles, including this one: I hate unnecessary surprises. In ministry and life, there are always surprises that come along, and of course one can never fully prepare for anything. But if there is something that I can plan for, if there are actions that I can take in advance, materials I can gather, or arrangements that I can make, that is my preference. That is why this passage of Scripture both raises my anxiety and somewhat soothes me at the same time. For it tells what to expect and how to plan, while also plainly describing what cannot be known. This passage serves as a warning, a tiny glimpse into the future, even if that glimpse tells me, "no one knows."
