O Come all Ye Faithful, Luke 3:7-18
A Sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. E. Scott Winnette
12/6/09
O come all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant. O come all ye faithful. Come all ye faithful. Come even ye who wish to be faithful. Our Christmas Carol calls out for us to come again, each year, and worship the new born king, our Christ. And we come. We cannot sing the carol yet for it is only the second Sunday of Advent. Wait just a little longer.
It is great to see these past two weeks so many BHPC members and friends wearing purple. You understand the church seasons. Unfortunately, our Winter purples are two warm to be worn during Spring’s purple Lent, so we have two sets. Think about it – Advent is very similar to Lent: similar 40 days like all the forties of days in the Bible. Those 40 days when the prophets and Jesus heard God in deserts. In those 40 days they centered their lives and ministries in God. Advent and Lent had a similar purple, a similar mindfulness, a similar repentance and discipline. The two liturgical seasons were crafted in the early church as parallel seasons of reflection and repentance. Today, the seasons remain similar in liturgical color and in the forty days, but not so much in repentance and discipline. We Church people find it hard to be as mindful during Advent as we are during Lent. Busyness impedes.
Pre-Christmas Christmas parties pull us to revelry rather than reflection. The too many available cookies make it difficult to fast. The festive colors: shopping bags, Christmas lights, wrapping paper, and even our holiday clothing contrast with the old prophet’s sackcloth and ashes.
Are we bad Christians, if we give in to holiday cheer? Should we separate ourselves from holiday cheer, the world’s Christmas? I don’t think so. It is okay to hear and respond to the joyful and triumphant call of Christ’s birth.
But to be faithful to the truest, deepest, holiest moment in the birth of Jesus, we also need to hear another call; we need to hear the call from the desert. John the Baptist’s call is more strident; his clarion call shrill; it strikes cords deeper than simple joys. His words were like Isaiah’s poetry. His was a prophet’s voice of personal transformation and societal justice, "A voice of one calling in the desert, prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him. Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill made low. The crooked roads shall become straight, the rough ways smooth. And all {people} will see God's salvation.”
John called for the want-a-be faithful people to come. They did. It amazes me that they actually gathered to hear him. He called them to repentance. His call was a criticizing one. Who wants to gather at the feet of someone who is going to censure? Not many of us. Nonetheless, a crowd gathered for the hairy, desert-living, bug-eating John the Baptizer. Something in his message hit a cord of hope in the people.
Something in his message resonated so superbly within them, that it compelled them to risk personal transformation. It was a pre-Christmas Carol of hope calling them to prepare the roadways for the Messiah, to clear the land, to lay welcomes and to change for the good of each other.
Imagine the lines of people wanting to both hear and be baptized by him. Imagine what it would feel like to stand then – to stand before the fiery prophet with a mixture of hope and fear within. What would he say?
He said, “You children of vipers! Who warned you to shape up before God gets mad? You must bear better fruits. God does not need you that badly. God makes new children out of stones. You better watch out, God is ready to chop down your apathy and selfishness to burn. You are the children of vipers!” Nice! What a nice opening statement of welcome! How many of us would walk away? They didn’t.
At first it amazed me that they stood and listened to John scold them. But then I remembered a time as a child, a time when my older brother and I were horribly disobedient.
Our parents gave us many freedoms. In our neighborhood we could wander around or ride our bikes with our friends freely as long as we stayed within the blocks that were our boundaries. One Saturday, we were very bad.
We not only rode our bikes beyond the boundaries, we went to the one place we were seriously forbidden to ever go, Cotton Cave. Some of my brother’s friends goaded us into going, it did not take much goading for we always wanted to see if the cave really was full of Cotton Mouth Rattlesnakes. It took a while to get there; it took a while for us to climb down and find the mouth of the cave. It took us a long time of standing with fear that the snakes were really there before we stooped into the cave. During this long time, my father missed us, waited, drove around the blocks looking for us, and then called our friends’ parents. The wrath of the Dads met us as we climbed up the bank from the cave. We received a great scolding and a frightening paddling. I remember crying. But somewhere beneath the tears, I recall there was a cord played. It sang a comforting feeling, a comforting knowledge.
Our usually, non-demonstrative father loved us enough to become fiercely angry. He had been worried that we might be hurt in that cave - bit by its snakes. My passive acceptance of his love was deepened that day.
My Dad wanted us to learn some wisdom that would protect us. “Like, don’t be stupid. Don’t go into caves rumored to be filled with venomous snakes.” Have you ever been scolded in a way that left you with a deep knowledge that you were loved? Have you ever been scolded and thus imparted with teachings of wisdom? Have you ever encountered wrathful love?
Two weeks ago I shared that we should be honest before God with our thanksgiving, our lamentation, and our anger. God can handle our anger. Well, the anger goes both ways. God is a wrathful God when our behaviors are opposite God’s desires. When our behaviors injure others: spiritually, economically, physically God gets mad. God’s wrath is not the opposite of God’s love. It is love’s counterpoint. God’s wrath does not negate God’s love for us – but through it God calls us to repent and turn toward better lives. During Advent, before we celebrate Immanuel’s birth, that God is with us, we need to listen for the wisdom of God’s heart. Really listen, God calls us into helpful and holy personal transformations.
The crowd stood there. They did not stomp off annoyed with John’s criticism. They did not rush to push him off a cliff. They heard God’s love in the wrath-filled words of repentance. They asked, “What then should we do?” “What should we do?” The first question of Advent is not what shall we buy, but what shall we do to make things right with God.
The crowd asked, “What shall we do?” The Tax collectors asked, “What shall we do?” The mercenaries asked, “What shall we do?”
John answered with the wise words of God’s Spirit, “Love thy neighbor by sharing – crowd, “quit cheating the people -- tax collectors”, “stop your extortion and power mongering – public servants.” John answered, “People – as you love your neighbors all our lives are saved and made better.”
They were amazed. He did not tell the tax collectors and soldiers to quit their jobs. He called them to be better people. His call of repentance was not one that rejected their lives; it demanded subtle shifts in behavior, “love others.” I find it refreshing that John the Baptist was not preaching a separatist sermon, that the faithful must separate themselves from the world. He preached an old guarantee; God wants you to live for others. Life is better for all of us when you live for others.
What shall we do friends? In the quiet of Advent, if we hear God’s judgment, God’s disappointment that we don’t care enough, we don’t love enough, what shall we do? In a world with ethics scandals revolving around public servants (Rep. Bennie Thompson), with City Mayors stealing grocery cards intended for the needy (Sheila Dixon), with many of our consumables produced in ways that extort from God’s children who have the least, what shall we do? Before Dec. 24th, ask God? What shall we do? What shifts in behavior; what new hope-filled actions can I begin?
They listened on that Advent day as John helped them prepare. The Christmas cord was so powerfully plucked within them that they thought John might be the Messiah. But “no” he said “I’m not he.” He pointed to Jesus promising the Christ was near.
There is a story about a little boy who after an amazing Christmas Eve worship service seemed overly filled with excitement. The Pastor noticed the energy and asked the child if he enjoyed worship. The boy responded, “Sure I did, it was fine. But I really want to try some of the Umphant.” The Pastor asked, “What’s Umphant?” And the child responded, “You know, what all the people were singing about. You know, ‘O Come all ye faithful, joyful and try Umphant.’ I’d like to try some of that Umphant.”
O Come all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant, O come ye of come ye to Bethlehem. Come friends, enjoy the Umphant of Christmas, live into the Umphant of Christmas more deeply by listening for God’s loving calls for holy transformation. Prepare. Christ is coming. Alleluia.
