Hi everyone,
Welcome to worship for this 2nd Sunday of Advent, which lands on December 10, 2023!
The bulletin can be found here. I forgot to mention last week that we’re in a different service with this new season, Marty Haugen’s Tree of Life. This is somewhat familiar for most of us, but the words will be on your screen, along with the hymns and most of your responses to the liturgy.
To enhance your worship experience online, you are welcome to have a physical candle in your space, lit at the beginning of the service and extinguished near the end when the altar candles are extinguished after the sending hymn. You’re also welcome to participate in communion, if you feel so led and called, by having something small to eat and drink ready to consume at the appropriate time during the service. Further instruction will be given then.
May the peace of God reign in your heart, now and forever!
Almighty God, send your Spirit in this place to speak peace in our hearts, that your presence among us be revealed, recognised, and cherished, through Jesus Christ. Amen.
Well, my back is pretty much better. It didn’t actually take that long, pretty much exactly 8 days. I just woke up Wednesday morning and the pain was mostly gone and I could stand up straight, walk, and even dance around a little bit like a dork. I even found the strength to go skating with our daughter’s class field trip on Friday. I was on the ice for 10 minutes or so, and my back was fine. My feet on the other hand…
In case you don’t know what I’m talking about, last week I shared about how I threw out my back by contorting my body in a way that wasn’t all that smart while carrying something that wasn’t all that light. So for much of the week and even during that sermon, I was in a lot of pain. And now, apparently, I’m better. Not sure if I’m any wiser, mind you, as I did notice that I haven’t exactly changed my “pick up heavy things” posture. I mean this tree wasn’t going to put up itself. But I guess I’m at least more aware? *shrug* Either case, although it just took about 8 days for the pain to subside, honestly it felt a lot longer than that.
So long, in fact, I was starting to think that the hobble was my new walk and that I was doomed to never be able to sit for more than 10 minutes at a time. I was beginning to believe that this was just my life now: unable to do the things that I used to, like carry oversized cabinets out to the alley anymore. I was really feeling a bit lost, like I was no longer myself, and maybe a bit like I was stuck. Not just stuck in that slightly bent over position because my back wouldn’t allow me to stand up straight, but stuck in the pain, stuck in the sadness and despair of the situation, stuck in my own personal wilderness in which I couldn’t really get out of.
I know, I know, dramatic. After last week’s service many of you came up to me with a knowing look, a reassuring word, and a slight bit of an eye roll letting me know that I ain’t seen nothing yet. But it’s just how I felt, it’s what I was going through, it’s just my way of relating the text to my life so I have something to talk about in these Advent sermons that always seem to give me some trouble.
Because we hear about this wilderness in today’s texts, don’t we. We hear about the awful and displacing wilderness that the Israelites were exiled to when they got kicked out of their home and promised land. We hear about the odd and unusual wilderness where John the baptizer lived by choice perhaps for its abundance of locusts and stray camel hair. And we hear about metaphorical wildernesses that we might find ourselves in, through the low parts of life, through the trials we face, through the things that just happen.
And it’s kind of lonely out there, isn’t it?
I’m sure you all know what I’m talking about. And if by chance you don’t, then believe me, you will. Life just isn’t always peachy keen, a bed of roses, sunshine and rainbows, or whatever. No, life can get hard, really hard, and when it is, we can find ourselves feeling just as I described: lonely in our own wilderness of despair.
Well, this turned out to be a great topic for this 2nd Sunday of Advent, am I right? See what I mean about these sermons giving me trouble?
Because the 2nd Sunday of Advent is the week we talk about peace. Not as in a piece of pie, although I could go for one right now, but peace as in calm, contentment, shalom. The peace that comes with our faith. The peace that is promised to us. The peace that surpasses understanding. But if we’re honest with ourselves, we don’t often see or feel it. Quite the opposite, really. Whatever peace we do feel doesn’t surpass any kind of understanding, really, in fact it’s totally understandable, as in it’s usually weak, unsubstantial, pretty much non-existent. As I said, we’re much more akin to be in our own wildernesses, where we see our troubles and our sorrows like no one knows.
No one, but Jesus.
See much like the lyrics of that Louis Armstrong classic, Jesus knows what we go through, knows the pain, knows the difficulties we face. And don’t forget that we’ll read about Jesus encountering a wilderness journey himself. Jesus knows these troubles because he had them too. He knows the sorrow because he felt them as well. He knows what we go through because he is among us as one of us.
And as one of us, we know that he can give us the support, comfort, and hope that whatever it is that we are going through will pass. Knowing that Jesus feels our pain, we see how we’re not alone, how we are all connected, how we can find peace.
This is what Isaiah was talking about with the whole “prepare a way out in the wilderness” thing. This is what John the baptizer was talking about when he says someone more powerful than him is coming. This is what the gospel of Mark is talking about when it says that this is the beginning… the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
Because really, this is good news. This is comfort and peace in knowing that God is with us in the person of Jesus. This is gospel.
Still… we don’t feel it that much do we. Maybe we have pockets of peace here and there, where we’re finally content with everything just at that moment, but then before you know it, the next bill comes, the baby wakes up crying, or the police lights flash in your rearview mirror. Sure we can have peace but we never stay there. We can be content, but something happens again soon enough. We can know that we are cared for and not alone, but before too long we find ourselves feeling lonely yet again and right back there in the wilderness.
And that’s ok. I mean, the ups and downs of life is just that: up and down. So there has to be a down before we can really feel the up. There first has to be pain and some kind of brokenness before we can have comfort and healing. There needs to be turmoil and hardship before we can feel peace.
This isn’t to say that we should look for trouble or go get hurt on purpose. This doesn’t mean that we should live carelessly so we’ll find peace faster. I’m not telling anyone to just stop looking before leaping because God will save us anyway. Rather, I’m saying that when the trouble comes, which we know it will, we can have hope that comfort will come as well. When we’re in pain from whatever we’re hurting from, maybe a broken relationship, a broken dream, or a broken back, we can have hope that we will be given healing. When life has us feeling like we’re wandering aimlessly in the wilderness and alone, we can have hope that the good news the form of a child destined to save us, will reveal to us a peace that isn’t just a state of emotion, but a state of mind. A state of mind that reminds us that no matter what we are going through or what troubles we’ve seen or what sorrow we might face, we are not alone but are held in the understanding arms of love. Glory, hallelujah.
This is the progression through the themes of Advent. First, we have the hope in knowing that we aren’t alone in our hardship and pain, and then we see that even in all of that we are given peace. Peace in our faith. Peace in community of love and support. Peace in the good news of Jesus Christ, that begins in the wilderness of life, the darkest moments, the times that we need it the most. This is the peace that surpasses understanding, in that no matter what life might throw at us, we can still be content in holding onto the love of God, the promise of salvation, and the knowing that we have been, are, and will always be welcomed parts of this universal body of Christ that spans all time and space. This is the peace that is offered, the shalom that promised, and the love that carries us as God’s people, in this life and the next.
So as we continue through this season of Advent, may we increase in the faith of Jesus, keeping our hope in the peace that transcends everything will continue to enter into our lives, filling us with joy and love through the promise of this good news that starts in each of our wildernesses. Thanks be to God. Amen.