Advent 3B

“Among you stands one you do not know.”

Those were John the Baptist’s words as recorded in John 1:26.  Of course, at that time it was literally true that a quiet carpenter’s son from the backwaters of the Roman Empire was rubbing shoulders with lots of people—including the crowds that jostled together at the banks of the Jordan River—but no one had a clue that this unimpressive-looking man was The One, the Son of God, the Word of God who had been with God in the beginning.

Among you stands one you do not know.

There’s more gospel and Advent mystery packed into that little line than we may realize.  After all, if the Son of the Living God is on this earth—if the Word of God through whom everything that exists had been made was walking the soil of his own creation—wouldn’t common sense tell you that he’d be someone no one could possibly miss seeing?  Shouldn’t everyone have been able to know who he was at a glance?

Among you stands one you do not know.

Jesus came down to this world in such non-descript packaging that to most people’s minds he didn’t even look like a fake Messiah or some imposter Christ.  Years ago there was a funny story on the news about a Florida congresswoman who hung up on then President-Elect Barack Obama on account of her being sure it was a prank call by some local radio hosts known to prank people on the air by doing really good imitations of famous people.  It took two more phone calls from two other people before she was able to be convinced that the original call had really been from the president-elect!  But it goes without saying that even if it had been a prank call, the prankster would have done his level best to sound as much like Mr. Obama as possible.  When you are imitating someone or trying to fool someone into thinking you are someone you are not, you have to work hard to sound and act the part.

Among you stands one you do not know.

Apparently, Jesus did not even sound or act the part of a would-be Savior of the world.  You could stand in the baptism line right behind him, shuffling toward the water’s edge and waiting your turn to be dunked by John, and have no clue who was in front of you.  You could be at a dinner party with this man and even ask him to pass you the salt and pepper and have no idea that the fingers that would grasp the saltshaker were the same fingers that once set quasars to spinning.

Among you stands one you do not know.

It’s still true today, of course.  But Christians forget the divine M.O.  Since after 2,000 years the Church has managed to make a name for itself; since we have soaring cathedrals and, these days, former sports stadiums-turned churches that pack in crowds of 10,000+ people every Sunday morning; since we’ve built impressive colleges, universities, and seminaries; since we fill whole libraries with the fruits of two millennia’ worth of Christian scholarship—because of all this we tend to think that there is something just obviously impressive about the Christian message and about the presence of Christ in the world yet today.  And so some in the Church are merely agog to read the rantings of Richard Dawkins (God is a delusion) and Daniel Dennett (faith is a pathology) and the late Christopher Hitchens (God is not great) and we feel that we need to hit back at these people.  Hard.  After all, aren’t they missing the obvious?  How in the world can anyone miss seeing the manifest truth of Jesus’ presence in the world?

But no.

Among you stands one you do not know. 

It’s God’s way.  It’s the gospel way.  Salvation comes from the quiet strength, the gentle humility, the servant heart of God’s only Son.  The Word who spoke everything into being was perfectly willing to come to this world less as a Word and more as a Whisper.  He was perfectly willing to remain anonymous to the Herods and Caesars of the world so as to make himself known to blind people, deaf people, lepers, prostitutes, fishermen, and so very many others who were also the invisible members of the world, living on the margins of society, on the wrong side of the tracks.

Among you stands one you do not know.

Jesus knew something about going unrecognized.  He knew something about not being seen.  And so maybe that’s why he was so good at lifting up those others among us whom we do not know: the homeless, the street people, the AIDS victim, the working poor.  These people are also among us and we do not know, most of the time, who they really are, either.  Among us stand those we do not know.  Who are they?  They are image-bearers of God.  They are children of the heavenly Father.  They are precisely the last, least, lost, and lonely whom Jesus came to save, they were the poor to whom Jesus came (a la the Old Testament lection from Isaiah 61) to preach good news and release from captivity.

Among you stands one you do not know.

But if today you do know him, if by the gift of faith you can recognize him, be thankful.  It’s not an obvious truth to recognize.  But once you do discover that this One is the Lamb of God who has come to take away the sin of the world, then you can but pray that the Holy Spirit of God will open also your eyes to all the invisible people among us all who in Advent and at all times sorely need to hear the best news ever proclaimed.

Among you stands one you do not know.

But now it is our task to imitate John the Baptist and do our level best over and again to point him out to a world that so needs all the grace and truth Jesus alone brings.

Be sure to check out our 2020 Year B Advent/Christmas resource page for more sermon and worship ideas and links to many sample sermons as well.  Visit us all through Advent!

Textual Points

If you know any Greek at all, then you will recall that the Greek word for “witness” as used consistently in John 1:6-8 transliterates into the English word “martyr.”  And, of course, as the gospels make clear, in the case of John the Baptist his role as witness did indeed lead to his role as a martyr for the one to whom he bore that witness.  That fact is a sobering reminder of what the cost of discipleship / witnessing can be for also all of us latter-day people who can see ourselves in the picture Jesus sketched in also Acts 1:8 when he told the disciples, “Now you are my witnesses . . . you are my martyrs.”

Illustration Idea

From Fred Craddock’s sermon, “Have You Ever Heard John Preach?” From A Chorus of Witnesses, Thomas G. Long and Cornelius Plantinga, Jr., eds (Eerdmans 1994), p. 43.  The reference is a little dated since most maternity wards don’t have big nurseries into which new fathers look for their newborn but we’ve seen this image often enough that it still works:

“The Bible calls [repentance] a new birth.  You’ve been to that window, haven’t you?  The maternity ward, the nursery, and all that stuff up there in that big window.  And all the men outside trying to figure out which one it is?  You know, Julie is in there somewhere, and I know she’s the prettiest one, and you can’t read those little old bands where the arm comes down and the hand joins and there’s a deep wrinkle and there’s that band, and it’s so small, and you say, ‘Well, I think that’s . . .’  And the Bible says, That’s what it is, that is it.  And John offered that.  The Bible says it’s like a snowfall.  You get up in the morning early, and you look out: about four inches and there’s not a print in it yet.  And you look across the alley, and what yesterday afternoon was the ugly garbage dumpster is now a mound to the glory of God.  That’s what the Bible calls it.  And John is offering it.  Did you ever hear John preach?  If you haven’t, you will.  Because the only way to Nazareth is through the desert.  Well, that’s not exactly true.  You can get to Nazareth without going through the desert.  But you won’t find Jesus.”

CEP recommended commentaries on John

What a great text for this Third Sunday of Advent!  It is full of Good News, but there is still an air of mystery, a sense of “it’s not Christmas yet.”  This poetic description of what God is about to do for his suffering people is among the most lovely and powerful in the Bible.  But like all poetry, this passage raises all kinds of questions that defy easy answers.

Of course, we can skip over all those questions and get right to the Good News.  As I researched this text, I found some scholars who immediately wanted to preach about Jesus because Jesus applied this text to himself in his first sermon in his hometown of Nazareth (Luke 4:16-21).  And I found others who wanted to preach social justice sermons because of the passage’s focus on preaching good news to the poor.  In a world that desperately needs to hear the Good News about Jesus and the Good News about God’s concern for the poor and oppressed, it is tempting to ignore the questions in the text and just “preach it.”

But those preaching approaches don’t take enough account of the original text in its historical context.  And in the end wrestling with all the questions will make our proclamation of the Good News more suited for Advent with its sense of anticipation and even confusion.  So, let’s dig in a bit.

What are the questions?  Well, to begin with, who is speaking and to whom?  It’s pretty obvious that in verses 8-9, it’s God who is speaking to his people.  But who are his people?  Most scholars think this is addressed to post-Exilic Israel, just back in the Promised Land that isn’t anything like what was promised.  So, is this a word for all Israel?  Or just the repentant remnant (cf. Isaiah 59:20)?   And if this is a word for ancient Israel, what application does it have for the Christian church and for the world?

And who is speaking in verses 1-7?  Who is the “me” on whom the Spirit rests and who has been anointed by the Lord?  Some say it’s Isaiah, or the anonymous prophet dubbed “Second or Third Isaiah.”  And still others say it is the Servant of earlier chapters in Isaiah, the Suffering Servant who is a Messianic figure.  The fact that Jesus applied this to himself is certainly strong evidence in favor of the last interpretation.  Here is the coming Messiah (Anointed One, ala verse 1) bringing good news to the poor.

But who are the poor?  The Hebrew word here is anawim, a word so full of meaning that it is difficult to determine what is means.  For decades now the church has talked about the Bible’s “preferential option for the poor,” assuming that the poor are those who are economically deprived and socially oppressed.  But that new tradition replaced a centuries-old tradition that understood the poor to be those who are poor in spirit, who are spiritually oppressed and morally bankrupt.  Or do we need to go back to the original historical situation of the first readers, exiles who have just returned from Babylon only to find that their beloved homeland is in ruins?  They are both physically and spiritually poor. So, is this a word of Good News to those on the lower rungs of society or to those far from God or both?

And what is being offered to the poor?  This beautiful poetry describes restoration, renewal, reversal—the brokenhearted healed, the captive set free, the mourning comforted, and if we take “the year of the Lord’s favor” to be a reference to the Year of Jubilee, the cancellation of debt and the return of property.  The Messiah will completely reverse the situation of the poor.  But does this mean a sea change in people’s social conditions or in their spiritual condition?   To put it another way, is God going to change the sinful things that make people grieve or is God going to change the lives of those who grieve their own sins?

Perhaps the answer to those questions is not a simple either/or, but a more comprehensive both/and.  The salvation that this Mysterious Messiah announces will make all things new: a new spirit (“a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair”); a new vitality (instead of uprooted and transplanted, they will be replanted as “oaks of righteousness” to display the splendor of the Lord); a new task (to “rebuild the ancient ruins… and places long devastated”); a new covenant (“an everlasting covenant”); a new place in the world (“known among the nations… a people the Lord has blessed”); a new set of clothes (“garments of salvation… a robe of righteousness”); and a new future (“the Sovereign Lord will make righteousness and praise spring up before all the nations”).  “Behold, I am making all things new.”

That’s the promise of our text for this Third Sunday of Advent, a welcome promise in a world that is sick and tired of the same old same old.  Out of the dust and smoke and fog and darkness emerges a figure we can’t quite identify yet, bringing Good News we can’t quite define yet.  In a world filled with questions for which there are no easy answers, perhaps a text like this is exactly what we need.  We are still in the dark, but help is coming, and soon.  He will be more than we expect and he will do more than we can imagine.  “O Come, O Come, Immanuel!”

Illustration Idea

Actual pictures (or your own verbal pictures) of the fire ravaged towns on the West Coast and the hurricane blasted areas of the Gulf Coast and the riot ruined cities all over the US and the COVID induced chaos in emergency rooms and classrooms—such scenes of devastation will put your congregants in touch with “those who grieve in Zion… with a spirit of despair (verse 3).”  Pair these with first responders moving through the smoke and sorrow to offer help that is heroic, but never enough.  In Advent we await the coming of One who will bring help that is more than enough.

CEP recommended commentaries on Isaiah

Psalm 126 is such a lyric song that it almost makes you forget that what it celebrates never actually quite happened.  The first line is often translated as God’s having “restored the fortunes of Zion” but what it appears more literally to mean is when the Lord “brought back the captives to Zion,” which would make this sound like a post-exilic psalm following 70 years in Babylon.  There is no other historical reference that would make sense in terms of the return to Jerusalem of any captives.

The problem historically is that if you read Ezra and Nehemiah—and if you know of what happened in Israel following the close of the Old Testament era—then you also know that the fortunes of Zion were never really restored.  Life was hardscrabble at best.  When a faint echo of Solomon’s Temple got built, those who could remember the original Temple wept at the sight of what had been rebuilt.  It felt so pathetic.  Mouths were not only not filled with laughter, as Psalm 126 depicts it, they were actively filled with sorrow.  And still they were technically under the thumb of the Persian Empire—Cyrus had set them free but they were not independent.  Soon enough Persia would give way to Alexander the Great who would occupy Israel and not long after that came the Roman Empire to do the same.

It is difficult, then, to track down this psalm’s lyric portrait of restoration historically.  Perhaps it does reflect some measure of post-exilic joy that really was present.  Some had perhaps long ago given up any hope of ever being able to leave Babylon much less return to Jerusalem.  If so, then when that actually happened through the unlikely “messiah” of Cyrus the Great, it must have felt like a dream come true despite all the obstacles still facing them as they returned to a ruined city and temple.

But perhaps the best way to read Psalm 126 is in its proleptic sense.  That is, Israel saw in their return to Jerusalem—incomplete though it was—more than a glimmer of the ultimate restoration that had long ago been promised by God to David.  A Son of David would one day sit on an eternal throne and then all would be well indeed.  And perhaps that also explains this Psalm being assigned for a Sunday in Advent in the Year B Lectionary.  Because the ultimate restoration of Zion came through that final Son of David who is Jesus Christ the Lord.  That is what we finally celebrate in Advent and at Christmas.

But if we are honest, then despite all the good cheer we try to crank up over the holiday season, we also still live well short of the full restoration of the fortunes of Zion.  The Church is now the New Israel and we believe the witness of the New Testament that Jesus is the final Temple of God and that by his Holy Spirit each of us are now mini-temples too.  The things we believe to be true about Jesus as the ultimate Temple—the final intersection point between God and humanity—are very simply startling and wonderful.  It is all like a dream come true and all things being equal, our mouths also should be filled with laughter.

Except that this is Advent in the year of 2020.  And if 2020 has proven anything, it is that we are all of us very far from some Promised Land.  This broken world is very far from the fullness of God’s coming Kingdom.  This has been a year with mouths full not of laughter but of sorrow.  Our fortunes have not only not been restored, a lot of our “fortunes” have been taken from us such as they were.  Lives have been lost by the hundreds of thousands.  Jobs have been lost by the millions.  Loved ones have died alone and in many instances, we were denied the chance for even a regular funeral.

Worse, the church has become more riven and not more united in this crisis.  In-person worship became a political hot potato.  Whether or not to require masks at church, whether or not it was deemed safe to sing, whether or not people were correct to deem state restrictions on gatherings as a de facto persecution of the church: all of this and more has put most pastors through the wringer over and over again.  The church feels in many places to have gone backwards in terms of achieving a greater unity in Christ.

Perhaps this year more than ever we need to grab onto the aspirational aspect of Psalm 126.  This is not our reality but it is what we long for.  But because of the truth of what we celebrate at Christmas, our longing is not false hope.  It is not wishful thinking.  The one who came down here as Immanuel, as God with Us, is still with us.  Always.  Even to the end of the age as Jesus himself promised.  Life is not where we want it to be.  The Church is not where it ought to be.  There remains so much brokenness.

And yet the dream persists and it is going to come true: God will restore the fortunes of this fallen Creation and when God does so, then the truth of one of Jesus’ own Beatitudes will shine through: “Blessed are those who weep now for you will laugh!”

Be sure to check out our 2020 Year B Advent/Christmas resource page for more sermon and worship ideas and links to many sample sermons as well.  Visit us all through Advent!

Illustration Idea

He didn’t make it up on the spot.  It was part of a sermon or a speech—and with Martin Luther King, Jr., there sometimes was not a lot of difference between the two—that he had delivered before and that colleagues had heard.  But he was not necessarily planning on using those words that day at the Lincoln Memorial with huge throngs of Civil Rights supporters arrayed before him.  But after he had been speaking for a bit, some of King’s colleagues behind him began to say, “Tell them about the dream, Martin.  Tell them about the dream.”

And that’s when he said it.  That is when he began some of the most famous words in the whole history of oratory.  “I have a dream” King said.  And in the coming minutes as he spooled out what that dream looked like, it somehow felt less like a dream and more like an achievable reality after all.  You could see it.  You could hear it.  You could feel it.  And when King capped what is now known the world over as his “I Have a Dream” speech, when he said that the words of the old Negro spiritual would soon come true: “Free at last!  Free at last!  Thank God Almighty we are free at last”—well, just hearing him end the dream like that made everyone who heard him feel a bit more free already.

Dreams can do that.

CEP recommended commentaries on Psalms

Paul certainly had lofty ideals for the Christian Church. At the beginning of his first letter to Thessalonica’s Christians, he describes the Church as a community loved and chosen by God. That community, the apostle adds, draws its life from God and lives that life with faith, love and hope.

When Paul concludes this letter with some words about the community that is the church, he primarily compares her to a family. This family’s members, he writes, recognize and treat each other like sisters and brothers.

After all, if, for Jesus’ sake, God is our heavenly Father, then our fellow believers are our sisters and brothers in Christ. So Jesus’ followers not only belong to “the day,” we also belong, in a real sense, to each other.

In this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson, Paul describes his vision for worship. While that may not be obvious, biblical scholars like John Stott and R.P. Martin are quite adamant that these verses describe worship.

First, says the apostle, Christian worship is always “joyful.” That doesn’t mean that it’s always “happy-clappy,” as my Dutch Christian friend likes to say.  Sometimes, in fact, worship is somber or even stern.  Meaningful worship never simply ignores the various emotions we bring here on Sunday.

However, worship is still always characterized by the deep-seated glad celebration of God’s faithful goodness that no circumstance can shake.  Every worship service should be a celebration of what God has done and given us through Christ.

Christians who live under the triple thunder clouds of a global pandemic, racial injustice and political turmoil may find that difficult to envision during Advent, 2020. We, after all, live in a world that is decidedly unhappy. Joy may feel in shorter supply than hand sanitizer and toilet paper right now.

That’s a reason why Paul’s call to joyful worship is so appropriate and needed. Worship recognizes the deep uncertainty and pain that marks not only our world, but also many Christian worshipers. But it also reminds us that God is faithful, in spite of our circumstances. If we doubt that, we need look little further than what God did in sending God’s Son Jesus to heal all of our brokenness.

Christian worship is also, however, marked, according to verse 17, by prayer.  We pray for people and their concerns, not only on Sunday, but also throughout the week. In worship Christians pray for members of our churches, those both nearby and faraway.  We also pray for the leaders, faithfulness, unity and mission of God’s church throughout the world.

In worship, however, Jesus’ followers pray too for the nations, their leaders and governments, as well as their freedom and justice.  We also pray for missions, perhaps especially among people and in places resistant to gospel. God’s beloved children worship pray, too, for peace and environmental stewardship throughout the world.  We also pray for people who are poor, oppressed, hungry, homeless and sick.

I personally am indebted to one worship scholar whose advice shapes my own public prayers in worship. While I don’t remember his or her name, I remember the “template” he or she established for public prayers. That scholar says those who lead prayers in worship might be well-served to remember to pray for God’s local and global church, as well as our local and global neighbors.

However, Paul also notes that Christian worship services are also characterized, in the third place, by the thankfulness to which verse 18 refers. Certainly God’s adopted sons and daughters give thanks to God for God’s countless material and spiritual blessings. As part of our weekly celebration of Christ’s resurrection, we celebrate and thank God for God’s gracious gift to our world and us of Jesus Christ.

Of course, Jesus’ followers don’t thank God for all circumstances, even though we know that God always turns them for our good.  Instead, in worship Christians can and should thank God in all circumstances, whatever happens.

Yet Christians may not always feel like praising, praying or giving God thanks in worship. Our circumstances may not encourage such gratitude. Yet we always praise, pray and thank God in our worship. For this is, as Paul writes in verse 18, “God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

It’s not God’s will for God’s dearly beloved people, however, just because God deserves our thanks. Thanksgiving is also part of God’s loving will for us because it’s among the things for which God created us. Christians are at our best when we’re thanking God for all of God’s countless blessings.

In the fourth place, as Paul implies in verses 20-22, we also listen to God’s Word in worship. After all, we don’t, as he notes, in verse 20, “treat prophecies with contempt.” Instead of rejecting them out of hand, God’s beloved people listen to God’s messages and messengers.

We hear God’s message, of course, primarily in the Bible. So the Scriptures, whether as part of our call to worship, confession, assurance, prayer or Bible reading, are central in Christian worship. However, God has also given some brothers and sisters in Christ insight into the Bible itself or its meaning for our world today. God’s adopted children might call this a prophetic gift. Paul implies that we must treat the messages they bring with respect, not contempt.

However, we don’t just blindly accept the messages modern “prophets” bring us from the Scriptures. Jesus’ followers always, as Paul says in verse 21, “test” them. We carefully and prayerfully evaluate messages to see whether they conform to the Bible.

However, God’s dearly beloved people can also apply other “tests” to prophets’ messages. Do they acknowledge that Jesus Christ is the Son of God sent into the world to save us from our sins? Do modern prophets’ teachings affirm the centrality of our salvation by grace that we receive through faith? Do their messages build up and benefit the church?

Once, by God’s Spirits, those messages have passed the test, it’s good for us to “hold onto the good” and “avoid every kind of evil,” as Paul writes in verses 22-23. By God’s grace, Christians apply messages that are good to our lives and reject those which are evil.

As those who proclaim 1 Thessalonians 5 consider what Paul says here about public worship, we begin to understand why at least some Reformed Christians refer to worship as a kind of “dialogue.” In worship, after all, God speaks to God’s adopted children in God’s Word and we respond to God with our praise, prayer and thanksgiving.  John Stott writes “in every well-constructed worship service the pendulum should swing rhythmically between God addressing the people through Scripture and his people responding to him in confession, faith, adoration or prayer.”

Yet in both worship’s listening and responding, we always acknowledge the Holy Spirit’s sovereignty and freedom. Christians don’t, as Paul writes in verse 19, “put out the Spirit’s fire.” Here the apostle seems to be saying, “Let the Holy Spirit speak to you through his Word. Don’t put out his fire by rejecting his voice.” But Paul also seems to be saying, “Let the Spirit move you to respond to God in praise, prayer and thanksgiving.”

Illustration Idea

In verse 18 Paul calls worshipers to “give thanks in all circumstances.” However, as Lewis Smedes (A Pretty Good Person, Harper & Row: San Francisco, etc.) points out, it can be hard to give thanks on command.  He tells of one Thanksgiving when he learned that it doesn’t always do much good to know that we ought to be thankful.

That year Smedes’ single mother couldn’t afford to buy even a chicken for their Thanksgiving dinner. So she announced that the Smedes were going to share a delicious and more affordable pot roast for Thanksgiving dinner.

Smedes, however, remembers taking the news badly.  He, after all, knew that his friends would brag about how much turkey they’d eaten on Thanksgiving Day. He also knew that they’d grill him about how much he’d eaten. Smedes would then have to admit that his family had eaten pot roast.

“Pot roast?” he imagined his buddies sneering. “On Thanksgiving? What kind of nutty family do you have?” In his neighborhood, Smedes reflects, “If a kid’s mother was too poor to buy a holiday chicken, his status was under a cloud.”

Smedes pouted so much that late in the afternoon before Thanksgiving Day, his mom trudged the half-mile to a local butcher shop. There she bought a hen and lugged it home by its scrawny neck. She then dumped it on the kitchen table with a, “There, we’re going to have chicken tomorrow.”

Smedes’ sober-mined older sister turned to him accusingly: “See what you went and made her do? I hope you’re grateful.” In other words, “I hope you feel rotten.” Smedes says while that he did feel rotten, he didn’t feel very grateful.

CEP recommended commentaries on Thessalonians