Monday, December 23, 2019

Advent 4 2019


Advent 4A 2019
Rev. Adam T. Trambley
December 22, 2019, St. John’s Sharon

This morning’s readings challenge us
            With the great hope of believing
In Immanuel, that God-is-with-us.
The situations of Ahaz in our first reading
            And Joseph in our Gospel reading
            Are very different.
But both are intense, consuming,
            And require either
one-hundred percent faith and commitment
                        That God is present right where they are,
            Or the acknowledgment
that this present life is too much
and that God is powerless or absent

In the first reading from Isaiah,
            Ahaz is the King of Jerusalem,
            A descendant of David,
            And one who should be
                        Carrying forward God’s covenant with his people.
Ahaz is inspecting his city’s vulnerable water supply,
            Fretting in fear
over the advancing forces of two enemy kings.
Isaiah, directed by God, shows up
            And reassures him that his foes are nothing.
            God is present for his people
                        And is waiting to save.
Right before the verses we read this morning,
            Isaiah challenges Ahaz to,
            “Stand firm in your faith or you will not stand at all.”
Standing firm in God offers salvation and deliverance.
            Ignoring God
                        Is to walk away from all the protects and defends us.
            Ahaz cannot lead God’s people without faith in God.

Then God, through Isaiah,
            Tells Ahaz to ask for a sign --
            Anything Ahaz can imagine
                        To reassure him that God is present with him.
God wants to do something extravagant to reassure Ahaz.
            God knows being a King is tough,
            That Ahaz feels the weight of defending the people
                        He cares about and who trust him.
            God wants to save his people AND
                        To be present to Ahaz.
Ahaz rejects the offer.
            He says he doesn’t want to put God to the test.
But what Isaiah makes clear is
            That he doesn’t ask
            Because he doesn’t believe God can deliver.
He believes that at this most important time
            In his reign and his life
            God has no power to do anything that matters.

The results of Ahaz’s rejection
            Demonstrate BOTH
            The utter devastation of relying on human power
            AND God’s unfailing intention to reach out and save
Isaiah pronounces God’s sign for Ahaz:
            A young maiden will bear a son
            And that son will be named
            Immanuel, God-with-us.
            Before this child grows up,
                        Ahaz will see that God is with us
                        In what happens to the two kings
                                    That Ahaz fears.
            Ahaz will see God’s victory,
                        And that victory will not take very long.

There are a couple of other points to be made here.
First is this whole business of prophetic signs
            And naming children.
In Israel, one of the ways prophets proved their point
            Was by naming children with a prophecy name.
            That child’s name was a reminder of what they predicted
            And since everyone called that child the name,
                        You couldn’t change your prophecy later.
            So a child being called, “God-is-with-us”
                        In relation to this prophecy to Ahaz
            Meant that by the time the kid grew up,
                        Everyone would know that either
                        God had been with us or not.
            No wiggle room was left.
In Isaiah and Ahaz’s day,
            There may well have been a child named
            Immanuel
            To remind everyone of Isaiah’s prophecy
That God, who is with us,
                        And not Ahaz himself,
                                    saved Jerusalem from these two kings.

Second, we also know that this story continues forward,
            Both with ancient Israel and as a prophecy for Jesus.
In today’s reading we hear about the child Immanuel
            Eating curds and honey.
In the rest of this chapter and the next
            Isaiah talks more about what eating curds and honey means.
The problem comes down to Ahaz’s faithlessness,
            As well as the faithlessness of the people generally.
Ahaz choice not to stand firm in God,
            Means that eventually he and his regime
            Will not stand.
            God will defeat this threat,
                        But other difficulties will come.
Eventually, the advanced economy and civilization
            Surrounding the capital of Jerusalem will be lost,
            And farmland will again be overtaken
            By brambles and weeds.
There will be no more well-prepared foods from fancy shops,
            or even from cultivated orchards and vineyards.
What will be available is milk and honey.
These are more primarily wild foods.
            A hunter-gather family may have a cow or goat for milk,
            And come across honey-filled bee hives in the wild.
Isaiah’s prophecy later in the chapter makes clear
            That because of a lack of faith in God
            The curds and honey are all the food that will be available.
            Scary stuff.
But Isaiah also makes clear
            That because of God’s goodness,
            Because God is Immanuel, God is with us,
            That food is all that will be necessary.
The milk and honey will be in abundance,
            And overflow,
            And provide for everything that is needed.
Due to human disobedience and faithlessness,
            Including the faithlessness of their leaders,
            Life will be difficult.
            But in the midst of that difficult,
                        Seemingly impossible life
                        When all that is familiar is turned upside down,
                        God still has a plan
                                    For the flourishing of his people
                        God is still with us
                        God is still caring for us.

Part of the fulfillment of this Immanuel prophecy of Isaiah,
            Points forward beyond the immediate context
                        Of Ahaz and ancient Israel.
Isaiah’s prophetic proclamation of God’s character
            Points forward to an even fuller incarnation
            Of Immanuel, God-is-with-us.
Early Christians instinctively understood
            That when Isaiah instructed Ahaz
            He was speaking also about another child
                        To be born of a young maiden
                        Hundreds of years in the future.
That child, called Immanuel,
            Would embody the eternal connection
            Between heaven and earth
            And restore faithless humanity
                        To a fulness of life with God.

That child Immanuel is at the center of our Gospel this morning.
This story’s narrative is more familiar to us.
The angel Gabriel from heaven
            Came to Mary to announce that she would bear a child.
            This child Jesus would be the Son of God
                        And have the throne of his ancestor David.
            (You can see we are moving on from faithless Ahaz,           
                        To Jesus’ faithful parents.)
This unplanned pregnancy caused some consternation
            To Mary’s betrothed.
So in today’s gospel we hear that an angel
            Comes to Joseph in a dream
            And tells him to take Mary as his wife.
            Mary’s child is the Son of God,
                        Who is Immanuel
                        And will save God’s people from their sins.
Joseph now has the same question set before him that Ahaz had.
            Does he trust God or not?
            Does he believe that God can be present with him
                        In the midst of what is going to be
a difficult domestic situation?
He has heard from an angel in a dream,
            But we all have interesting dreams sometimes.
            Joseph could easily have discounted it and moved on.
            Break the engagement, find a new wife,
                        And feel morally superior in the process.
But he didn’t.
Joseph did exactly what God asked him to do.
            He trusted that God would be with him
                        Amid his fears and doubts and challenging choices.
            He believed that the Son would come,
                        And he would be Immanuel
                        And that God would be with him.

These challenging readings should be great comfort for us
            As we struggle to be faithful in our difficulties
            And to have hope in what can be very trying times.
Many of us face person struggles this Christmas.
            The holidays often highlight family tensions and fights.
            The glitz and glam of the perfect Christmas may prove
                        A pretty stark contrast from what we can really afford.
            The blue Christmas brought on by the loss of loved ones
                        Can cause acute loneliness and depression.
            There are as many ways for us to feel like
                        Joy, peace, and love are failing us,
                                    Or we are failing them,
                        As there are people struggling to celebrate the season.
We are all told, with Joseph,
            That God is with us.
We are not promised that our problems will disappear
            Or that we will be magically painted
            Into a Currier and Ives collectable plate.
Instead, we are promised that Jesus will be born again into our lives.
We are promised that we are important to God
And that God is paying attention
to our struggles and challenges,
that God loves us,
and that God will never leave us.
We are promised that
            Even when what we are going through
                        Is too much for us,
            It is not too much for God.
             
We are reminded in our first reading that the big picture
            Is also in God’s hand.
Ahaz is not the only powerful public figure
            Whose faithfulness to God plan and promise
            Could be reasonably called into question.
We might be worried, justifiably,
            About what kind of world
                        It looks like we are leaving
                        For our children and grandchildren.
To go back to a place
            Where the only food is milk and honey
            Would be pretty unlikely.
Yet, even there, God is with us.
If we look to God,
            He will be with us
            regardless of what happens.
Just as he has been with people throughout history
            In plagues, famines, wars, droughts,
            And any number of unspeakable disasters.
Jesus is the best companion in a Zombie Apocalypse,
            As well as any circumstance not quite at that level,
            And he is going to show up for us.
Immanuel. God-is-with-us.
            Stand firm in our faith
                        And he will stand with us through anything and everything.

Christmas is the time that God fulfilled his promise
            That he would be with us always.     
Jesus Christ, Immanuel, God-is-with-us.

           

           
             
                                                                                   

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