Advent Reflection on the Service of Lessons & Carols 12-21-08
The birth of a child is a glorious and exciting, if not a sometimes scary thing.
For most, it is something to celebrate.
Within the Scriptures we have opportunity to encounter a number of births and infants, some of which could easily be considered miraculous, if not unconventional.
For example, after years of hoping and striving for children, Abraham and Sarah are told by three mysterious strangers one hot afternoon that they would in fact give birth to a son, who would in turn give them more descendant than all the stars in the sky.
We are told that Sarah laughed.
Some time later, a child came kicking and screaming into the world.
They named him “Isaac”, the Hebrew word for “laughter”.
Later in the book of Genesis we hear that Jacob and Esau were the twin sons of Isaac and Rebecca.
We are told that Jacob and Esau had a less than ideal relationship; in fact, their struggle began within Rebecca’s womb, each fighting to be the first born.
In the end, Esau claimed that title, but in time he lost it to Jacob’s craftiness and deceit.
Oddly, it is Jacob who receives God’s blessing, which will always serve as a reminder of God’s amazing and sometime confusing grace-filled nature.
While the actual birth of Moses was relatively uneventful, it was the adventures the baby encountered that could be considered miraculous.
At the age of three months baby Moses was placed in a papyrus basket and set afloat in the Nile River—only to be discovered by the Pharaoh’s daughter.
Who would’ve imagined a nice little Jewish boy, raised in the Pharaoh’s court would one day grow up to defy the Pharaoh.
And then free his Jewish brothers and sisters in their exodus and quest for the Promised Land.
In the Book of Ruth we have the story of the newly widowed Ruth from the country of Moab, located in modern day Jordan and her also recently widowed Hebrew mother-in law, Naomi.
In this odd story filled with a little seduction and a lot of family loyalty, Ruth in the end marries the bachelor farmer Boaz, a distant relative of Ruth’s husband, and she gives birth to a son named Obed, who in time becomes the grandfather of Israel’s King David.
In the Book of 1st Samuel we hear of Hannah, one of the wives of Elkanah.
Unlike Elkanah’s other wives, Hannah is unable to bear a child.
One day after saying her prayers in the Temple, and shedding a few tears as well, she encounters the old priest Eli who eventfully offers a blessing.
In time Hannah gives birth to Samuel, a child who would eventually end up serving Eli in the temple and hearing the voice of the Lord calling in the night.
Samuel would go on to serve his Lord until his dying day.
Then there is Elizabeth and Zechariah, a devout couple, and yet they were without child.
Zechariah was a priest and Elizabeth was a descendent of Aaron.
In yet another one of those mysterious visits, Zechariah is visited by an angel of the Lord who told Zechariah that his dear wife Elizabeth would bear a child.
In light of his wife’s barren state, Zechariah began to question the possibility, only to be silenced, not just momentarily, but until that eighth day after Johns’ birth when we was to be circumcised—only then was he able to speak again and obediently named him John as he was commanded by the Angel of the Lord.
The birth of a child is a glorious and exciting, if not a sometimes scary thing.
For most it is something to celebrate.
For many, like Mary, it is something to ponder.
For you see, long before Elizabeth and Zechariah, and long before Mary and Joseph, the prophet Isaiah foretold of a time when God would bring forth a sign, the long awaited promise of a Messiah.
And the prophet Isaiah said, “Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and she shall name him Immanuel.”
Unlike previous amazing births, this birth, this long awaited birth was going to be something more; it was going to be a birth destined to shake up the world.
A young maiden would conceive and bear a son and name him Immanuel, God with us.
And this miraculous birth and the even more miraculous Child would provide a new beginning for humanity, and a new beginning for creation, and a new beginning for our relationship with the Creator and our neighbors.
This new beginning, this promised Messiah, would be called, Immanuel, God with us.
As we have heard this morning, this Messiah would go by many other names, names like: Wisdom, Adonai, Root of Jesse, Key of David, Dayspring, King of the Nations, and of course, Jesus of Nazareth.
Each in its own way reminds us that God is with us, Emmanuel.
This is not the God with us in the form of altars, idols, ritual, tradition or worship in a specific place, but God in you, God in me, God in Joe and Mary down the street, God in the newly born and the newly baptized, and God in those we don’t know and even God in those we do know and call our enemy.
The call is no longer to find God up in heaven somewhere, but rather God in one another and therefore to begin to treat one another as the children of God and in doing so, treating each other as brothers and sisters in Christ.
The message of the Advent season has been -- and will continue to be -- one of waiting for the One who makes all things new.
It is a season in which we invite God to come again, and again, and again.
And the spirit of Advent has been and will continue to be one of inviting all people to live in the anticipated hope and joy found in this Child who came into the world 2,000 + years ago, but also comes into our lives each and every day.
Our Advent prayer is very simple--
O Come, O Come Emmanuel—breaks into our lives with earth shattering hope and joy.
Enter into our daily lives in the people we meet and help us to see your face in every child, in every brother and sister, in every stranger and every neighbor.
Come, O come Emmanuel—and keep us ever mindful of your often less than conventional ways and unusual choices when it comes to shaking up or world and turning our lives toward your amazing grace. Amen
Pastor Stephen P. Blenkush
Zion Lutheran Church
Milaca, MN
(Sermon Archive)
