Jesus is coming! - Advent 1a (readings are from 2a)

The first reading is Isaiah 11:1-10.
The second reading is Romans 15:4-13.

The holy gospel according to Matthew (3:1-12)

¹In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea,

       proclaiming, ²“Repent,

              for the dominion of heaven has come near.”

       ³This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said,

              “The voice of one crying out

                     in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Sovereign, 
              make straight the paths of the Sovereign.’ ”

       ⁴Now John wore clothing of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist,

              and his food was locusts and wild honey.

⁵Then the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him,

       and all the region along the Jordan,

       ⁶and they were baptized by John in the river Jordan,

              confessing their sins.

⁷But when John saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism,

       he said to them,

              “You brood of vipers!

              Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

              ⁸Bear fruit worthy of repentance.

                     ⁹Do not presume to say to yourselves,

                            ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’;

                     for I tell you,

                            God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.

                     ¹⁰Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees;

                            every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down

                            and thrown into the fire.

¹¹“I baptize you with water for repentance,

       but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me;

              I am not worthy to carry his sandals.

              He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

                     ¹²With a winnowing fork in hand,

                            he will clear the threshing floor

                            and will gather the wheat into the granary;

                                   but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

The gospel of the Lord.

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Advent is finally here!!  Jesus is coming!!

And I just need to say: It’s about time!  I am ready for Jesus to just show up already!

The world is big and scary. December is so busy and it’s still only November!  People are sick.  People are hurting.  And I just need Jesus to make it all right.  And this vision Isaiah casts is a vision I can get behind.

Out of a tree that ought to be dead comes a new shoot—unexpected life trying once again even in the face of death.  A new one to lead—with the Spirit upon him, strong as can be, faithful, full of integrity, fair, and speaks a powerful word.

That doesn’t sound half bad, if you ask me.

And if God is promising it, then I have hope because when it comes to God’s promises, God usually comes through even bigger than promised.

Jesus is coming.  And even as I desperately want Jesus to hurry up, I also wonder what it will look like when Jesus arrives.

The vision that Isaiah casts with a persistent shoot out of the stump of Jesse, wisdom and righteousness, and harmony between those who currently fall into kill or be killed roles is compelling.  That peace and tranquility, like an evening curled up by the fire with a good book, is something I long for and Paul’s letter to the Romans echoes it.

Christ is the fulfillment of God’s promises. All that God has promised throughout history is made manifest in Jesus—and then some. Christ is the hope for us Gentiles.

But then I get to Matthew and think, “Who is John talking about?!”  I mean, yes, there’s the connection with Romans about God fulfilling the promise to Abraham, making children out of stones and all, but the rest of it?

If Jesus is the shoot coming out of the stump of Jesse, what is the ax doing lying at the root of the trees? I’m not sure I want Jesus to come if it means cutting down trees that don’t bear good fruit or if it means being baptized “with the Holy Spirit and fire.”

I’m just not sure I’m bearing enough good fruit or have enough grains of wheat in me to outweigh the chaff.  I mess up all the time; I am definitely a sinner.  I don’t want to end up on the wrong end of John the Baptist’s Jesus.

Really, though, it’s almost as if John and Isaiah are talking about two totally different people.                        What if they are?

What if they are each talking about the one they want to come—the one who will support them and agree with them—instead of the actual One who is coming.  What if they are like us and read scripture and find confirmation of their beliefs?  What if they are reiterating the part of God’s vision that gives them the most hope, that gives them power or authority?  What if they are making the One who comes in their own image?

But even so, the One who is coming still manages to blow all of their expectations out of the water.  Because God is bigger than our categories.

It’s like the elephant we were talking about earlier.  [Mentioned in the children’s sermon: how people placed around an elephant with blindfolds on will all describe the elephant differently according to their experience of it.]

We feel our way around God and get a little bit of insight into who God is, but ultimately, I might think that God is thin and flat like an elephant’s ear and you might think God is long and hairy like an elephant’s tail, wide and wrinkly like the side, or long, curved, and smooth like the trunk.

The beauty is that God is each of these and more.  In choosing to love us by coming to be human and to be with us, God does comfort us and God encourages us.  God does bring new life from what once was dead.  God does challenge us.  God calls us to repentance when we sin.  God cries with us when we hurt and grieve.  God calls us into solidarity with the oppressed.  God calls us into a different way of being in the world.  God loves us.

Because God is bigger than either Isaiah or John can imagine on their own and God is bigger than we can understand.  That is the gift in our community of faith.  God gathers us together to share our wisdom, to find each other’s good fruit and grains of wheat, to learn about each other’s experience of God.  God gathers us to protect the child and the lamb and the fatling; to temper the wolf, the bear, and the lion, until that day Isaiah talks about truly comes. 

God is big enough to create the entire cosmos and God is big enough to hold all our thoughts and ideas about who God is and what God is like together.  God is big enough to hold our contradictions and differences, to hold our busy-ness and distractions.  God is big enough to hold our many understandings of God together.

And so as we take a deep breath and get ready to dive into the busy-ness of the coming month, I wonder if God is not doing a similar thing.  Breathing deeply and then diving toward us.  Setting the little child in motion so that as Isaiah says, “⁷The cow and the bear shall graze, … and the lion shall eat straw like the ox” “⁶The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together.”

Jesus is coming, as both everything and nothing we could imagine.  Jesus is coming as a sprout out of the stump of Jesse, with an ax and winnowing fork in hand, and most importantly, Jesus is coming with love.  For you.  For me.  For our neighbors, our friends, our enemies, and for all of Creation.  Jesus’ love is big enough to hold us all together

Thanks be to God.