Enough

Isaiah 40:1-5

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“A voice says, ‘Cry Out!” And I said, “What shall I cry?”

What shall we cry out early in this advent season?

Knowing that God has promised comfort to the people who are in distress, what shall we cry out?

Knowing that God has sent us to prepare the way for Jesus in our world, what shall we announce?

Knowing that so many do not know God’s love, what shall we say and what shall we do?

Knowing that there are rough places of suffering to be graded smooth and mountains of injustice to be leveled; knowing that the peace is threatened, what would the Prince of Peace have us pray?

Please, do not say, “nothing—there is nothing we can say or do that will make a difference.” I am certain that He would protest to us, “Then the rocks and stones themselves will start to sing.”

Knowing that time is passing quickly and that our relationship as pastor and people is about to change forever; knowing that all aspects of our lives are changing and that in some ways we have succeeded and in other ways we have failed and that so much still needs to be said and done; knowing all of that, what shall we cry out? What word must be spoken?

Does it make any sense for us to cry out the words of the prophets of old:

On to us a child is born; on to us a son is given, and his name shall be called wonderful, counselor, almighty God, the everlasting father, the prince of peace?

Can such a cry be heard by and make sense when the old is passing away and the new has not yet arrived and we are afraid? Can such a cry be heard by a child being abused, an old man struggling with loneliness, a family divided, a mother watching her children go hungry, a world on the edge of war?

“On to us a child is born…”

What difference does that make to a dying man?

On to us a child is born…

What difference does that made to an addict powerless to stop drinking or drugging or eating or gambling or raging?

On to us a child is born?

What difference does that make?

Would it not be better to cry out, “Don’t worry, be happy,” or, “I’ll help. I have the answer. A therapist has the answer. The government has the answer.” Instead of lamely proclaiming, “God knows the way,” would it not be best to say, “I will take you there?”

Instead of shouting about the mysterious angel-announced virgin birth of a baby boy, would it not make more sense to cry out against oppression and demand justice?

Instead of celebrating the improbable supernatural coming of the Prince of Peace, why not just cry out against the evil of our enemies and then drop a bomb on them?

On to us a child is born—What difference could that possibly make!

In fact the entire Christian enterprise, grounded as it is in the virgin birth of a baby boy and the visitation of angels and the journey of wise men from the east, and the poor being lifted up while the rich are sent empty away, might better be replaced by the enterprising sellers of Christmas American style. Then all we would have to cry out in this Advent season would be:

Buy more.
Shop until you drop.
Party on!

And in the scrambling over-consumption of the season we can buy happiness, eat and drink ourselves into a stupor so we don’t have to remember the suffering and the threats to peace—better a drunken stupor or escape into pleasure than to put our hopes in that baby boy.

Where in the world did we get the idea that it is better to celebrate Christmas American style than to wait with great longing for God to act, to mourn in lonely exile until the Son of God appears? Where in the world did the idea come from that Christmas was about consuming ourselves into oblivion? Where did this Christmas madness come from?

Most of us are not familiar with the history behind the madness, but the fact remains that we celebrate Advent in this country very much along the line begun by one of the Stuart Kings of England, James the IV. It became his practice, along with a massive royal entourage, to depart from London so that he would arrive in the village of Linlithgow Scotland by the 6th of December. Linlithgow is located 20 miles northwest of Edinburgh, Scotland. There is a palace there. Mary, Queen of Scots, was born in that castle.

With the frivolity and opulence then possible only for kings, King James and his court would party, every single day from December 6 to Christmas Eve. They would hunt, fish and feast and with a brief break for Christmas Worship would begin to party all over again as soon as Christmas was past. They would party for a solid month—up until Epiphany on January 6. Only then would the king return to London and to the business of state.

Christians in America, by way of opportunity and prosperity known in the past only to royalty, have come to keep Advent—not as a time of preparation for the King of Kings—we have come to keep Advent much in the manner of the kings and queens of our history. The month of December has been devoted largely to parties, purchases, presents and particular pains—like credit card debt--that go with over-consumption.

Waiting

I hope it will not surprise us to know that earlier generations of Christians did not observe Advent in this manner. For 1,500 years, the weeks before Christmas were a solemn season, a holy pilgrimage of preparation filled with prayer and penitence and—get this—fasting. I will undoubtedly put on pounds during the Christmas season. Our Christian ancestors took them off. Weddings were discouraged during Advent. Choirs processed in silence. Purple was the color of the season, a serious, somber color meant to remind us of the need for repentance. Most Advent hymns were written in a mournful minor key, like the hymn we still sing; “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel, And ransom captive Israel, That mourns in lonely exile here, until the son of God appear.”

Mourning in lonely exile.

Mourning in lonely exile, the people of God wait. And so Advent is a season of waiting, mournful waiting, hoping against hope that God will act, that Jesus will come. Talk to people about the state of affairs in our world today—the terrifying possibility of war—and you will hear chords of mournful waiting. We must spend this Advent season praying, hoping against hope; that God will act; that the Prince of Peace will be born into our world.

I could talk to you about how difficult this time of transition is in my life; how difficult it is to say, “good-bye,” to people and dreams; how much I still have to learn about myself and how long I have to wait for God’s healing in my life and God’s leading. I could talk to you about, first, whatever longing deeply occupies your heart, a need long-delayed, a dream almost forgotten. We could talk to each other about our church, about, again, needs long delayed and dreams almost forgotten. We must spend this advent season praying, hoping against hope, that God will act, that the Holy Comforter will come.

Talk to children in our city who do not feel safe—especially in the Advent season—when the already overwhelming case load at Children’s Services skyrockets to new heights of suffering—suffering that has its parallel in the Christmas story in Herod’s slaughter of the innocents. We must spend this Advent season praying, hoping against hope; that God will act; that the Holy Comforter will come into our world to calm the Christmas storm and overturn the suffering and the pain and the evil that plague our world. Many of God’s greatest gifts come to us only by way of mournful waiting.

This is of course what Mary, Mary the mother of Jesus, prayed for. She lifted up her voice to heaven and she shouted:

Almighty God, stretch out your mighty hands and scatter the
proud with all their plans. Bring down mighty kings from
their thrones and lift up the lowly. Fill the hungry with good
things and send the rich away with empty hands.

Mary was praying for us—we who have come to celebrate Advent in the manner of kings and queens of old rather than as preparation for the King of Kings. Mary prayed for us that we would exit our pursuits of pleasures and riches and enter a time of mournful waiting so that being poor in spirit God might bless us by lifting us up to see Jesus being born again into our world.

I read the story of Gregory Fisher, a missionary in Africa who teaches in a Bible College there. Fisher was teaching his students about the Second Coming of Christ and they were studying I Thessalonians 4, verses 16-17:

“For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry
of command (note that phrase, “a cry of command”), with the archangels call, and with the sound
of the trumpet…and the dead in Christ will rise first, then
we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together
with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.”

On of his students wanted to know, “What will Jesus say?” “What do you mean, what will he say?” “When he cries a command—what will he say?”

When the Lord descends from heaven with a “cry of command”, what will he say? George Fisher did not know the answer to that question. Probably none of us have ever asked that question. “The scriptures do not say what command Jesus will cry.” George Fisher answered the student. The student pressed on, “Well, what do you think he will say?”

Suddenly it hit George Fisher hard. It hit him like a thunderbolt from heaven. In a flash he thought about all the pain and suffering he saw in Africa; the lack of adequate medical care, the starvation, the filth, the beggars, the orphans, the lepers, the violence, the tribal wars. And in that same flash Fisher thought about all the evil in the rest of the world; wars, inhumanity, genocide, economic exploitation—the rich getting richer the poor getting had. Suddenly, Fisher shouted, “ENOUGH!”

The class looked shocked. Fisher’s gaze jumped around the room and he realized how loudly he had shouted. Calming down a bit, he repeated, “Enough. Enough. I think that when Jesus comes he will cry the command, ‘Enough.”

Enough suffering. Enough starvation. Enough terror. Enough abuse of the little ones. Enough death. Enough lives trapped in hopelessness. Enough sickness. Enough. “You have already paid the price for that sin. That mistake has already been forgiven. Enough.”

The old hymn says, “When Christ shall come with shout of acclamation and take us home, what Joy shall fill our hearts.” Advent is a time of waing for God to say, enough. Advent is waiting for and believing in the day when there will be no more tears.

Preparation

But it is not enough to just wait. Advent is also a time of preparation. The King of Kings who returns shouting “Enough!” has also had enough of:

Our sins.
Our excuses.
Our procrastination.
Our character flaws made nearly permanent by our tenacious
refusal to ask Jesus to take them over
Our anger and our gossip and our greed

The King of Kings who returns shouting enough needs us to make Advent a season of preparation wherein our hearts and our lives and our world are made ready for another Christmas miracle, another proclamation by the angels:

“Glory to God in the highest; and, on Earth, Peace
among those with whom God is pleased.”

Advent calls us to, at just the moment when the world is tempting us to get sucked deeper into materialism and violence and the hedonism of Christmas, Advent calls us to reexamine our lives, to prepare ourselves for the savior’s birth.

We have a choice.

Riches and feasts fit for the kings and queens of this world…or
The treasures offered by the King of Kings?

Which will it be? We have a choice! What part of ourselves will be fed this Advent season?

Will we nourish our need for Christmas presents…or
For the Christmas presence of God?

Will our time be given to

Parties…or
Prayers?

Whatever part of ourselves we nourish will grow. Our choice can have…

Demonic or
Angelic results in our lives.

It’s like the English cuckoo bird. I’m told the Cuckoo bird is rather common in England, though its method of survival has more in common with how greedy people survive than how most birds live and thrive. The cuckoo’s survival techniques are something of a parable for us, a warning about how we can destroy ourselves in the Advent season.

The mama cuckoo lays eggs but she does not warm and protect those eggs and she does not feed and protect her young. Instead mama cuckoo picks out the nest of a thrush, a much smaller bird, and lays her egg in the thrush’s nest. Mama thrush, who does nurture and protect her eggs and feeds and protects her young—is tricked by her good nature into hatching and raising the cuckoo bird’s egg and hatchling. The problem is that the cuckoo is big and has a voracious appetite and gets all the food and the baby thrush’s die. In England you can tell when this parable is being acted out by the dead baby thrushes on the ground.

Whatever is fed survives. What appetites are we going to feed during this Advent season? Feeding some of our appetites is just plain cuckoo—but we will be tempted to feed them anyway because the glitter and glitz and greed of a secular Christmas swallow us whole and nothing Holy is left.

Whatever we nurse this advent season will grow:

Our anger, bitterness and revenge seeking pride…or
Our tolerance, forgiveness and unquenchable hope.

Our self-destructive and other-destructive habits…or
Our personal ways of building others up and sharing life-affirming gifts with the world.

When I look deep within myself, at what truly brings me joy during the Christmas season, I find myself longing to relive one particular tradition. In relation to this tradition I will need to set aside plenty of time so that I am not in a hurry. I will need an entire day, better yet, two days. That time will be a gift to myself, time to do one of the things that brings me the most joy. I want to spend hours in the kitchen making Christmas Candy, chocolate fudge so rich that a tiny bite would calm the addiction of the severest choco-holic; divinity so white and pure that you think you are eating a sugary cloud. Then I want to spend even more hours…

…eating all that candy…NO, not eating all that candy
…wrapping up all that candy and packing it in gift boxes and delivering it to people who will be completely surprised by the gift because they have no reason to expect a gift from me and I have no reason to expect any return.

Baking for the joy of baking.
Giving for the joy of giving.
Experiences that symbolize God’s creative energy and God’s generosity to us.

Will I take the time to nurture this joy? During this Advent Season, will I feed the inner longings of my soul to be close to God and close to the people I love? I know that the choice is mine--to live like the kings and queens of old or to live for and in anticipation of the return of the King of Kings.

May God Bless you this Advent season and may your choices be a blessing to God.

So be it. Amen