Sermon text - The Grass Withers... BUT

Isaiah 40:1-11

The Grass Withers… BUT

James Sledge                                   December 4, 2011 – Advent 2

If you ever come up to my office on a weekday, there’s a good chance you will hear music playing.  I have fairly eclectic musical tastes, but you’re more likely to hear some sort of rock, alternative, or indie music coming from the speakers of my computer.  But despite my love of such music, I can generally do without rock groups performing Christmas music.  There are exceptions, but some of my biggest musical disappointments are when a favorite group puts out a holiday song.  That includes covering traditional songs, but is especially the case with original ones.

A notable exception for me is rather different holiday offering from Greg Lake of Emerson, Lake, and Palmer.  It was released way back in 1975, but it has been covered by many others, including U2 a few years back.  Some have said it is an anti-religious song, but Lake claims it was a protest over the commercialization of Christmas.  Regardless, the lyrics are hardly the typical cheery, holiday fare. 
 They said there'll be snow at Christmas.  They said there'll be peace on earth.
  But instead it just kept on raining;  A veil of tears for the virgin's birth.
 They sold me a dream of Christmas.  They sold me a silent night.
 And they told me a fairy story 'till I believed in the Israelite.

Like I said; not your typical holiday fare.  I’ve read that Lake was surprised when the song became something of a hit.  He thought people would think it anti-holiday and reject it, but it was a big seller. 

I don’t know why it was a hit, but I know why it touched me, why it still touches me.  It seems to strip away the manufactured cheer that has become such a big part of the Christmas season.  Perhaps it could even be called a rock and roll Advent song.

  Our culture’s celebration of Christmas works very hard to create warmth and good feelings, but these are usually quite fleeting.  We don’t expect them  to last.  They will be tossed to the curb with the dried up Christmas trees, boxes, and old wrapping paper.  Then we’ll have to wait until next Christmas to get that holiday spirit, that Christmas cheer, once more.

But Advent is different.  It doesn’t try to hide from the world’s pain or ugliness by covering it in colorful wrapping and holiday glitter or drowning it out in cheerful sounds of the holidays.  It takes full stock of how things really are, and with eyes of faith sees God moving in history.  Advent anticipates what God is doing to bring something truly new.

That is the word spoken through the voice of the prophet in our reading this morning.  Second Isaiah, as scholars generally refer to him, is a different prophet than the voice found in the first 39 chapters of the book we call Isaiah.  That earlier Isaiah spoke of God’s coming judgment on Israel, but the words we heard this morning come from 150 years later.  Babylon had crushed Judah, destroyed the city of Jerusalem including Solomon’s great Temple, and had carried off much of the population into exile.  Second Isaiah speaks to those who live in exile, those who are reminded on a daily basis that their god had not protected them from the Babylonians.  The Babylonians and their god Marduk, had triumphed.  In the religious thought of the ancient Middle East, Marduk had triumphed over Yahweh, and now the people of Yahweh were subjects of Marduk’s people. 

Into this seemingly hopeless situation, the prophet speaks.  “Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God.  Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid.”  To a people caught up in suffering and hopelessness, the prophet speaks of God coming to comfort, heal, and restore.

Our reading seems to depict the divine council, a heavenly court of some sort.  There is a conversation going on that the prophet hears, and at one point he seems to be addressed.  A voice says, “Cry out!”  But the prophet is not sure such a cry will do much.  After all, he knows the suffering and hopelessness of his people.  So he says, “What shall I cry?” 

Why should the prophet, or the Church for that matter, cry out into the pain and brokenness of the world?  What good will it do?  After all, people are like grass.  They spring up and in a flash, they are gone.  The grass withers, the flower fades.  What’s the point?

One of the hard lessons I learned when I first became a pastor was that many people like Christmas a lot more than they like Advent.  That’s understandable when you consider all the beloved hymns, carols, and traditions connected to Christmas.  But during my first Advent as a pastor, the ink barely dry on my ordination certificate, I was too much the purist, wanting to do Advent just right and ignoring those who advised me to tread more lightly.  But I learned over the years that there is nothing wrong with a few Christmas carols before Christmas, that is, during Advent.

But still, I worry that our half-hearted attempts at Advent end up diminishing the true joy of Christmas.  When we refuse to engage in the reflection and repentance of Advent, viewing it as nothing more than the religious equivalent of  Christmas shopping season, the hope and promise of a Messiah gets reduced to pageantry, nostalgia, and seasonal cheer.  It becomes an escape from the world’s ugliness, cynicism, and hopelessness.  But that is pretty much used up by January, and it’s back to life as usual, to The grass withers, the flower fades.

However, the good news spoken in the Bible, whether it is today’s words of comfort to those in Babylon, or Jesus’ words when he begins his ministry, does not seek to create a brief happy moment, a season of cheeriness that makes everything look better for a bit.  The good news from God that is spoken to those in exile, to the poor and the oppressed, to those who have lost their way, calls them to new futures.  And so it does not ignore the hopelessness and brokenness but addresses them directly.  It insists that God will act to bring change, and it insists that we must change to be a part of it.   When Jesus begins his ministry, he says, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent (turn, change), and believe the good news.”

To celebrate the birth of Jesus is to say that God has entered decisively into human history, into people’s daily lives.  For God to become human, for Jesus to declare a coming reign of God that so threatened the reign of the Roman empire that they killed him, is to insist that God is at work in Christ shaping human history.  And to follow this Jesus is to become part of that coming reign of God, to live by his teachings so that our lives declare that the real flow of history belongs to God.  It does not belong to nations or empires or multi-national corporations because Jesus is Lord, Lord of all creation, Lord even over history. 

But the grass withers, the flower fades.  And the world has too much pain and brokenness, too much cynicism, too much suffering.  But if Christ abides in us, we know that the healing touch of God has broken into history.  And while it may not happen on our timetable, God is transforming and renewing us and the world. 

The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.   And when the Word made flesh lives in our hearts, we can join with the prophet in proclaiming good tidings to a broken and hurting world.  See, the Lord God comes with might… He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep.